Pacific Northwest Trail

If you’re looking for adventure, you’ve found it in the Pacific Northwest Trail! A virtual hike on this website will certainly be a lot easier than doing the trail in real life, but at least it might give you a taste of what a real-life hiker goes through.

There are 11 designated National Scenic Trails (as of 2020), and the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT) is considered the most difficult of them all. It’s extremely remote, the trail is often overgrown and blocked with blowdowns—if a trail even exists because in some areas, there are absolutely no trails at all. The route leads into the backcountry and requires good navigation skills, difficult bushwhacking and a strong sense of self-preservation. Obstacles span from snow-covered mountains to searing deserts, lack of water sources (or polluted water sources) and extreme loneliness.

The Pacific Northwest Trail is a brutal, brutal trail, but runs through some of the most spectacular scenery in America. It begins in Glacier National Park in Montana where it crosses over the Continental Divide, through the panhandle of Idaho before entering Washington state where it passes through the North Cascades National Park, across Puget Sound, through Olympic National Park before finishing at the Pacific Ocean 1,200 miles (~2,000 km) later.

If you’re thinking about hiking the trail in real life, you might want to download the GPS tracks of the route.