The Continental Divide Trail Hiker Survey (2021)

After an interesting year of Continental Divide Trail thru-hiking and CDT survey results in 2020, we’re back up and running with a (more) normal year in 2021. The CDT Survey is in its fifth year and I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to participate.

The CDT Survey is meant to be a useful resource to (actually) help those of you interested in hiking the Continental Divide Trail figure out how to approach this monstrous journey. Every year, I try to improve the data collected and fine-tune the presentation to best help hikers. I would love to hear what you think in the comments below.

Congratulations on arriving at a spot in the CDT Survey that most readers have probably skipped. Here are the results of Halfway Anywhere’s 2021 Continental Divide Trail Hiker Survey!

Notes on the data

• This year’s survey boasts the most-ever respondents with 216 completed surveys – a 23% increase vs the previous high.
• Some responses are sorted and colored to make the data friendlier (e.g. northbound vs. southbound).
• I ask that respondents do their best to accurately respond to the survey. Not every person answers every question and not every answer is guaranteed to be 100% accurate (e.g. someone may mistakenly report 11 instead of 12 zero days).
• I refer to survey respondents collectively as this year’s “class“. Remember, this is a sample and not a comprehensive survey of every person on the CDT.
• This survey does invoke some math. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the words average, median (M), and standard deviation (σ).
• For stats requiring the length of the CDT for a calculation (e.g. mileage/day), I use 3,100 mi / 4,989 km.
• More detailed posts focused on CDT Gear, CDT Resupply, CDT Horror Stories, and CDT Advice in the coming weeks. If you would like to be notified of new surveys, click here.

LABELS differentiating hiker segments:

• THRU: Thru-hikers (all)
• THRU-0: Thru-hikers who did NOT complete the CDT
• THRU-1: Thru-hikers who completed the entire CDT
• NOBO: Northbound thru-hikers (all)
• NOBO-0: Northbound thru-hikers who did NOT complete the CDT
• NOBO-1: Northbound thru-hikers who completed the CDT
• SOBO: Southbound thru-hikers (all)
• SOBO-0: Southbound thru-hikers who did NOT complete the CDT
• SOBO-1: Southbound thru-hikers who completed the CDT

If NO LABEL has been appended to a data point, then I used all data collected (i.e. it includes section hiker data in addition to thru-hiker data).

Demographics

First, we look at information from the Continental Divide Trail Class of 2021 that isn’t going to help anyone plan a thru-hike, but that’s interesting nonetheless. We’ll look at CDT hiker gender, age, race, education, sexual orientation (added this year), country/state of origin, and employment (including how hikers were able to have time enough off to hike the CDT).

Where Hikers Are From

With thru-hiking’s growing popularity, the Continental Divide Trail attracts people from across the United States and the world. Here’s a look at where hikers on the trail this year hailed from.

• Countries: Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Russia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States (9 TOTAL)
• States: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin (41 TOTAL)

Hiker Jobs & Working Conditions

How are you able to take so much time off to hike for five months across the United States? Probably a question most would-be Continental Divide Trail hikers have been asked. I asked hikers what they do for work (when they’re not being incredible hiking machines) and how they were able to take time off to hike the CDT.

Hiker Experience

Here’s a look at what the 2021 class looked like during their “Planning a CDT Hike” phase. This section examines first-time hikers, hiker experience level, and other trails hiked.

First long-distance hike?

Instead of asking respondents whether this would be/was their first long-distance hike, I ask the distance of respondents’ longest hike to date (pre-CDT) – more on the specifics of this below. I decided to use 100 mi / 160 km as the cutoff for being considered to have completed a long-distance hike (sorry, Wonderland Trail hikers). If you want to yell at me for the arbitrary number I chose here (or suggest a better one), feel free to do so in the comments at the end of this post.

Pre-hike Training

Next, we’ll look at whether this year’s class trained in preparation for their thru-hikes, what they did to train, and how they rated their fitness (pre-CDT).

Money Spent on Hike

How much does it cost to hike the Continental Divide Trail? A question on the minds of many thru-hikers before starting their journeys. The safe answer? More than you think.

This year, I asked Continental Divide Trail hikers if they encountered any unexpected expenses while hiking the CDT. Because even if you purchase and test all your gear beforehand and pre-package all of your resupplies (I strongly recommend against this strategy), you can’t ever predict what’s going to happen during a CDT thru-hike.

Hiking Partners & Alone Time

Beginning a thru-hike on your own can sound scary and intimidating, but every year, the majority of thru-hikers (and hikers in general) began their hikes alone. Here, we’ll look at who hikers began with, how much time they spent hiking and camping alone, whether they stayed with their hiking partner(s), hiking group sizes, and hiker relationships.

Sticking With Hiking Partner(s)

Beginning a hike with someone is one thing, but managing to remain together and finishing a hike with someone is arguably as impressive as the trail itself. Here’s how things worked out for those who began their hikes with another person.

Starting Dates & Locations

Unlike the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail does not have a permit that hikers are issued for the entirety of the trail. Instead, hikers can begin the CDT at either the southern or northern terminus whenever they choose – for now. That said, a permit is required to hike through Glacier National Park from the northern terminus (or from the south).

Northbound CDT Hikers

Since getting to what’s generally considered to be the official southern terminus at Crazy Cook isn’t easy, the Continental Divide Trail Coalition operates a (paid) shuttle service. In recent years, a few private individuals have also started independent (for-profit) shuttle operations. In this section, we’ll go over where northbound CDT hikers began, when they began, and how they got to the southern terminus.

Southbound CDT Hikers

Just as there are options for starting points for northbound CDT hikers, there are also options for southbound CDT hikers. This section covers where southbound CDT hikers began, when they began, and how they got back from the southern terminus (those that completed the trail).

Hiking Stats & Dates

The Continental Divide Trail is generally considered to have five sections: New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho/Southern Montana, and Northern Montana. Because the CDT can get a bit crazy when it comes to alternates (especially the Anaconda Route or Big Sky/Super Butte Cutoff in Montana), I’ve divided the following data into New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho+Montana.

In this section, we look at how long thru-hikers took for each section of the trail, a breakdown of hike lengths and averages, and a look at how many days hikers took off (zero/nearo days).

Length of Thru-hikes

Zero and Nearo Days (i.e. days off)

Completion Rates & Finish Location

As some of you may have already deduced at the mention of the fact there are multiple locations at both the Mexican and Canadian borders where Continental Divide Trail hikers begin their hikes, it follows that there are also multiple locations where hikers can end their hikes.

Here, we’ll take a look at where northbound hikers finished, where southbound hikers finished, and what percentage of hikers completed their hikes (in either direction).

CDT Completion Rates

Most people begin a Continental Divide Trail thru-hike intending to complete the trail. Unfortunately, not everyone who sets out on this most epic adventure of border-to-border glory completes the trail. Every year a large percentage of people hoping to hike the CDT will fail to complete the trail.

We’re going to look at completion rates, but we are doing so with a caveat. Since I distribute this survey myself, and because it is not required of CDT hikers, survey respondents are a self-selecting group who (likely) skew toward having completed the trail. A hiker who quit during their first week of hiking in April is probably paying little attention and caring far less about the Continental Divide Trail survey when it’s released in the fall.

Flip-Flopping & Footpaths

Flip-flopping is when a hiker skips a section of the trail (the flip) intending to come back to hike it later (the flop). This can happen because a hiker wants to avoid snow, skip a fire closure, or because of some other logistical issue. The flip-flop usually takes one of two forms.

One is a hiker skipping ahead, continuing to hike the same direction, and then returning to the point they originally departed the trail to hike the skipped section later (e.g. a northbound hiker skips from the NM/CO border to the CO/WY border, then hikes north to Canada before returning to the NM/CO border to hike north to the CO/WY border).

It can also be when a hiker skips ahead and then hikes the skipped section in the opposite direction of their original hike before jumping back up to the point where they originally skipped to and continuing their hike in the original direction (e.g. northbound hiker jumps from NM/CO border to CO/WY border and then hikes south to NM/CO border before returning to CO/WY border to continue hiking north).

Some hikers get wild with their flip-flopping; I recommend avoiding it altogether, if possible.

Here is what flip-flopping on the CDT looked like in 2021.

It may sound straightforward enough, “Did you complete the CDT? Yes or no?” – but what constitutes a completed thru-hike isn’t necessarily the same for everyone.

Some people insist you need to have unbroken steps between Mexico and Canada along the official Continental Divide Trail to constitute a thru-hike while others may forgive skipping a road walk, hitchhiking around a fire closure, or taking alternates (or shortcuts).

To get a better idea of how much of the trail this year’s finishers hiked, I asked about their footsteps between the terminuses.

Did hikers complete a continuous and unbroken footpath between Mexico and Canada?

Alternate Routes

The Continental Divide Trail is more well-defined than many suspect, but there are loads of alternate trails (sometimes known as “shortcuts”) hikers can take either instead of or in addition to the official CDT. I ask about these alternates to get an idea of what the most common CDT thru-hikes looked like. Alternates are listed in geographical order from south to north.

The following colors indicate the popularity of each alternate (the percentage of hikers who took each): OVER 75%, 50-75%, 25-50%, UNDER 25%.

Hiker Challenges

I ask hikers which sections of the CDT they found to be the most difficult and which they found to be the easiest. Next year, I plan on expanding this question to get a more specific idea of where hikers find the trail to be most and least challenging.

I’ve also asked hikers to rate some of the challenges they faced on the trail on a scale of 1 to 10. This includes snow, stream crossings, mosquitoes, elevation, rain/hail, storms/lightning, wind, rodents, cold, heat, smoke/fires, and (this year) COVID.

Why Hikers Didn’t Finish

In case you were left wondering what happened to the hikers who didn’t complete the CDT this year when we covered completion rates above, fear not. Here we look at the specifics as to why hikers didn’t complete the Continental Divide Trail this year.

Hike-ending injuries and where they occurred

Injury is a big killer of thru-hikes and is typically something hikers can exercise some control over. Here, we break down what kinds of injuries ended hikes and where these hike-ending injuries occurred.

Miles completed by hikers who didn’t finish the CDT

Resupply

The word “resupply” can be anxiety-inducing if you’re new to the idea of long-distance thru-hiking. What is resupply? Where does it come from? How much of it is there? How do you get it? Will it hurt?

Resupply is getting yourself more food to power more hiking. It need not be scary or intimidating. Resupply on a Continental Divide Trail has become more simple over the years, but when and where hikers resupply is still a question that many find overwhelming.

Here we have this year’s resupply stats, resupply strategy/boxes, resupply box suggestions, hitchhiking difficulties, where hikers resupplied, favorite and least favorite resupply stops, favorite meals and snacks, and resupply advice.

CDT Resupply Stats

Most hikers concern themselves a lot about resupply but remember that you can mail yourself boxes from on the trail. You do not have to have ALL your resupply boxes prepared ahead of time. Many towns have supermarkets (and post offices).

That said, it can be helpful (and oftentimes time-saving) to mail yourself resupply boxes. Hikers may choose this option because of a resupply stop’s limited food selection, dietary restrictions, high prices, or even the owners of the local resupply establishment being awful people.

Something else to consider when thinking about resupply is the fact that many towns along the CDT are only accessible via car (or ludicrously long, dangerous, and ill-advised road walks). How do you get to these towns? Most hikers elect to hitchhike.

Here are the places hikers say they recommend sending a resupply box and where they had difficulty hitchhiking to/from.

Where Hikers Resupplied

I ask hikers to report on where they resupplied – not where they stopped/passed through, but where they actually purchased, picked up, were given, or otherwise came into a new stock of food. For example, the trail passes through the middle of Silver City; theoretically, all thru-hikers who complete the trail will go there, but not all thru-hikers resupply there. Make sense? I hope so. If you’re struggling with this, you’ll have issues on the trail.

Locations are listed in geographical order from Mexico to Canada (that’s south to north) and, again, I use the following colors to indicate each resupply stop’s popularity: OVER 75%, 50-75%, 25-50%, LESS THAN 25%.

*Denotes stops where this year’s class suggests sending resupply boxes to

There’s some strangeness that went on with the Idaho/Southern Montana resupply locations that I will attempt to address in the future. This has come about because of the number of people taking alternates/cutoffs around the Wyoming-Idaho-Montana border area.

Favorite & Least Favorite Resupply Stops

Now we know the most popular stops for resupplying and for sending resupply boxes, but what about hikers’ favorite and least favorite resupply stops? When asking this question I specify “‘Favorite/Least Favorite’ means where you most/least enjoyed, not where had the best/worst resupply options (although these could be the same).”

Favorite Meals & Snacks

For the final piece of the resupply puzzle, we look at which meals and backpacking snacks hikers enjoyed most out on the CDT. More on this to come in the CDT Resupply Guide. Next year, I’ll be adding questions to cover hiker dietary restrictions and how easy they found resupplying with these restrictions.

Resupply Changes

Hindsight is 20/20 (unless you’re looking back through the darkness for that mountain lion you think might be following you – but that’s likely a deer). Here is what hikers said they would change about their resupply strategies if they had the chance to do it all over again. These don’t change much from year to year, so I would highly encourage you to heed this advice when considering your resupply options.

I’ll be following up this post with a more detailed breakdown of this year’s resupply. If you would like to be notified of new posts, click here. Find all CDT Resupply posts here.

Thru-hiking Gear

Potentially what Continental Divide Trail hikers spend the most time obsessing over before (and on…and after) the trail is their thru-hiking gear. Gear choices play an essential role in a thru-hike, but there is no magical gear combination that will guarantee you a successful thru-hike (if you know otherwise, please let me know).

I do a deep dive into gear used by CDT hikers in my CDT Gear Guide, but here’s a taste of what to expect. Let’s take a look at what this year’s CDT Class had with them out on the trail.

There are more detailed and more interesting breakdowns of this information on the way in this year’s CDT Gear Guide. For now, let’s take a peek at some of the gear thru-hikers were using on the trail this year. Here are the most common “Big 4” items: packs, shelters, sleeping bags, and sleeping pads (I know it’s the “Big 3”, but I include sleeping pads, get over it) along with the most common insulated jackets and shells.

Again, there will be extensive breakdowns in the CDT Gear Guide.

This is just the tip of the proverbial thru-hiking gear iceberg. As mentioned above, I will be publishing a detailed breakdown of this year’s CDT gear. This will include (in addition to everything above) water treatment, stoves, fleeces, snow gear, PLBs, additional gear, luxury items, what hikers didn’t like about their gear, what gear decisions (might have) helped hikers to a successful thru-hike, how hikers would change/adapt their gear for a future hike, and more.

Technology on Trail

Gone are the days of Continental Divide Trail old when it was a trail sought out by only uber-experienced backcountry orienteers; thanks to the magic of technology, any dodo can grab a phone and have a reasonably good chance of not killing themselves on the trail.

Phones are everywhere on the trail. If the sight of a cellular device in the wilderness distresses you, then prepare yourself. Phones are hikers’ cameras, GPS devices, televisions, music players, town-researching devices, and (sometimes) SOS devices (that said, I suggest a Garmin inReach Mini if you’re looking for an SOS device).

There are several apps commonly used by Continental Divide Trail hikers – and even one designed specifically for the CDT (that you should most certainly invest in). Here are the apps and phones hikers were using out on the trail this year.

Hiker Health & Water Sources

Water treatment and personal hygiene are (or should be) big considerations for hikers. Typically thru-hikers worry less about these as the trail goes on; experience isn’t always your friend.

Some hikers religiously filter all water that passes through their face hole – it doesn’t matter if it comes out of a hotel sink or a puddle with a cow pooping in it. Other hikers will “not filter above 10,000 ft / 3,048 m” or “not filter running water” (this last one is not a good idea – running water can 100% get you sick).

Everyone wants to look cool in front of their friends by not filtering water (note: not filtering your water does not make you cool), but there are risks to the badass thru-hiker lifestyle (and to drinking dirty, giardia-infested water).

To find out how good a job everyone is doing filtering their water and sanitizing their hands after pooping (another way to get yourself sick), I ask hikers if they got sick (defined as three or more days of digestive issues or diagnosed giardia), how often they treated water sources, and how these two things compare to one another.

Looking at this another way, we can see the following.

• 67.8% of hikers always treated their water and 5.1% of these hikers got sick
• 23.5% of hikers usually treated their water and 19.1% of these hikers got sick
• 8.5% of hikers sometimes treated their water and 20% of these hikers got sick
• 0.5% of hikers never treated their water and 0% of these hikers got sick

In total, a reported 8.4% of hikers came down with something akin to giardia, and 0.5% never filtered. That said, those who don’t filter are typically quite staunch in their commitment to their strategy; read: don’t readily admit to becoming sick from not filtering.

Favorite/Least Favorite Sections

This may come as a shock, but the Continental Divide Trail is a long hike with a lot to see (mostly bears). Here is a look at the favorite and least favorite sections of the trail.

Best & Worst Moments

I will be sharing more of these in a future post, but for now, here are some examples that stood out when I asked hikers about their best moments, worst moments, and terrifying moments from their thru-hikes.

Best CDT Moments

• We hiked in a thunderstorm in North Yellowstone and came upon a wolf on the trail in front of us. We stopped and watched as it got off the trail and walked around us rejoining the trail behind us. There was a moment when it passed that it stopped and turned its head to the side to keep tabs on us, and I locked eyes with it. For those few seconds I forgot I was in a storm. I forgot I was muddy and bleeding and exhausted. I was just chillin’ with a wolf in a thunderstorm.
• Hiking into Ghost Ranch, and descending off the Colorado Plateau. This was my first “real” desert hiking experience. Seeing cacti for the first time, the amazing rocks – I was in irrationally good spirits (it was very hot) but I was finally doing it.
• In the Winds, I finally started hiking with a group that became my trail family. So many great moments with them, but the best had to be hanging out at the top of passes in Glacier National Park. That place is amazing.
• Probably the entire Wind River High Route – particularly walking across the Gannett and Grasshopper Glaciers.

Worst CDT Moments

• After getting to and safely down from the Gray to Edwards traverse. I was exhausted and frankly traumatized. It was so dangerous. I thought if Colorado was going to continue to be like this, I’m done.
• A day in the San Juans (Colorado) when a thunder blizzard forced me into an uncomfortable decision between a sketchy glissade or remaining on the ridge in extreme weather. After an intense glissade I set up my tent in a panic but everything was soaked in the process, leading to an extremely cold, wet, and unpleasant night. This was a physically dangerous day, and mentally and emotionally challenging as well.
• I spent most of Colorado trying to keep up with a group, including a friend I started the trail with, who were faster than me, and I burned myself out badly. Outside of Winter Park, it caught up to me and I had multiple panic attacks on trail and essentially had a breakdown. I had to separate from the people I was with and take some time off the trail to give myself the rest I had desperately needed for the prior month.
• Realizing after throwing up water for the third time that something was wrong and that if I couldn’t keep hydrated then I had to bail on my hike.

Scariest CDT Moments

• I happened upon a man and a woman digging in some dirt on the shoulder and they had their truck parked off the edge of a forest service road. Got major scary views as the man got up with a hammer in his hand. I got the fuck out of there asap.
• Accidentally got in between a mother grizzly and her cub in Wyoming.
• I was on the Big Sky Cutoff and getting closer to Butte. I was night hiking along the road and a local pulled up. He was pressuring me to come stay at his house and getting frustrated with me because he thought I was going to trespass on private land. I was actually just heading to a plot of BLM land I saw on the map connected to the road but he didn’t buy it. He drove back 10 minutes later and questioned me again. I didn’t end up staying where I had told him I was planning to stay safe.
• There were other hikers I didn’t trust and didn’t want to be alone in the woods with (though the vast majority of hikers seemed safe).
• All my gear was totally soaked through at 11,000 ft / 3,353 m in driving sleet after Hope Pass. I set up camp and wound up shivering hard in my sleeping bag all night. Not fun.

Discrimination

The Continental Divide Trail is, for the most part, an amazing place filled with incredible people. However, just as the trail itself can be not so amazing at times – thunderstorms, fires, cows and their poops – the people too, can occasionally be trash humans with no business representing the CDT or trail community.

This year, I asked hikers about discrimination experienced or witnessed on the trail. I already identified a better way to ask this question for next year’s survey and I am planning an additional post covering discrimination on the trail in more detail.

Trail Magic

Advice for the Future

Now for Continental Divide Trail thru-hiker wisdom. I ask hikers what they would have done differently before their hikes if they were to do it all over again.

In addition to asking hikers what they would have done differently before their thru-hikes, I asked them what they wish they had done differently during their hikes. Here are the top responses (regrets).

Thru-hiker Advice

I ask hikers what advice for future CDT hikers they have. This will be thoroughly documented in the upcoming post CDT: Advice For The Future, here is a sample.

• Be very flexible. Make new friends. Adjust plans as necessary to stay safe – it’s a long trip. Don’t mail yourself a bunch of food way in advance – your appetites will change.
• Don’t commit yourself to doing anything other than finishing ahead of time. Don’t commit to doing the whole trail with one person or a group, don’t expect to do a certain number of miles per day or hike a particular speed, and don’t commit to any particular route. This trail will throw a heck of a lot at you, and the best way to make it through is to be flexible and to adapt as you experience it. Keeping yourself open to adapting is what will help you make it through.
• Save your money — expect lots of gear failures, expensive lodging, and expensive resupplies along the way.
• Make a plan and throw it out. The trail and your body will tell you your new plan, you just have to listen to it. Hike the trail for your own reasons and remember them, if the trip no longer fits your reasons it is okay to stop, I did and many do, just do what’s right for you. There is seemingly a lot of peer pressure to keep you on the trail but really everyone wants what is best for each other. If you need to do something for yourself, leave or stay, do it. Make decisions based on yourself and what is good for you.
• Alternates are the best thing about the CDT, take all of the ones that interest you.

Animal Sightings

Now, some data that doesn’t quite fit anywhere else; what kind of wildlife did Continental Divide Trail hikers see on the trail? The most common animals? Deer. The worst. The rarest of the animal kingdom? Tortoise. I’ve hiked the Desert section of the CDT twice now and I have yet to see one of these mythical creatures.

At 71.2%, the number of hikers who claim to have seen a grizzly bear seems a bit high. I would wager that some percentage of these sightings were in fact light-colored black bears.

Finally, another HUGE THANK YOU to all the hikers who completed this year’s survey, including (but not limited to):

If you have any feedback, comments, suggestions to improve the survey, or data you would like to see in future posts or surveys, leave a comment below and let me know!

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