Connecting fragmented wilderness along the Pacific Crest Trail

Myriad Canada’s project with the Pacific Crest Trail supports the efforts to purchase and protect private property in the Pacific Crest Trail corridor, filling the gaps in the protection of wilderness areas

America’s Pacific Crest Trail is a thing of legend, as the memoirs, guide books, blogs and films about the footpath never stop coming. Running along the west coast from the Mexican to the Canadian border, its 4,265 kilometers makes it one of the longest single, uninterrupted hiking trails in the world.

While many park services and management agencies maintain different parts of the Pacific Crest Trail, there is only one organization that works to preserve the entire length of this wonder of ecological heritage and natural beauty. The non-profit Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) operates through a mix of federal grants, private donations and charitable foundation funding. The project supports the PCTA’s land protection efforts with funding from a private donor.

The PCTA creates user experiences, provides a wealth of information for hikers and – crucially – gains control of private property along the trail to ensure that it is forever protected as open space. “We prioritise land within about a half-mile on either side of the trail – the viewshed of the trail, basically,” explains Paolo Perrone, Senior Conservation Manager at the PCTA. “Much like a scenic highway, you don’t want the only protected area to be the immediate environment. You are there to enjoy nature.”

This Pacific Crest corridor takes in nine ecoregions, including desert, grasslands, old-growth forest, volcanic plains and rainforest. Most of it is public land, under conservation by the US Forest Service or the National Park Service. But there are still thousands of acres in the corridor that are privately owned, with the largest concentration in southern California.

These areas might already see grazing or industrial activities, but are certainly subject to it in future. PCTA works to buy this land and maintain it as open space – supporting ecological and recreational improvements if need be. This prevents any development of the property later, whether industrial, holiday homes or simply roads, all of which pose threats to wildlife. “No one would be able to build physical barriers on the property,” says Perrone, “including fencing, which literally prevents movement through the landscape.”

Even in low-density residential developments, he explains, “you get dogs barking or motion detection floodlights. There are some species that can get by. Coyotes, for example, adapt to human presence pretty well. But in the presence of a certain level of lumens there are some nocturnal mammals – including the endangered Pacific Pocket Mouse – that just won’t come out of their burrows.”

So while people certainly benefit from the lack of seeing and hearing residential or industrial activities along the trail, animal lives can literally depend on it. “One of the bigger gaps is near the Southern Sierra in an area referred to as the Tehachapi Linkage,” says Perrone. “The trail goes through there, but so do a lot of other climate adaptation corridors. As species move to adapt to climate change, it’s become a critical area. As we fill in these fragmented areas, there’s definitely a lot of benefits to the user experience on the trail, but there’s also a wealth of benefits for habitat and biodiversity.”

PCTA identifies private parcels through GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping. It seems like it might be a struggle to get owners to sell their land, but it’s often as easy as opening up the conversation. “I do direct outreach and just call folks. Those efforts have led to fruitful projects.”

Owners run the gamut from individuals to wind farm developers to corporate ranches. PCTA might work with a partner, like Trust for Public Land, to enter into dialogue with the owners. “We work with willing sellers,” explains Perrone. “We pay up to appraised fair market value.” Occasionally an owner might just donate the land, receiving tax benefits.

To date, PCTA has purchased more than 30,000 acres of the Pacific Crest Corridor. It recently closed a deal with the Trust for Public Land and Sierra Pacific Industries – a major timber company – to purchase some 3,500 acres in the Trinity Alps area of Northern California.

A few years ago, it bought up an old RV park right where the trail comes out of the Angeles National Forest in Southern California and crosses the Mojave Desert. “You know, it might be some pristine forest or an old junked-up RV park, but here it is right along the Pacific Crest Trail. And now that habitat is being restored.”