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In the summer of 2021, a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail who reached Northern California could expect to skip part of it. The Dixie Fire, which would become California's largest single fire, forced some hikers to jump 55 miles of trail and others behind them to find a way around 300 to 500 miles. By the end of the season every national forest in California had closed. Hikers called it "the Year of Fire". For people who walk America's long trails end to end, climate change is not a forecast; it is a detour.
What a thru-hike is
A thru-hike is a long-distance trail walked in one continuous effort, over months. Earl Shaffer first hiked the whole Appalachian Trail in 1948; the number of people doing it since has soared, and self-reported records suggest the Pacific Crest Trail grows more popular every year. The three great trails — the Appalachian, the Pacific Crest and the Continental Divide, together the "Triple Crown" — are managed jointly by federal agencies, Tribes, businesses, non-profits, schools and state and local governments, and were established by an act of Congress to be maintained for ever.
One season on the Pacific Crest Trail
Will Babb, who walked the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail at eighteen, hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in 2021.
| Hazard | What it looked like |
|---|---|
| Heat | record heat waves; on the Hat Creek Rim, a notorious 30-mile waterless stretch in Northern California, Babb helped a hiker with heat exhaustion off the trail to hospital. That year a hiker died in triple-digit heat near Anza |
| Drought | reliable springs and streams reported dry; a low snowpack in the Sierra |
| Fire | sections burned a year or two before still closed; the Dixie, Caldor and Tamarack fires; smoke over hundreds of miles of trail for weeks |
Most thru-hikers Babb knew skipped sections for closures or unhealthy air. The stress of fire and smoke adds to what hikers already name as the hardest part of a long trail: the mental and emotional strain.
What changes for the trails
The parks the long trails cross are seeing more frequent and intense heat waves, droughts and forest fires: Sequoia and Kings Canyon on the Pacific Crest Trail, Everglades on the Florida Trail, Glacier on the Continental Divide Trail. Glacier's ice may melt away; giant sequoias are threatened by fire and pests. Fire turns the old shade trees hikers rest under at midday into charcoal, and forests will regrow more slowly as seedlings meet worsening drought and heat, needing timely management to recover.
Babb still recommends a long trail — for now, and is less sure of being able to say so in future, when every Pacific Crest or Continental Divide hiker will have to plan around vanishing water, heat and fire.
Why it matters beyond the hikers
A thru-hike tends to turn people into advocates for the places they walked; that was John Muir's legacy, and it was Babb's own path into environmental policy and communication. Volunteering in parks through citizen science, using less energy and water, and making less waste all help. Keeping these trails walkable is also how the next generation of stewards gets made.
Sources
Written from Will Babb, "Long-Distance Hikers Navigate the Hazards of a Changing Climate", Park Science 37, no. 2 (Winter 2023), published by the National Park Service.
I dessa samlingarGlacier National ParkSequoia & Kings Canyon National ParksEverglades National ParkAppalachian National Scenic Trail
Licens: CC0 1.0 (allmän egendom) · Bearbetat efter www.nps.gov
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