Why hasn't the pacific crest trail been extended into Canada?

[Adam White]

I’ve been thinking about this on and off for the past few years myself.

I think people enjoy the idea of a ready made and designated trail for a few reasons:

(and then Paul goes on to make a bunch of really good points…)

+1 Paul, I agree with many of your points, and you made them more eloquently than I could have.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, too. One of the reasons it intrigues me is that it’s never been how I’ve thought about route-planning.

My very first venture into the Sierra was perhaps an exception–a coworker urged me to go explore the Sierra, and suggested the Rae Lakes Loop as a great way to start. Some inquisitive Googling led me to a webpage owned by a guy named Kevin Gong. Kevin had hiked the Rae Lakes Loop, and I read his report, and I nodded, and said “He didn’t die,” and so off I went.

After that trip, I planned routes in what I thought was the most obvious fashion: I decided how many miles I wanted to hike, then I pulled out a Tom Harrison map, and figured out how I could get into those delightful beige areas that denote the High Sierra. I used a spreadsheet to calculate distances and researched trailheads and quotas and eventually settled on some cobbled together route, and off I went. I saw some mundane places and I saw some awesome places, but it was always an adventure, and I never really knew what to expect.

I literally had no idea that this wasn’t how everyone planned their hikes. I invented Sierra Mapper because the spreadsheeting got tedious.

But having been in the community for a handful of years now, I’m surprised by how few people seem to do this–so many want to hike a designated route, and only a designated route. Why?

You hit on a number of reasons why.

I’ll only add that I do have that side of me that wants to accomplish Things, Things that we’ve all agreed are Things. In this case, those Things are defined routes that we all know about–the JMT, the PCT, the HST, the SHR, Rae Lakes Loop, etc. When I fill one of those checkboxes, my soul nods contently, because I did a Thing, and from now on, I’ll always have done that Thing. I can talk to others, and when they’ve done that Thing, we can talk about our common experience. Last year, I hiked the Rae Lakes Loop in a day, in large part because that is a Thing.

Drawing satisfaction from checking those boxes isn’t something I’m proud of. It’s not as zen as wandering around a nameless meadow for two weeks, counting ants and daffodils, but I guess it’s part of being human, at least for some of us.

So, sometimes I do a thing that’s a Thing, and sometimes I do a thing that isn’t. The things that aren’t Things don’t offer a checkbox, but they almost always offer unrivaled adventure.

Ah, crap. Isn’t this thread supposed to be about Canada?

[Mike W]

Canada has taken a different approach to trail building.  Multi-use trail networks provide more opportunities for Canadians than single use (walking) trails (although we have plenty of those as well!).  Canada boasts the longest recreational trail in the world.   Check it out.

The Great Trail

And a catchy name…

[Author]

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