The Third Trail

In 1968, the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails became the first “National Scenic Trails,” but ten years later Congress designated the third. Splitting the country’s midsection like a corkscrew, tight-roping the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Canada, the 2,700-mile Continental Divide Trail is acclaimed as the third jewel in the hiking world’s Triple Crown.

The CDT has a split personality. The path careens like a pachinko ball veering from jaw-dropping scenery to moments when it claws you in the back. The CDT’s informal slogan is: “Embrace the Brutality.”

In Wyoming, the Wind River Range’s surreal, shark-toothed white granite nearly supplants California’s Sierra Nevada in natural beauty. In New Mexico, the trail swoops you up sheer cliffs out onto broad mesas the equal of better-known Zion and Bryce. And in Colorado, on the summit of a 13,000-foot slab-sided peak, you may look down at a helicopter struggling for elevation near its flight ceiling.

Today there are 30 National Scenic and Historic Trails. Our Forest Service lands have 158,000 miles of trails. I could give you chapter and verse on the conservation, environmental and health benefits of trails. But what will really strike you is the economic benefit of trails.

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