Forty years after the first end-to-enders set out, Analeise Dowd aspires to find her way along a pathway of the same name. Now a National Scenic Trail, the PNT has changed a great deal after being continuously refined by two generations of ardent volunteers. How does her journey today, tie the PNT's past to its present? I joined her for an interview at our Sedro-Woolley office to find out.

 Read more at PNT.org/blog

Support the PNTA and show your love of the Pacific Northwest Trail with one of these high-quality caps, for sale now on our website. 

Order a New PNT Cap Here

To give PNT'ers the most up-to-date and accurate information possible about the Pacific Northwest Trail, the PNTA is working hard to develop an entirely new map set for the 2017 hiking season. Sections 1-10 of the new map set will be released throughout the month of May.

This map set features the most current primary route and recommended alternates available. Map pages indicate: bushwhacks, wildfire damage, and fire detours. They also point out former routes which have recently been closed by the USFS and PNTA, and explain how PNT'ers must now avoid trespassing in areas where access has changed, such as in Eureka (2016), Northport (2017) and Metaline Falls (2017).

This map set is designed to be used with Tim Youngbluth's Pacific Northwest Trail Digest  and will reference a common set of GPS waypoints used in the book. Melanie Simmerman's Pacific Northwest Trail Town Guide also provides supplemental information about the major 'trail towns' along the PNT's corridor.

The 2017 PNTA maps include basic route descriptions for 16 major alternates along the PNT and other critical information. The PNT Digest describes these alternates and trail conditions in greater detail. It also contains extensively field-researched notes describing trail conditions which support field navigation and provide other useful information.

Finally, 2017 PNTA maps will be available to use two ways: to print and use as a paper hard copy, or they may also be used as georeferenced pdf's in cellphone apps like Avenza, which use the device's onboard gps to show your present location on the maps.

Concerning third-party map sets and apps:

At this time, the PNTA does not recommend the use of maps produced by third parties. The primary reason we can not endorse these sources is that due to being out of date, they encourage trespassing on private land, either expressly or effectively. Other known problems of these third party sources include recommendations of campsites not approved by land managers. Finally, please be aware that some of these sources may violate the copyright and intellectual property rights of the PNTA and other PNT map authors.

Learn more about our new map set

The 2017 season began with Trail Crew Lead Training and team-building at the Darrington, Washington Forest Service Station, May 17th - 21st. 

The PNTA's five Crew Leaders met with PNTA office staff and received required training on subjects like: Leave No Trace, Crew and Vehicle Safety, First Aid/ CPR.  Later, they joined PCTA crews for joint training to refresh a variety of trail-building skills.   

The 2017 season will focus on 20 major trail projects including these popular destinations:

- East Baker Lake Trail, Baker Snoqualmie NF

- Abercrombie trail, Colville NF

- Lake Sullivan Campground, Colville NF

View a photo album of Trail Crew Leader Training Here

As part of a wider effort to better manage use on the Pacific Northwest Trail and to communicate with long-distance hikers, the Pacific Northwest Trail Association is offering hikers the chance to get email updates about the latest trail conditions during the 2017 season.

Registered hikers will receive important trail alerts at the email address provided; including wildfire information, trail closures, and reroutes. Map updates will accompany the alerts and help you to better navigate these conditions. The information that you provide will also help us to better manage the Pacific Northwest Trail. Thank you in advance for your participation in this new program!

Register here

The PNTA, in partnership with the United States Forest Service and the University of Montana is also collecting data to help us learn more about our users, so that we can improve and protect the Pacific Northwest Trail experience for generations to come. The PNTA encourages all long-distance hikers to participate in this voluntary study designed by University of Montana student, Taylor Cole: 

"My name is Taylor Cole and I am a graduate student at the University of Montana currently pursuing my Master's degree in Recreation Management. For my graduate work, I am studying the transformational experience that thru-hiking can bring. In order to complete this research, I will need participants who are hiking the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail in 2017! This work will not only benefit me in the completion of my thesis, but the information will also be shared with the PNTA in order to preserve and improve the trail experience for future thru-hikers.  Since there are so few thru-hikers on the trail, the information that you could provide will be critically important."

  Learn more

Ledlenser, a worldwide leader of LED lighting, and subsidiary of Leatherman Tool Group, made a generous product donation to the PNTA, valued at $3150. Our trail crews will be field-testing their 90 lumen Neo Headlamps and 3,000 Lumen X21 flashlights. Some of these fine lighting instruments will be reserved for our fund-raising raffle this August. 

Please join us this National Trails Day for a guided hike on the John Tursi Trail, one of the newest additions to the Pacific Northwest Trail in Deception Pass State Park!

Two remarkable events took place last year that have gone largely unnoticed in the outdoor community. One of them happened on the Pacific Northwest Trail in the Colville National Forest and the other took place on the other side of the continent in Washington D.C.

If you have wondered how our trails will continue to remain open and safe during a period of extended budget cuts to our National Parks and National Forests, then the Trails Stewardship Act, which Congress signed into law last year, may hold the answer (and it involves you).