Top Surprises on the PCT According to Thru-Hikers (2024 Survey)

Something new included in the Pacific Crest Trail Hiker Survey this year is a question asking hikers what they found most surprising about the Trail. This could be anything from what didn’t quite align with their misguided expectations to a bear falling out of a tree right next to them and then chuffing off into the woods.

It doesn’t matter how much preparation you do for a PCT hike – it doesn’t even matter if you just completed another thru-hike last year, even if that hike was the PCT – the trail will always have some curveballs to throw your way. There’s no way to predict everything that’s ahead. The best you can do is be prepared for (not plan for) anything, but expect nothing.

Here are the most surprising things about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, according to the PCT Class of 2024.

Notes on the Data

• This year, 751 hikers completed surveys. Hiking next year? Sign up here to take the survey.
• The Pacific Crest Trail and thru-hiking generally use acronyms and jargon. The thru-hiker glossary may help clarify anything that needs to be explained. Please comment if you still can’t find what you’re looking for.
• Remember, this is a sample (albeit a large one) and not a comprehensive survey of every person on the PCT.
• Each bullet point below comes from a single hiker.
• To be notified of new survey posts, click here.

Unmatched Expectations

• I didn’t expect how many times I didn’t feel like a Pacific Crest Trail hiker. I think this is unique to how much I dreamed about hiking this amazing trail; I had a vision in my head of the type of people that hiked this and the experiences. But at the end of the day, none of us are really special; we’re just dirty tent-people on the side of a road who decided to walk somewhere. There’s nothing magical that makes you feel a certain way, and so the trail taught me that life has meaning where you place it. So, to feel like a PCT hiker, I couldn’t wait for that feeling; I had to go get it, go live it, go believe it in myself. But more importantly, I couldn’t hold onto that expectation as an indication of success; I just had to be happy where I was, and once I realized that, it became a lot easier.

• Having thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail before, everyone was telling me the Pacific Crest Trail was going to be easy. But I found many of the long climbs on the PCT much more grueling, because they just went on and on forever. On the AT, you go straight up and straight down in a few miles to get over mountains, but on the PCT, a trail more gently graded for stock, you really have to dig in for long haul climbs that can often last 5-10 miles (8-16 km). So I actually found the PCT to be quite difficult from an endurance perspective, which I wasn’t expecting.

• I had watched countless videos of the trail, but every landmark and town seemed completely new to me and unlike anything I saw on YouTube. Trail culture (purists, yellow blazing, etc.) was also completely new to me, and I was also completely surprised by the diversity of outlooks on thru-hiking and what the trail means to other hikers.

• I was surprised by how prepared most of the other hikers were. When I hiked the Appalachian Trail last year, I met many inexperienced or underprepared hikers, but most everyone on the PCT seemed to know what they were doing.

• How beautiful the desert was. I expected a tedious, miserable, 700-mile chore through featureless, dusty basins. Instead, we were treated to astonishing biodiversity, three distinct mountain ranges, and some of my favorite memories of the trail.

• Before hiking the PCT, I was very depressed, and I thought the trail would make me a lot happier. But it was incredibly mentally challenging for me. I struggled a lot and was miserable for a long time. It was mainly from physical pain. But I missed my family and home a lot more than I thought I would.

• It doesn’t change you. You are still exactly the same person when you get back. Now you just have awesome memories of amazing nature and interesting people. And the people back home will move on with their lives while you are away. It takes an effort to come back and reintegrate and remind them that you still exist.

• Everyone makes the PCT out to be wonderful, with never any bad days, and beautiful scenery all the time. They are mostly right, but you will have bad days, and some terrain is monotonous. The desert was by far my favorite section, which was a surprise as most people rank it last.

Life on the Trail

• All your time is accounted for. Before starting the hike, I thought, sure, I’d spend most of the day hiking, but we’d have a chance to relax at camp at the end of the day for a while. Nope. You are walking 90% of the time, and even when you’re breaking or at camp, you’re always pitching your tent, making a meal, reapplying sunscreen, looking at the next waypoints on FarOut, and on and on. I loved that the trail was all-consuming in that way, but I didn’t quite expect the extent to which there’s never an idle moment. If there is an idle moment, it’s on a town day, but not even every town day. Sometimes, town day is even busier than the trail!

• It’s very hard to explain the feeling of being on the trail for that long and how it becomes your whole world. I felt prepared for the physical/logistical aspects, but you can’t really know the mental part until you’re out there.

• Even expecting the NorCal Blues to hit, I was surprised how quickly it came on and how hard it was.

• I definitely didn’t expect just how many logistics go into every decision, from resupply to lodging to fire closures, etc. Spend so much time just planning stuff out. Also, lots of time is spent in grocery stores. I was also so pleasantly surprised by the incredible community that surrounds the trail, especially the trail angels. At no other time in your life are you going to stumble upon someone making pancakes in the middle of the forest.

• A few things: some campsites are busy. The amount of trail magic (more than expected). You might be hiking alone, but you’re not often by yourself. Hiking bubbles can take you from no one to 50 people a day apart. The generosity of total strangers towards smelly, dirty hikers.

• I didn’t expect how much the rush to get to Canada would wear on me, especially so early on. It felt like there was a palpable pressure to do as many miles as possible all the time, and I couldn’t keep up. I just wanted to wake up and have coffee without doing 10 (miles) before 10 (a.m.) every day. But then, also, I was surprised to find that I didn’t have the confidence to slow my hike down the way I wanted to because I felt like I was “falling behind.”

• How many people don’t walk a continuous footpath (including myself), and how difficult/nearly impossible it is.

• How many emotions you can go through in a single day. You can wake up drenched and cold, alone, thinking about quitting, but set up camp with a beautiful view, surrounded by amazing people, thinking you had one of the best days of your life.

• I was surprised to learn how many miles per day were required to finish the trail by the end of the season. I hoped for a bit more leisure and enjoyment time, but I felt rushed often to maintain a quick pace and high mileage.

The Trail Itself

• How annoyed I would get by the nearly constant placement of the best located tent sites at the top of some huge climb. You could never just cruise into camp nice and dry after a hard day. No, you had to climb some ridiculous hill and arrive soaking wet. Also, large trail families that wipe out all available tent sites in the area.

• How unmaintained many parts of the trail are with overgrowth, blowdowns, etc. How sketchy the Sierra passes are, and how wet it would be in the Sierra. It is physically and mentally challenging every single day. It didn’t let up. Every day was more difficult than I expected.

• I was surprised to become emotionally attached to other hikers after having hiked with them only for a few days. Also, the bad state of the trail in some sections surprised me to some degree (no offense to PCTA here; it’s impossible to fix Mission Creek, for example).

• It was mainly the scenery and beauty as you turn a corner or hike over a ridgeline to see a new terrain you are about to explore. If I had not hiked into the area, I would not have known about the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. The unusually large rock formations are alien-like. The clean pine smell of the forest filled my nostrils, and I wished everyone could experience this. The first time I walked into the beauty of the blue lupine flower field and smelled the aroma. All the colors of granite that sparkled beneath my feet.

• The amount of burn area we had to pass through. Depressing.

Social Surprises

• I was surprised by how much time I spent alone, even after finding a trail family. I was worried that hiking with other people meant being around them all the time, but I was happy to find like-minded people who also wanted solitude. It was really nice being able to hike alone, but know where they were and anticipate where they would stop for breaks or water.

• I was really surprised at how hard it was to socialize. People were frequently difficult to approach if you weren’t in their group.

• I thought I would find and want to be in a big trail family, but I ended up preferring to hike with just one or two people. Also, I loved meeting so many people, but I also felt sad not to form a deep connection with very many of them, and/or not to hike at the same pace and have the chance to connect with people more similar to me. Long story short, I thought I would make one or two lifelong friends, and while I’m very thankful for my trail friends, it will be very hard to make any of those friendships last a long time.

• How many different people of all different backgrounds are out there trying to do the same thing as you.

• I was amazed at how strong the bonds on the trail were and how many friends I was going to make, even if they were short-term. I was also amazed at how willing strangers were to help us out in a pinch, often without even us asking them—the kindness of strangers. I was also surprised at how beautiful the PCT is and how most people will never see it.

• I really didn’t expect it to feel so crowded. And I was surprised there were only about five or six days in the desert, during which I didn’t see any cars. I was also surprised at the average thru-hiker’s lack of backpacking skills.

• I expected trail families, having heard about them, but I did not expect them to be as insular/cliquey as people often describe them. It was disappointing because the PCT is an amazing opportunity to meet and talk with people of all ages from all over the world, but hikers would then regress to high school social norms, form cliques, and ignore everybody outside those cliques. Primarily, people in their 20s, maybe because high school is not so distant for them. As someone in their late 30s, I’m too old for that shit.

Trail Community

• The ratio of trail entrepreneurs (aka trail pirates) to angels. I encountered mostly entrepreneurs in towns, but loads of angels out on the trail. I totally expected to give donations for services, but there were more than a couple of people out there setting rates that far exceeded covering costs, plus a bit of their time.

• How many people in town would approach you and start a conversation, surprised me. I was also surprised by how down some of the NOBOs I passed in Oregon were.

• I thought I would love the wilderness parts of the trail and hate the parts that went through civilization, but I actually found those parts really fascinating, just in different ways. Honestly, I’d rather redo some of the weird roadwalks through towns over the most boring or annoying parts of the “nature” experience.

• How many people want money from PCT hikers. The “trail angels” asked for money after being in their car. Everyone seemed to take advantage of us and ask for so much money. Also, grocery prices were insane in California.

• Pleasantly surprised by the amazing community of trail angels and other hikers that surrounded me throughout the hike. I had always hoped to make friends on the trail, but I did not expect such a welcome reception in so many towns and other stops along the way.

• How much bad information/advice is there on social media and FarOut, and to what extent some hikers rely on that information instead of trusting their own instincts.

• I did not expect there to be so many people along the trail who were willing to go out of their way to help hikers. Everyone talks about the trail community, but it is impossible to really understand how amazing these people are.

• The community was very supportive, including trail angels and people who recognized us and often offered a ride. Also, many hikers were willing to help other hikers when they were in trouble.

• The amount of fear-mongering (about traverses, passes, Mission Creek, etc) and the online debates playing out mainly on Facebook (about trail magic vs trail services, entitled hikers, etc).

Have something that surprised you on your Pacific Crest Trail hike that didn’t get included here? Wondering about something regarding your upcoming PCT thru-hike? Comment below to share it with future PCT classes or ask for previous hiker experiences.