U.S. Forest Service Partners with National Park Service for Pacific Crest Trail Foundation Document Facilitation

(left) An angler casts a line along the Pacific Crest Trail in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park (Photo/Dave Hall) and (right) Students from the Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, CA volunteer on the Pacific Crest Trail. (Photo/Anitra Kass)

The National Park Service (NPS) is collaborating with the U.S. Forest Service and the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) to facilitate the development of a Foundation Document to identify the significance and fundamental resources for the entire 2,650 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). This is the first ever foundation document process for the U.S. Forest Service, which contracted the NPS Denver Service Center to facilitate the planning process based on the NPS Foundation Document Program.

With the goal of creating an inclusive document that brought in new and diverse perspectives, the Forest Service and PCTA reached out to a wide range of stakeholders including PCT thru-hikers, tribes, and communities that connect to and use the trail to solicit input on values and significance of the trail. The Forest Service also worked with tribes, cultural resource specialists and tribal liaisons to ensure the document was inclusive of language that brought in tribal perspectives to the degree possible with over 60 tribes associated with the trail.

In addition to significant stakeholder outreach, the document development workshop brought together over 50 participants from the Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, California State Parks, the PTCA, Backcountry Horseman of America, and several PCTA volunteers in an interagency effort to craft the stakeholder feedback, information from previous planning documents and the lived experience of the participants into a meaningful and relevant document.

“The National Park Service is privileged to be part of a strong partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, and honored to facilitate the foundation document process with this incredible team of partners. The final product shows great thoughtfulness and care to the significant resources, people, and values of the entire trail,” said Chris Church, Chief of the Denver Service Center Planning Division, which coordinates the development of NPS Foundation Documents.

The result of these efforts is a foundation document that brings current perspectives and historical and cultural context to the significance, meaning, and fundamental resources and values of the trail, which included the trail itself, the journey of those who travel along its length, and the connections of indigenous people to the trail, among others. The project also identified the first interpretive themes for the trail. The document is in the final review phase and is expected to be complete by mid-Summer 2021.