See my posts about the hike!
The Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT) is a 1200+ mile trail corridor that connects the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park, Montana to the Pacific Ocean in Olympic National Park, Washington. In 2009, it was designated by Congress as a National Scenic Trail. The PNT is one of just eleven trails to have this important status. A key source of information about the trail is the Pacific Northwest Trail Association website, pnt.org.
The PNT website describes the origins of the trail. “The concept of the Pacific Northwest Trail has been around since the early 1970s. Ron Strickland dreamt up the idea and pioneered the route, piecing together trails and roads to get from the Continental Divide to the Pacific. The first thru-hikes, completed in 1977 by Janet Garner and Rex Bakel, proved the route and were documented in Garner’s 1979 Backpacker Magazine cover story. That same year, the first guide to hiking the PNT was published in Signpost Magazine. In the decades since, hundreds of people have followed, and the route has been refined as trails used along the way have been opened or closed, bridges have washed out or been added, and land management policies have changed.”
As a resident of the Pacific Northwest since 1979 I am well connected to the idea of a trail that traverses the region I call home. Yet most of areas the trail passes through are strange to me. I have hiked numerous times in Glacier National Park and Olympic National Park, but nearly all of the miles in between are new to me, including the Purcell and Selkirk mountains, and the Okanagan Highlands.
Most of the PNT receives much less use than the Triple Crown trails, especially the Pacific Crest and Appalachian Trails. I think of the PNT as mostly a very remote place where I may, and hopefully, encounter more animals than humans. I look forward to making friends with the PNT hikers I will meet!
