Wildfires keep hitting the Pacific Crest Trail, forcing closures and evacuations
Wildfires are increasingly hitting the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs the length of the West Coast. This year, 26 fires have burned along the trail, leading 16 parts to close.
Already this year, 26 wildfires have burned along the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, which travels along the spine of California, Oregon and Washington and has long been considered one of America’s spectacular thru-hikes.
The blazes have forced 16 parts of the trail to close, leaving hikers hastily arranging rides around them.
Father-son duo Thijs Koekkoek, 52, and Taime Teesseling, 17, spent four months hiking the trail this year, from Southern California to the Canadian border. In July, they were forced to pause their hike and catch a ride around the Shelly Fire near Etna, California. After additional fire closures farther north, the pair ultimately skipped about 400 miles of trail.
“There was no other way,” said Teesseling, who lives in Amsterdam. “Otherwise, we’d have to walk around it in the smoke and we didn’t want to put ourselves in danger.”
Since 2018, a total of nearly 1,700 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail have closed temporarily due to fires, according to Chris Rylee, a spokesman for the Pacific Crest Trail Association. Nearly 250 miles of trail have burned.
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