A needed detour: NM volunteers reroute portion of Continental Divide Trail

Outdoor enthusiasts can now hike a brand new section of the Continental Divide Trail in the Gila National Forest. The New Mexico Volunteers for the Outdoors partnered with the Continental Divide Trail Coalition earlier in October to reroute part of the trail in the forest’s Black Range west of Truth or Consequences. The chairperson for New Mexico Volunteers for the...

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How to Hike the CDT: Big Agnes Launches Experiential Trail Guide

2018 marked the 40th anniversary of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), the 50th anniversary of the National Scenic Trails Act, and the year Big Agnes became a steward over 75 miles of trail. To celebrate, all 70 employees hiked and biked the 740-mile length of the CDT’s Colorado section. Now a year removed from that epic adventure, Big Agnes launched its own CDT trail...

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Hit the dirt and say happy birthday to the Continental Divide Trail

This weekend, one of America’s most prestigious trails, and one that winds through Colorado, turns 40 years old. The Continental Divide Trail, which runs 3,100 miles from Canada to Mexico, was officially founded in 1978, marking 2018 its 40th year serving as a beloved part of Colorado’s outdoor recreation. Hikers, horseback riders, runners, cross-country skiers,...

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Up the Great Divide

Stretching between the Canadian and Mexican borders, the Continental Divide Trail connects five states, 25 national forests, 21 wilderness areas, three national parks, eight Bureau of Land Management resource areas, and a national monument. Its many miles are maintained through the collaboration of every land management agency and by an army of volunteers — including...

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Planning a Thru-Hike? Here’s Some Insta-spiration

  If you’re among the thousands who will attempt to conquer a long-distance hiking trail in its entirety within the 2018 hiking season, then you’re probably already busy training, saving, planning, and steeling yourself for some serious communing with nature. In the United States, the term “thru-hiking” is most commonly associated with the Appalachian Trail...

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Continental Divide Trail, from New Mexico to Montana, will challenge hikers

Bored with your extracurricular activities lately? Now’s the season to hike some outstanding Bureau of Land Management trails. While there are several trails the public can enjoy in the Las Cruces area, there’s one in southern New Mexico that will challenge a hiker’s skills and add some miles to their soles. We’re talking about the Continental Divide National Scenic...

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Unified Warrior Foundation plans Continental Divide Trail hike

Unified Warrior Foundation is planning a Continental Divide Trail hike, beginning in late March 2017. “Unless the issue of veteran suicide is constantly kept in the minds of Americans, it will silently disappear as many important issues do because of the vast amount of information we all have to compete with,” said Eshleman. “Keeping this issue alive is a fight in...

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Hopewell Lake provides historic setting for late fall hiking in Taos

Hillsides of bare aspen trees, with their alabaster trunks and rocky cliffs shining silent in the sun, mark the coming of late fall to Taos. With many sunny days ahead, this is a good time to visit the forest. Hopewell Lake Trail is located about an hour northwest of Taos past Tres Piedras in the Carson National Forest. In addition to being a beautiful trek through the...

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The Yellowstone River starts its great journey

Just off the Continental Divide, deep in Wyoming’s Absaroka Range and Teton Wilderness, Younts Peak brushes thin air at 12,156 feet. When the melt season arrives, snowfields in a cirque high up on the massif’s north face and other flanks are adorned with countless rivulets. Trickling off the snow, they weave in the mountain’s tundra, forming into small creeks as...

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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...

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Unique characters abound on Continental Divide Trail

Through hikers, those hiking from the Mexican border to the Canadian border or vice versa, on the Continental Divide Trail are a loosely organized, yet tight knit group. Sometime around the second week of April, around 150 hikers depart from Silver City, N.M., bound for the Canadian border in Glacier National Park. Another 50 or so depart on the reverse journey. Of the...

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Long Trails and Wild Spaces

The sign at the trailhead stated: “Beware of mountain lions.” Next to it another sign was posted that warned about the dangers of and correct behavior in a bear encounter. You are entering the Continental Divide Trail, one of America’s longest and most challenging trails.Here on the Continental Divide Trail, mountain lions, bears, wolves-and even the...

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Help Build the Next 32 Miles of the CDT in Colorado

The Continental Divide Trail Coalition (CDTC), the lead National Partner for management of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (CDT) has launched a new Fundraising campaign through Indiegogo titled “The Next 32 Miles” to raise funds to construct a 32 mile non-motorized section of the CDT on the Rio Grande National Forest near Saguache, CO. “The Next 32 Miles”...

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Couple rely on map and compass for thru-hike of Continental Divide Trail

From its southern terminus near the Mexican border, the Continental Divide Trail heads north across New Mexico toward Canada. In southern New Mexico, the route is almost entirely unmarked as it crosses semi-desert grasslands where much of the drinking water comes from watering troughs on cattle ranches, never mind the algae and scum. For Iris Russell, the landscape could...

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Film chronicles rigors of walking Continental Divide Trail

New Mexico is often described as lying along the “backbone” of North America — that is, the Rocky Mountain chain and the Continental Divide that separates the river waters of the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean. A rough foot trail — the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, often simply called the Continental Divide Trail or CDT — now parallels this backbone,...

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Itinerate hiker: Retired surgeon explores, volunteers on CDT

Eric White has hiked 8,500 miles. And his favorite mileage has been along the Continental Divide Trail. It’s what brings him to Butte, Montana every summer to volunteer on crews improving the trail. White, a retired orthopedic surgeon who lives in Williamstown, Mass., spends part of his summers in Butte volunteering with AmeriCorps to improve the trail. He first became...

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