Pacific Crest Trail

The Pacific Crest Trail runs 2,650 miles from the Mexican border at Campo to the Canadian border north of Washington, through California, Oregon and Washington. The PCTA's own framing is that it takes the whole snow-free season, about five months, and that whether you are out for four and a half or five and a half comes down to small differences in daily mileage and time spent in towns. Elite hikers have finished in two. Over 90 percent of thru-hikers walk northbound. The calendar is set at both ends by snow: leave the desert too early and the Sierra is still buried, leave too late and you are racing winter in Washington. Southbound hikers need to reach Kennedy Meadows South by late September or early October, and the PCTA does not soften why — being in the mountains during an early-season snowstorm can kill you, and significant Sierra snowfall in the first week of October is a regular occurrence. Note there are two Kennedy Meadows on this trail, 315 miles apart. The permit is one document for the whole walk if you are covering 500 miles or more, and it is a lottery. Applications for the following year open in October and again in November, and once your permit is issued three weeks before your start date you cannot change that date. The permit covers a corridor half a mile either side of the trail, and resupply travel only to trailheads within 15 trail miles. It does not cover everything. Travel east of the summit of Mount Whitney needs local permits, Half Dome needs its own at any time, and California requires a campfire permit that also covers a gas stove. On food storage, the PCTA's position is that an approved canister is required in some places and necessary in practice across the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forests, where the trees rarely have the branch structure a legal hang needs. Elsewhere you may hang or otherwise store appropriately. The allowed-container list differs by agency, so check the one whose ground you are on. One thing changed recently and catches people out. Since January 2025 the Canada Border Services Agency has ended its PCT permit programme, and crossing the border on the trail is prohibited, including for Canadian citizens. You finish at the monument and walk back south. Resupply runs through towns and resorts every few days, with mail drops where you cannot buy food. Treat any stored mile marker with care: the two datasets in common use differ by one to three miles trail-wide, so do not mix them within a single plan.