The Worst Moments of the Pacific Crest Trail (2024 Survey)

During the Pacific Crest Trail Hiker Survey, in addition to sharing the scariest moments of their PCT thru-hikes, PCT hikers also share the trail’s lowest moment(s).

Hiking the PCT means more than blindly wandering down a path filled with trail angels eager to help hikers across the Western United States. A lot of the trail can, to put it plainly, suck. And sometimes, it sucks a lot. I wrote a post documenting my 11 Worst Moments on the Pacific Crest Trail to help hikers realize that going into a PCT thru-hike believing that every step will be a fabulous journey to discovering your life’s meaning, you are (likely) in for a rude awakening.

WARNING! If you are worried about a loved one hiking the Pacific Crest Trail or have doubts about whether you want to undertake this journey yourself, you should probably stop reading now (or maybe you should definitely read this).

Notes on the Data

• This year, 764 hikers completed the survey. Hiking next year? Sign up here to take the survey.
• The Pacific Crest Trail and thru-hiking generally use acronyms and jargon. If anything is unclear, the thru-hiker glossary may help. Please comment if you still can’t find what you’re looking for.
• I refer to survey respondents collectively as this year’s “class.” Remember, this is a sample (albeit a large one).
• Remember that each bullet point below comes from a single hiker.
• Click here to be notified of new PCT survey posts.

Social Hardship

• After a rough few days in the burn zones and heat of NorCal, my trail family got spread out and split up, and I found myself in a humid river campsite (Bear Creek) alone, with no confidence that I’d see my friends soon. I sighed, and thought to myself, “I’ll be okay if the trail family falls apart,” but it still sucked that it seemed no one but me cared. I felt abandoned, I felt unwanted, I felt all those things I had run away from in my regular life crash back into me. Even though I had started walking alone, finally being with people who accepted me for me felt wonderful, and I had given so much life and wonder to my adventure. I missed them all so much. But I took a few breaths and remembered I had come out here to be more authentic to myself, and I could still do that alone. If I found them again, I would find them, but from now on, it seemed like I was a solo-hiker once more. And I would be okay. I would be okay.

• During the Sierra, I was very lonely because everyone around me had their trail families. I had a hard day right before Glen Pass, so I had to stop to camp alone, then had rats chew through my gear throughout the night. Most alone I’ve ever felt.

• I got into an argument with my tramily in the Sierra. I was used to walking alone; they always wanted to be within eyesight. They wouldn’t say anything if one of the boys went ahead, but they would be on top of me the minute I did. I was very frustrated in that section and thought of leaving the family then.

• I decided to leave my trail family in Kennedy Meadows South and skip ahead past the Sierra, which I regretted for the rest of my hike. At one point in Central Oregon, I was being absolutely eaten alive by mosquitoes, no matter how fast I walked or what I wore, and the bites hurt and kept slowing me down. I broke down crying at one painful bite and tried to keep walking, but it kept happening until I was on the side of the trail, sobbing. I realized that I was really crying about leaving my trail family, but the mosquitoes had triggered my emotions. I cried and cried and just missed my friends while mosquitoes continued to bite me.

• My lowest point was reentering the Sierra after taking a week off with my sick hiking partner. It was a long day without any time to readjust to the hiking and altitude, and the dynamic with our other tramily members we rejoined was disheartening.

Weather Woes

• A day where all of my tramily got borderline hypothermic. We abandoned our plans for a full day of hiking, set up tents halfway through the day, and went into survival mode. It wasn’t supposed to warm up or dry out for two more days. Morale became really low. We were all considering bailing off the trail. We were worried about the safety of others. We only turned it around when we built a fire (after 24 hours of rain) to get warm and somewhat dry out.

• During the July heat wave, I was lying in the shade beneath a tree near Burney, trying to take an afternoon siesta. The air was so hot I felt like I was still in the sun. One day, the temps soared over 100°F/38°C. I have a mild form of a condition called POTS, which makes me incredibly heat intolerant, and as a result, I have to keep my heart rate down whenever it’s 90°F/32°C or hotter to avoid palpitations or a full-on tachycardia episode. This heat wave lasted almost three weeks, making most of Nor Cal even more difficult than it already was. I had to night hike out of Sierra City, Belden, and Seiad Valley just to survive. When the heat lifted in Oregon, everything got better instantly.

• I was hiking the peak into Kennedy Meadows North during a lightning storm. I had never thought I was going to die until that moment, with lightning flashing right in front of my face. I began hustling to get off the 5-mile / 8-km peak, hail started falling, and there was nowhere to hide. I slipped and fell on a snow patch before finally cresting the ridge and bawling my eyes out all of the way down to the highway. I was ready to get in the first car to Reno, but I continued my hike after resting in Kennedy Meadows North.

• A windstorm at Apache Springs ripped my tent in the middle of the night. All my gear was soaked, so I had to hike down to Idyllwild soaked and cold.

Unforeseen Sadness

• Getting stung by a wasp while bleeding and bushwhacking through manzanita south of Castle Crags in Northern California.

• I got stuck on the freeway when it got dark while I was hitching, and I had to spend a night in a bush near the road. It started raining that night, and there was nowhere to pitch a tent, so I put on my rain gear and went back to bed in the rain.

• When I returned home, I discovered that my apartment had been flooded with effluent after the main sewer line had been hydroblasted over the summer.

• Tooth infection, while still two days from the nearest road, and another 1.5 days of hitching to the nearest dentist. Worst pain of my life by far.

• When my dog ran away from home, and there was nothing I could do to help since I was hundreds of miles away. It was really tough mentally knowing that I was just walking along, and my dog was out there somewhere alone. I would say having external things like challenges off trail were some of the hardest days for me on trail.

• The hipbelt of my backpack broke, just outside of Tehachapi. So I walked for about six days with a heavy backpack (due to the cheap Walmart resupply in Tehachapi) all the way to Kennedy Meadows.

• Low point was coming back from some time off the trail in Washington after a death in the family. I was completely by myself, twisted my ankle on the first day, and it rained for most of the following four days.

Sick and Injured

• Developing a nasty big blood blister shortly before Timberline lodge, had bad fevers two nights before that due to the blister, and it took a while to figure out what it was. It took until the end of the hike to (almost) fully heal.

• My low point was getting a repetitive stress injury on the climb out of Cascade Locks. Not only did I have to find a way off the trail when every single step hurt, but this injury would linger and get in the way of continuing my thru-hike, as even a full week off-trail wasn’t enough to heal it. It was intensely frustrating, as I couldn’t explain why it happened then, after having hiked half the trail without any similar issues.

• Having Giardia and needing to go to Ridgecrest Urgent Care. Lying in the dirt and hoping for help was terrible.

• Got sick in the Mission Creek section because of the algae bloom, and it was the worst 15 hours on any trail I’ve ever experienced. Maybe the worst night of my life. Dry camped with 3L of water, was shitting and puking all night (still managed to dig cathole) and then had to hike up 500 ft / 150 m of gain the next day to get to a bail out into Big Bear Lake. First and only time I’ve thought about hitting my SOS button, luckily it had passed by mid-morning, and while the hiking was hard to do while exhausted and dehydrated, I felt safe enough. Had to take four days in Big Bear to recover.

• Having a crazy Poodle Dog Bush welts/blisters, losing sleep, losing time, going to the hospital, waiting indefinitely behind a screen without food/water after various nurses had taken my blood, being told they were about to start a two-hour doxycycline drip.

• I lost enough weight that my pack no longer fit, resulting in lower back injury. Left trail.

• Shitting myself week one while throwing up all night long. Then, I had to hike in the heat the next day to get to a bed and hide from a storm.

Desert Despair

• The end of the first day was the lowest I have been on the trail physically because I pushed myself way too hard. I could barely walk when I eventually stumbled into Lake Morena.

• Arriving in Wrightwood feeling completely physically and emotionally drained from the extended toll of getting heat exhaustion multiple times in the last week, and questioning whether I was strong enough to keep going.

• I did the San Jacinto summit too late so postholes the whole way and scraped the shit out of my sins, then there wasnt a boot pack to follow down so got lost then lost the trail again after getting water and didnt want to try Fuller Ridge at night so slept on some rocks next to trail.

• I had a lot of low moments/days on the trail, and the day I summited Mount Baden-Powell was one of the worst. It was a mistake hiking it. The last mile and a half till I summited consisted of hiking straight up on slick, deep snow. After the summit, I had trouble navigating the trail around snow drifts. I fell multiple times on snow and loose ground, and my feet and ankles were killing me. I made it to camp only to sleep next to the Angeles Crest Highway because there were no other spots to set up camp (all taken). I wanted to give up so badly, so the following day, I decided to hike up and around Mount Williamson instead of roadwalking, which was my original plan. I hiked through a burn scar in strong winds, avoiding a panic attack. I broke down near the top and wanted to quit right then and there in the morning. I felt so terrible, both physically and mentally.

• The San Jacinto blowdowns broke me forever;. I cried in exhaustion.

• In the beginning, I got numerous blisters and had to change out footwear, even though I trained for nine months in the shoes I started in. I went from Altras to boots to Salomons, and when the Salomons started cutting into my ankle, I ripped them off my feet and cursed at my shoes. I was just disappointed because I thought of everything I had the footwear down and that it would be the least of my worries. It made me nearly want to quit after walking for almost a month with constant issues.

• After my girlfriend came to visit in Lancaster and I had to get back on trail I felt pretty sad to leave her again, not to mention I started the Aquaduct at 11 am and did 25 mi / 40 km with no breaks and was unable to pitch my tent when I arrived after sunset because it was too windy and there was no room at the campsite. The next day, I almost got bit by a rattlesnake twice and had blisters from the new shoes I had just picked up in town. The heat and wind were driving me insane. I took a zero day in Tehachapi even though I had just taken one two days earlier—many things combined to make a miserable couple of days.

• The final exam hiking north out of Tehachapi. I wasn’t aware that this was a thing, and it was the hottest, driest, and hardest section yet. There was an infamous day we named the dehydration day in that section, and it was the hardest day on the trail for me: heat wave, not enough water, mental breakdown, wasting all my body water in tears, and all-around tiredness.

Sierra Sadness

• The mosquitoes before Tuolumne Meadows made me want to throw myself off a cliff.

• I was unknowingly struggling with altitude sickness all through the Sierra. I couldn’t eat anything, and was skipping just about every other meal. I ended up climbing Whitney without breakfast, which put me in a dangerous situation. I made it to the summit faster than I expected, so it was dark, and since I hadn’t eaten, I couldn’t maintain body heat at all, even with all my layers and quilt. While everyone was skinny dipping in Guitar Lake on the way back, I was stuck in my quilt and puffy, still shivering uncontrollably, even though it was about 80°F/27°C. We got back to camp around 11 am, and it took about five hours in my tent to reach a good core temp again.

• Realising how much the snow scares me, I couldn’t enjoy the Sierra because I was terrified all the time.

• The mosquito hatch in the Sierra was more than we could handle, so we looked up last year’s Halfway Anywhere results at VVR to see how many people quit due to mosquitoes and were reassured that it was a small number, so we knew it couldn’t stay that bad for long.

• I encountered storms in the Sierra, and one in particular soaked all my stuff, and my path became blocked by a torrent due to flash flooding. I was extremely wet, cold, and shivering, and I was frustrated that I could not get past the flooding and accomplish my mileage goal for the day. I set up my tent to stay dry, then went to sleep early that day.

• There were a lot of mosquitoes near the end of the Sierra. I ran out of insect repellent and had to walk in rain gear. The temperatures were getting hot, so I was drenched in sweat.

NorCal Blues

• There was a heatwave in NorCal that broke everyone’s spirit.

• I almost quit after a double zero in South Lake Tahoe. The Sierra was done, and it seemed so tempting to just go to the airport and fly home.

• I got Noro in Burney. I was 17 mi / 27 km north of Burney Falls and had to turn around and go back to Burney. The Park fire smoke filled the town, and I had had enough. I thought about quitting. Instead, I flipped to Canada and hiked south for all of Washington and Oregon and back to Burney. Hiking through the burn areas sucked but I finished the trail except for the fire closures. So glad to be done.

• I struggled a lot with NorCal and the beginning of Oregon. Hiking through all of the burn zones, a lot of it alone, and then arriving in Oregon to a tonnn of bug pressure, I had a few days where I was semi-hoping for an injury that would give me an excuse to quit.

• Sitting on a log at camp after popping two of my many blisters during the July heat wave in NorCal. It was day ten or eleven of temperatures over 100°F/38°C. I had to painfully shove my dirty, sweaty, throbbing feet back into my shoes because I had no camp shoes. That specific moment, for whatever reason, made me feel so low and desperate. The heat was by far the hardest challenge for me on the trail.

• Struggling through the poison oak gauntlet(s), particularly on the descent to Belden.

• The very end of NorCal. It had been smokey and hot, and my partner had Noro, so I was carrying extra weight, and we hadn’t even finished a single state yet.

• Having horrendously painful shin splints in NorCal. The 100°F/38°C days, endless burn areas, and constant shin and foot pain sometimes made the section nearly unbearable.

• Getting my own shit all over my leg in the blistering heat near Hat Creek Rim (still uncertain how this occurred), and hiking through burn zones during the record heatwave in Northern California. The dirt, sweat, and unbearable temperatures were a huge morale challenge.

Oregon Melancholy

• Caught in a storm north of Timberline Lodge. It was 40°F / 4°C and raining, and I couldn’t operate my phone because my fingers were too wet. At some point, I accidentally got off trail, whacking into rain-soaked overgrowth, and didn’t want to climb the steep hill to get back on. I opened FarOut to tell that I was directionally headed towards the trail, though I couldn’t zoom in, so I just kept going and hoped for the best.

• My lowest moment on the trail was mid-August, when I got caught in a hailstorm after Elk Lake. My tramily was all behind me and decided to turn around and head back to town without letting me know. I was alone and unprepared for three days in 30°F/-1°C weather, foggy conditions, and a constant drizzle that kept everything wet. I couldn’t stop for more than five minutes, or I would get cold. I enjoyed Obsidian Falls and the lava fields as much as I could, but I didn’t see anyone for the entire stretch and went to bed miserable every night until I made it to Big Lake Youth Camp.

• There was a cold snap in Oregon, and I had sent my gloves home in NoCal. My hands had gotten so cold that I had to hike the entire morning with them wrapped in my puffy, slowing me down. It really affected me mentally.

• Hiking through smoke and a giant burn scar in the blistering heat between Hyatt and Mazama Village in Oregon. All while almost shitting my pants and having to reuse my already used toilet paper. I had to nap nearly every hour that day, because the smoke from the fires in the north was making me weak.

Washington Disasters

• In the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington, mosquitoes caused me to quickly tear down and relocate a campsite. In my haste, I thought I had left behind gear (but didn’t), and when I went to search for it, I ended up leaving behind my trekking poles. Ultimately, I spent 5 mi / 8 km looking for gear, all the while dealing with an increasingly injured knee.

• The first two days of Washington were a low point. There was a lot of climbing with no views, and I was exhausted. I considered quitting because I was so burnt out on hiking and didn’t see the point. I was physically, mentally, and emotionally done in the moment.

• There were a lot of fires in Washington, so planning the end of the hike was very difficult. You start missing family and friends. We had a rudimentary plan for ten days to Canada. Then we had a week of bad weather, didn’t sleep a lot, and the trail started opening as we got closer. Physically, I felt so tired, and it was hard to shift mentally to do the extra miles.

• Dealing with the overgrowth/blowdowns in Washington Section K while being completely soaked through and unable to stop for a break without becoming hypothermic.

• I lost too much weight and then got a stomach bug in Trout Lake. I was too physically depleted to recover completely while on the trail, and the rest of Washington was hard. One morning, it had rained all night, our tent partially collapsed, and I woke up exhausted and cried because walking seemed so hard.

• Physically, it was one of the early days in Washington when the rain was relentless, it was windy, and it was cold. We had to pitch our tents only 10 mi / 16 km into a 20 mi / 32 km day because we just couldn’t get warm. A few of us got borderline hypothermic.

Quitting the Trail

• Cascade Locks (ended my hike this year there)…I was so mentally exhausted and beaten down by the stress of all the wildfires, and didn’t want to break my goal and priority to do the PCT with a continuous footpath, as that was very important to me.

• I desperately wanted to quit between Sierra City and Chester. I was hiking by myself, and I had spent every day since Sonora Pass trying to talk myself out of quitting, and at that point, I was just done. I skipped going into Quincy, but the day I hiked by those roads, I cried the whole day while hiking, didn’t see a single other hiker, and called my mom from a ridge to start looking up flights.

• Part of the reason I got off was because I didn’t think my hiking partner would follow through and actually show up. I was trying to make up time in my first few days to meet them around April 20th, around the LA area, only to be met with “I don’t know when I’m going to join you”. So, between my sleeping bag, tent, and water filter freezing the second night (I was not expecting that), and a flaky hiking partner, I lost my motivation to continue my hike early on.

• I had a meltdown at Amtrak while looking at my backpack sitting across from me in a chair, as if it were saying, “Hey, come on, put me on so we can go back to the mountain.” I spoke out loud to my pack and said, “I’m sorry, buddy, I can’t. My feet hate hiking.” I then burst into tears.

• Stumbled upon one of my tramily members on the trail with a broken leg and had to manage the situation with another tramily member. The support from other hikers passing by was awesome, and they ended up totally fine, but I was already mentally struggling, and it ended up being the nail in the coffin for my hike.

• The day I quit, my trail family left without me, back to the trail, barely blinking an eye. I was left to mull over my impulsive, dumb decision with frustration and despair.

• The PCT felt way more crowded than I’d expected, and the Sierra felt much too crowded for my liking. Many hikers did a poor job of preserving the wilderness experience for others. Despite this, I was having a pretty good morning hiking to Sonora Pass. For the first time in a couple of days, it felt like I was up in the mountains, detached from civilization. There were other hikers, but everyone was friendly, and overall it felt nice to have people around. I reached the top of a big climb and saw a hiker sitting beside a trail intersection. I said “Good morning!” She briefly glanced at me, said nothing to me, and resumed her loud phone call, which sounded like she was catching up with a friend. Right next to the trail. It completely killed the mood for me. At that moment, I thought “”Fuck this, I can overhear people’s dumb phone calls anywhere. There are millions of miles of trail in the world that don’t have this problem.” And that’s when I decided to stop hiking the PCT.

Have a tale of woe from a Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike? Leave a comment below and warn future PCT classes of the awfulness that awaits them on their thru-hikes.