[ Birds chirping ] Davie: America has some of the most breathtaking hiking trails in the world -- thousands of miles of rugged paths... through deserts and canyons, over snowcapped peaks, past the deepest lakes and tallest trees you'll ever find.

[ Dramatic music plays ] Hi.

I'm Mick Davie.

I'm a journalist and documentary filmmaker.

I'm exploring America's great trails and the unique wonders they offer us all.

♪♪ In this episode, we are traveling one of the most scenic and rugged long-distance trails in the world -- the 1,200-mile Pacific Northwest Trail.

Today, I'm here in Washington State, looking up at Mount Baker.

The Pacific Northwest Trail weaves around the peak, not over the top.

And any wonder.

It's the snowiest mountain in America.

♪♪ In this episode, we will also be traveling the Continental Divide Trail -- at 3,100 miles, the second-longest National Scenic Trail in the U.S.

and arguably the most rugged, remote, and hazardous of them all -- a hint of what is to come.

Hiking the Pacific Northwest Trail is a journey that, barring mishap, takes a skilled hiker two months.

Those who have completed it form an elite club, both because of the trail's difficulty and because it's still relatively new.

This is a rare glimpse at what a thru-hiker sees.

The PNT's eastern terminus is at the crown of the continent -- Montana's Glacier National Park on the Canadian border.

From there, it runs through Idaho and Washington State to its western terminus at the crashing Pacific Ocean waves on Cape Alava, the westernmost point in the Lower 48.

♪♪ Today, we'll explore a unique section of the trail -- the coastal mountains, parks, islands, and fishing communities of glistening Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.

♪♪ While most of America's national trails are inland experiences through desert, forest, and mountain, the PNT on its final 200-mile flourish is something completely different.

It delivers saltwater bays, forested islands, thundering ocean, and even ferry boats.

[ Ship horn blowing ] ♪♪ But if you are hiking the Pacific Northwest Trail from east to west, as most thru-hikers do, you have many miles ahead of you before you reach the coast.

♪♪ Your starting point is in the Belly River Valley in Glacier National Park.

And from the beginning, you get an idea of the extremes of wilderness the PNT passes through.

Look around.

It's a trail you share with grizzly bears, moose, and mountain goats.

Look ahead, its first act is to climb 6,255 feet over Brown Pass into the Rocky Mountains and cross the great Continental Divide.

Like a bucking mustang, the trail continues to rise and fall for the next 1,200 miles, crossing seven mountain ranges, seven national forests, three states, and three national parks -- all this as it makes its way to the Pacific Ocean.

During its course, a hiker will climb more than 205,000 feet.

That's more than seven Mount Everests measured from base to peak.

But it's also a journey through a fantastic range of wildlife habitats.

What other trail on Earth can take you from wolves and bears... to seals and whales?

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] Westbound thru-hikers on the PNT typically begin their 1,200-mile journey in early July, often on July Fourth, after the snow has retreated from high passes.

♪♪ Nature provides the spectacle.

Even though climate change has reduced the number of glaciers around you, melting snow still feeds glistening mountain lakes and rushing streams.

♪♪ And high-country meadows explode with fragrant wildflowers, like ivory bear grass and golden glacier lily.

[ Animals calling ] In its early days, the PNT struggled to earn its designation as a National Scenic Trail.

It had to prove itself.

And that it finally did so was largely due to the work of one man.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] In the early 1970s, a Georgetown University student named Ron Strickland decided to create a 1,200-mile footpath linking Glacier National Park with Olympic National Park's Wilderness Coast.

He envisioned a trail where you hike west until you can hike west no more.

In 1983, he did his first thru-hike and published a guidebook, the "Pacific Northwest Trail Guide," even though the trail didn't officially exist yet, Eight other trails, including the Continental Divide, had been designated National Scenic Trails by Congress.

And, then, almost 40 years after his quest began, four decades of battling brush and bureaucracy, it happened.

In 2009, the Pacific Northwest was officially designated a National Scenic Trail.

♪♪ Strickland's comment -- "The adventure is just beginning."

♪♪ The PNT adventure continues westwards.

What's soon apparent as he crossed from Montana into the Idaho Panhandle is that the PNT is a border hike.

For some stretches of the trail, you can actually see the clear-cut of the U.S.-Canada border itself.

Another surprise is that the northwest mountain scenery is not all mist-covered, alpine forest.

There's a wide variety of ecosystems en route -- geographic changes that jump out at you.

The 43,000-acre Salmo-Priest Wilderness, straddling Idaho and eastern Washington, for example, contains a lush, inland rainforest, dense with giant old-growth cedars.

It's so rugged and remote that the established trail stops altogether at one point, and for seven miles, you are hiking unmarked ground, through jungle and over rocks and boulders, trying to reconnect with the trail.

A hiker can feel like a trespasser in Salmo-Priest.

The wilderness is so untouched that it's a sanctuary for wildlife that barely exists elsewhere in the U.S.

-- the Canada lynx, wolverine, even the gray wolf.

Further into Washington, crossing the Selkirk Mountains, the trail takes you through another rare wildlife area, the Selkirk Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone.

Grizzlies were federally listed as a threatened species in the U.S.

in 1975.

Today, the number of grizzlies that roam here is estimated at only between 50 and 70, and their population is confined to less than 2% of their historical range.

Rare as they are, you'll want to stay alert for any signs of these powerful creatures as you make your way along the trail.

What begins to strike you the longer you walk, however, is how well-designed the route is -- a showcase of the best of the natural drama along the way.

Indeed, one of Ron Strickland's mottos while building it was "Stay high for the views," And for most of its course, the PNT is above the tree line, darting this way and that for the best vantage points from the mountains.

The July-August window in which most people do the hike is ideal, too, because it's during the very brief northwest dry season.

The snow has mostly gone.

The sight lines are clear, and the days are long and brilliant -- Light until 10:00 p.m.

You pass through the vast Pasayten Wilderness, a stretch where you will not see a road for 190 miles and barely a person.

Then, the volcanic peaks of the North Cascades Mountains, America's Alps, nearer the coast.

By the time you're through, you've seen enough spectacular sunsets to last a lifetime.

♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] Descending more than 5,000 feet from the base of Mount Baker, we find this.

Behold Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.

What a view.

We're at Samish Overlook, 2,000 feet above the bay.

How is this for contrast with mountain wilderness?

From wolves to whales indeed.

Those gleaming islands in front of us are the San Juans.

And north of that, that green land across the bay is Canada, and the city of Vancouver, not far beyond that.

Throughout the bay, you can see an intricate network of connecting channels and adjoining waterways, straits and sounds, yachts and fishing boats plying the water.

It looks like an oil painting.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Samish Overlook has been famous for these guys since around 1988.

Thousands of hang gliders and paragliders take off from here and float for hours on thermals above the inland sea in front of us.

Not a bad form of travel.

I've never tried it.

I'd love to.

Maybe one day.

♪♪ ♪♪ From the air, you can see forests stretching miles back inland -- lush, but not as old as they may seem.

Logging was a dominant industry in this area from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Many of the trees you can see here now are second growth.

Logging artifacts can be spotted along the trail, and thick, giant stumps make you think of what used to be Douglas firs touching the sky.

The other big industry here was oyster farming.

That continues today.

And you can observe it along the trail, as well.

[ Dramatic music plays ] Let's head down this way.

There's something else I am dying to see -- or rather eat.

And to get there, we need to take Chuckanut Drive.

♪♪ The PNT was forged out of old trails, but, also, existing roads.

Well, Chuckanut Drive is part of it, and it's one of the most scenic coastal drives on the West Coast of the U.S.

♪♪ One of the things thru-hikers dream of, something Ron Strickland recommends as one of his top-10 highlights of the entire trail, is just up ahead -- [ Down-tempo music plays ] oysters.

So welcome to Taylor Shellfish Farms.

We're here to eat and talk to a man who probably knows more about the PNT than anyone since Ron Strickland.

His name is Jeff Kish, and he's the executive director of the Pacific Northwest Trail Association.

So, these are Puget Sound oysters.

-Kish: Grown right here.

-Davie: Grown right here.

Well, you don't get much fresher than that.

So, Jeff, I believe Ron Strickland, the guy who established the PNT trail, was a big fan of thru-hikers having an oyster towards the end of their trek.

Is that right?

-Kish: Yeah.

You spent all summer working your way out towards the coast to get that first breath of salt air come off of Blanchard Mountain, and here you are.

There's oysters grown fresh right here.

Davie: I mean, what's your personal connection with the PNT?

How did you get involved in the PNT?

Kish: 10 years ago, I decided I wanted to go on my first long hike.

And I saw the PNT, and it seemed very appealing to me, just because of the region that it crosses.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] And I started researching it.

I couldn't find anybody who had hiked it.

I couldn't find much information about the trail.

I knew that it was a trail that was much less traveled.

I knew that it was a trail that went through a much wilder terrain.

It was an opportunity in my life where I could step outside of business as usual and do something different.

But it absolutely changed my life.

Davie: In what way?

Kish: I think most people think they know what freedom is, and most people probably think they're somewhat free.

In that moment, I realized that I don't think most people ever get there.

But I did.

After thru-hiking the PNT, my whole life's been tied to the PNT in some way ever since.

-Davie: Ever since.

-Kish: Yeah.

All the decisions that we make now are about preserving this resource for generations to come.

We provide a lot of education.

We do a lot of advocacy work to make sure that public lands get the attention and the funding that they need.

My son, my future grandson, grandkids -- it's protecting it for everyone.

One of the worst things I can imagine is a world where, you know, people in the future can't experience what I experienced in my life on the PNT.

Davie: From Chuckanut Drive, the trail follows Highway 20 and then diverts onto a bridge, delivering you to Fidalgo Island -- one of over a hundred of the named San Juan Islands.

It's just another of the many charms of the Pacific Northwest Trail that requires you to walk between two islands in a bay.

This is Deception Pass Bridge.

It connects Fidalgo Island behind me to the equally verdant Whidbey Island up ahead.

The pass in question is the body of water below me.

And the bridge is a stomach- churning 180 feet high, but obviously incredibly beautiful.

Sometimes you can actually see seals splashing around in the coves below, whales cavorting in the open water, and bald eagles circling above.

A rather macabre maritime story took place here in the late 1800s.

A small isle on the eastern side of the bay is named Ben Ure Island after a notorious smuggler infamous for shipping opium, booze, and Chinese people -- migrant labor -- to the mainland.

Ure and his partner, Lawrence "Pirate" Kelly, played cat-and-mouse with U.S.

customs officials for years, using their island as a secret base.

And legend has it that Ure's Native American wife would camp on nearby Strawberry Island and signal him with a fire when it was safe to resume smuggling.

As a further precaution, Ure would tie his illegal laborers in burlap bags.

And if customs agents approached, he would destroy the evidence by tossing them overboard.

The tidal currents carried some of the drowned migrants' bodies to San Juan Island and what's now called Deadman's Bay.

Tragic as those events were, today, this area is wildly popular.

Deception Pass State Park, which includes Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands, is the most visited state park in Washington.

[ Dramatic music plays ] You can see why -- mysterious coves, rugged cliffs, small lakes, towering trees.

♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] ♪♪ Here on Whidbey Island, you're in a place of peace and quiet.

And at this point, if you started your trek at the trailhead in Glacier National Park, you've now covered over a thousand miles by foot, with a last stretch of 200 miles still to go.

What lies ahead is a dramatic and unforgettable section.

By now, why would you expect anything less?

♪♪ A ferry takes you across the sound to Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula.

From there, you have another series of mountains to traverse, with the glacial, snowcapped, 8,000-foot Mount Olympus an ever-present backdrop.

♪♪ Within Olympic National Park, the trail runs along the spectacular Elwha River, which bubbles with steelhead and salmon, restocked since the 1990s after being fished out during the logging boom of the previous century.

And, then, it's on to that wild, wave-washed coast for one of the more unusual stretches of a very unusual trail -- a 13-mile walk north on the beach towards Cape Alava.

You need to have your wits about you, though, and a tide chart.

The tides are strong here.

You need to time your beach walks for low tide and make sure to finish before they turn, lest you get stranded or, worse, washed out to sea.

And, then, finally, you arrive at windswept Cape Alava, the westernmost point of the Lower 48 and the PNT's western terminus.

Pick a spot, because there's no physical marker.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] But I guess the Pacific Ocean is a good stand-in.

♪♪ So here ends the Pacific Northwest Trail.

It's a 1,200-mile journey that's taken us from the mountains of Montana to the westernmost point of the Lower 48, the windswept coast of Washington State.

♪♪ And as I arrive here, I can't help thinking of Ron Strickland and his words when the PNT was awarded its National Scenic Trail status after 40 years -- "The adventure is just beginning."

♪♪ As of this recording, Ron Strickland is 79.

And although he couldn't join me for an interview, he's still hard at work planning trails.

In 1996, he proposed the creation of a 7,700-mile transcontinental sea-to-sea route that would link existing long-distance trails from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

With characteristic determination, Strickland hasn't given up.

So don't be surprised if sometime soon, you find the Sea-to-Sea Trail fully marked, functional, and beckoning -- a new sibling for the PNT.

♪♪ No need to hang up your wanderlust just yet.

Our next adventure features a trail more than 3,000 miles long.

It's rugged, remote, and runs right down the middle of the United States -- the spectacular Continental Divide Trail.

That's next.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ Today, I'm headed to the snow-covered San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado, on the ridge of the Great Continental Divide, America's backbone.

It's a dramatic and varied route along America's greatest watershed, which runs from the Apache country of the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico through the soaring snow- and tundra-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, into the Big Sky parks and plains of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, before ending in Glacier National Park on Canada's border.

It's a journey that takes five to six months.

And of those who attempt it, only about 60% succeed.

Today's hike will take me from this high-altitude desert in New Mexico to the 10,000-foot-high Cumbres Pass in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado -- a truly wild and untamed section of the trail.

But let's take a step back a moment to the beginning of the trail.

The CDT starts 780 miles south of here on the U.S.-Mexico border.

♪♪ The southern terminus of the Continental Divide Trail is marked by a concrete obelisk.

But there are two markers here.

Nearby, a hand-etched rock tells the story of a crazy cook who bludgeoned a border fence builder to death in 1907 for insulting the cook's food.

Is there a more ominous start to a long-distance trail?

A few years ago, you had to hike for days just to reach the start of the CDT.

But in 2014, a shuttle bus was established in Lordsburg, New Mexico, the closest town, three hours' drive away.

♪♪ Water is scarce.

And while it looks flat and featureless, you are on the Continental Divide at the rarefied altitude of 5,000 feet.

[ Animals calling ] Many believe the real test of the CDT is the 10,000-foot ranges of the Rocky Mountains ahead.

But they underestimate the isolation and thin air of the high desert.

You need to prepare yourself for the challenge, both physically and mentally.

[ Birds chirping ] About 160 miles in, you get an opportunity for a well-earned break at historic Silver City, the childhood home of notorious outlaw Billy the Kid.

[ Rock music plays ] To CBT hikers, Silver City is best known and loved for hosting the annual Continental Divide Trail Days Festival.

Man: Okay.

Here we go.

Davie: Its three F's are a magnet for CDT backpackers -- fun, friends, and especially free food.

Maybe that's four.

I'd love a pancake.

Thank you, thank you.

Have you had a lot of hikers come through here this morning?

Heinold: Yes, absolutely.

There's tons of hikers.

Davie: They have a bit of a look about them.

Heinold: They do.

They're fit.

-Davie: Yeah.

-Heinold: They're tan.

They're dusty.

-Davie: Yeah.

Heinold: They're smiling.

Are you ready for a pancake?

Davie: I am, I am.

I'm ready.

Oh, my gosh.

Look at that.

My Mickey Mouse pancake.

Look at that.

Look at that.

That will keep you going on the trail.

[ Dramatic music plays ] ♪♪ Gough Square buzzes with live music, guest speakers, outfitters selling gear, food stands, and of course thru-hikers, just eight or nine days into their five- or six-month journey.

Most are seasoned long-distance hikers who have already earned specific trail names.

What's your name?

-Marien: My name is Marien.

Davie: Marien.

Where are you from?

-Marien: I'm from Germany.

-Davie: Ah.

Marien: My trail name is "Joe Dirt."

Davie: Joe Dirt, like the movie character.

Marien: Just because of my mullet.

-Davie: What's your name?

-Nick: Nick -- "Mr.

Fabulous."

Davie: Mr.

Fabulous.

Why Mr.

Fabulous?

Nick: It's not obvious?

Davie: Well, okay, apart from the obvious.

Just steps away, hikers might hydrate at the local brewery or resupply at the local sports stores, but always trying to trim down the weight and size of their packs.

Unless of course you're this guy, the one they call the Hiking Viking.

Gathman: Everything I need for 3,000 miles of happiness is right here in this backpack.

Davie: What do you got -- some food, some shoes, clothes?

Gathman: Four days of food in here right now, bottles of water, umbrella for the sun here in New Mexico, water filter, a couple of things of clothing, sleeping bag, tent, sleeping pad.

That's it.

Davie: Silver City is one of those places that can suck you in and slow you down.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] The Continental Divide Trail won't hike itself.

You have to be disciplined to keep going back into the desert, one foot after the other.

♪♪ New Mexico claims 820 miles of the CDT.

And as you head north, you enter a world of grand mesas and deep canyons, Wild West vistas of spectacular, red-rock cliffs.

♪♪ The CDT was established as a National Scenic Trail in 1978, 10 years after the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest.

And like many third offspring, the CDT is the wild child of the family -- raw, remote, and unfinished.

In fact, there's a case to be made that she's got a split personality.

There are really two CDTs -- the official National Scenic route marked out by the Forest Service since 1978, and a second, ever-changing route forged over the years by trailblazing thru-hikers, making their way with compass and map, judging their route by the size of a mountain ahead, the density of a forest, the word of a snowstorm, or maybe an interesting town nearby.

These pioneers mark their journeys in guidebooks and in articles and online.

And new CDT hikers read and carry those guides like tablets from the mount.

In short, the wild child, the CDT, doesn't like to stick to the straight and narrow.

♪♪ The distance between population centers on the CDT is far greater than on the Pacific Crest Trail or Appalachian Trail.

You can hike for two or three weeks between towns on the CDT.

And that makes every little hamlet notable.

I'm now 400 miles north of Silver City.

And I've just entered the scenic village of Charma, New Mexico, gateway to the San Juans and a popular spot to prepare for the arduous mountain leg of the CDT.

Charma is not on the CDT proper, but it's one of those interesting towns I mentioned earlier -- a popular unofficial hiker stop to prepare for the mountains.

Right now we're in a gorgeous valley, a world away from the desert far behind us.

And here you only need to look up to see the snow and the ice ahead.

The Tewa Pueblo dwellers were the first to inhabit this valley about a thousand years ago.

Spanish colonists arriving in the 16th Century built on the Tewas' agricultural techniques and dug communal irrigation canals.

These canals allowed them to grow crops successfully in this area, and many are still used for farming here today.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ And then there's this -- the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, the highest narrow-gauge steam railroad in the U.S.

It was built in the 1800s and operated here as a coal and logging train until the coal and the timber ran out.

Then, it reinvented itself as a tourist train and as a cinematic, even romantic player in the story of the CDT.

[ Dramatic music plays ] ♪♪ So, Rich, tell me a little bit about this engine.

Casford: This is one of our steam locomotives that we use on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad.

It's run on this line since it was delivered from the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Davie: So it's nearly a hundred years old.

Casford: Nearly a hundred years old.

Davie: So, what role does this train play in the CDT trail?

[ Folk music plays ] Casford: We actually give people rides.

Yeah.

They buy a ticket to Cumbres Pass to cut down 13 miles of very steep highway or trail walking.

And then they get up on top of the mountain and continue their hike.

Davie: This train is actually a bit of a star.

It's been in a number of movies, right?

Casford: Yes.

The most recent one is the "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" movie, and was filmed extensively at the beginning of the movie.

And it's still here, and many of the props are still here on site.

Hikers will start around June 1, and the train will start running June 11.

And it runs through the middle of October.

And so we'll have hikers all summer long, all the way into October.

Davie: Well, thank you very much.

It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Casford: Thank you.

I'm glad you came.

Davie: Out of Charma, the Continental Divide trail becomes an entirely different experience.

Gone are the dust and heat of the desert.

[ Folk music plays ] For most of the remainder of your hike, it's snow-covered peaks and passes and fresh mountain air.

♪♪ Whether you catch the train or hike, you climb 3,000 feet in 12 miles to get back on the CDT.

And here we are.

We're now in Colorado, at the Cumbres Pass, 10,022 feet of elevation on the spine of the Continental Divide -- the first of a series of soaring passes and peaks that define the trail in the Rocky Mountains.

♪♪ Everyone and their llama has heard of the Colorado Rockies, the midpoint of the CDT.

But for me, it's here in the lesser-known San Juans, the Southern Rockies, that are more wild, raw, and beautiful.

Now, I mentioned earlier that only about 60% of thru-hikers finish the CDT.

And it's worth pointing out that this is usually not to do with their skills or even the terrain, as rugged and hazardous as it is.

Most thru-hikers who attempt this CDT have done either the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail or both.

They're experienced.

The problem is things that they can't control, acts of God -- snowstorms, avalanches, landslides, mudslides, flash floods, and forest fires.

And they happen all the time up here.

In May 2016, a brutal blizzard came through the San Juans and stranded hikers in Charma for two weeks.

That's a long wait, and many hikers don't have that kind of time.

One such storm, and there goes years of planning to add the CDT thru-hike to a Triple Crown quest.

Most sane people don't go into the mountains until late June, but thru-hikers thinking of the long journey ahead like to get here early, and it can be a mistake.

[ Snow crunching ] Search and rescue teams have had to save a lot of people who made such decisions.

Besides, it's when the snow clears in July that the San Juans really reveal themselves.

[ Mid-tempo folk music plays ] ♪♪ Yes, you will walk through ghost towns... past abandoned mine shafts... but there are also fields of wildflowers, lush meadows, beautiful mountain grass, and forests of pine and herds of elk.

It's a beautiful place.

[ Birds calling ] And it's on a high ridge such as this that, for the first time, you come to understand the true meaning of the Continental Divide, not only its geography, but its mythic place in the American story.

Let's call it our watershed moment, for it is, after all, a literal watershed.

Any river up here, any water at all will cross either one side of the divide or the other, and give life, sustenance, to the east or west before ending up in one of two oceans 3,000 miles apart -- the Pacific in that direction, or the Atlantic in that direction.

Indeed, far ahead, in the Wyoming section of the trail, Two Ocean Creek rushes down the divide, and at the aptly named Parting of the Waters divides in half, east and west.

Water droplets that have flowed together in one river, split up in two and end up on different sides of the planet.

Then there's the sheer power of its name -- divide.

It's a barrier, a massive wall dividing a continent.

Imagine for a moment you're a 19th-century pioneer, making your way west with your family, or as part of a cattle drive to start a new life in California or Oregon.

You had to come through the flat, open plains of Nebraska or Kansas.

[ Mid-tempo music continues ] And then you see this.

There's no passing it.

Who has the time or the stomach to cross it?

Some people tried and made it.

Many people didn't.

And their journeys ground to a halt here, and their efforts still scatter the landscape -- crumbling settlements, lonely shacks, old roads, deserted military outposts, and the ruts of wagon trails in the road.

You're communing with ghosts up here.

[ Gentle mid-tempo music plays ] Like those pioneers, we ourselves can only go so far, at least on today's hike.

But I can tell you what lies beyond.

[ Mid-tempo music continues ] You are never below 10,000 feet at any point, and at times, hiking here feels like clinging onto the crenelated spine of a dinosaur.

♪♪ At Twin Lakes, before Rabbit Ears Pass, you are near the halfway point of the CDT and surrounded by no less than 14 mountains with summits above 14,000 feet.

[ Mid-tempo music continues ] Fourteeners, as they're called by mountaineers and hikers in the know.

[ Adventurous music plays ] Hikers like Paul Maggs, Magnanti triple crowner, author, guidebook writer, CDT coalition volunteer, and all-round wilderness wild man.

Tell me a little bit about the CDT trail.

What makes the CDT so special?

Magnanti: You know, the Blackfeet Nation gave it the name "Backbone of the World."

So you get that.

Then you get a history of Lewis and Clark going over different passes.

It's still the most wild part of the American experience for backpacking as well.

Davie: And why is that?

What makes it so wild?

Magnanti: Well, I mean, the Appalachian Trail, which is a wonderful cultural experience.

You're not far from D.C., Boston, New York, etc., Atlanta.

Pacific Crest Trail, you have the Sierra, which is also fairly remote, but you're not far from LA, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle.

Other than Denver, there's really no big metro area near the CDT.

I mean, Northern Montana, there's still grizzly bears.

There's still wolves.

Davie: So it's about the remoteness, the wildness.

Yes, it's there's wilderness in many places, but the CDT is still very wild.

It has a sense of wildness beyond just the wilderness.

And that just attracts a lot of backcountry travelers.

What -- What was the toughest part of the CDT for you?

[ Magnanti inhales deeply ] Magnanti: More so at the end 'cause you spent a lot of time by yourself.

Davie: Was it lonely?

Magnanti: I was alone.

I wouldn't say so much lonely.

But I was in my head a lot.

And it's just you're hiking day after day and it's a more challenging, especially then navigationally and such.

So more taxing mentally.

[ Dramatic music plays ] Davie: As you press on through Colorado, north of the halfway point... that solitude continues to be matched by altitude.

[ Dramatic music continues ] Then it's almost a shock and perhaps a relief to cross into Wyoming, where you drop down into the red desert of the Continental Divide Basin.

[ Dramatic music continues ] Here, snow and mountains give way to sand dunes, bluffs, and salt flats more like Utah or Arizona.

[ Thrilling upbeat music plays ] For a while the CDT then follows the rutted ox wagon tracks of the Oregon Trail, that famous 19th-century route across the Great Divide that helped tame the American West.

[ Thrilling music continues ] From South Pass City, Wyoming, the trail rises again up into 10,000-foot-high mountain passes... [ Eagle calling ] ...with cliff-edge drops below.

[ Thrilling music continues ] Then it's down again through backwoods trails... past rushing rivers and glistening lakes and into Yellowstone National Park... [ Birds calling ] [ Soft whimsical music plays ] ...the world's first national park and one of America's most beloved.

[ Water rumbling ] In fact, the trail will lead you right past that geyser of geysers -- Old Faithful.

[ Soft music continues ] The boardwalk to Old Faithful is on the Continental Divide itself.

[ Water spurting, hissing ] [ Soft music continues ] At this point, you're entitled to take a deep breath and soak up the majesty of one of the world's greatest protected areas.

[ Soft music continues ] Wildlife sightings are a bonus -- moose, elk, bison, and grizzlies, even wolverine.

♪♪ [ Light orchestral music plays ] After a brief brush with Idaho, there's finally one state to go... [ Air whispering ] ...800 miles of Montana.

♪♪ towering mountains... cathedral skies... plains of grazing bison... rivers bubbling with trout.

[ Water lapping ] You're surrounded by Douglas fir, larch, and spruce trees.

[ Light music continues ] Under them, bluebells, columbine, and fairy slipper.

[ Light music continues ] It's hard to think of a more beautiful state.

And the CDT delivers two of Big Sky's most spectacular jewels -- [ Wind whispering ] [ Light music continues ] first, the rugged Bob Marshall Wilderness... cowboy country... where the jagged and formidable 1,000-foot escarpment on the spine of the divide that resembles the Great Wall of China.

Indeed, it's called the Chinese Wall.

[ Light music continues ] Then last, but by no means least... Glacier National Park.

[ Light music continues ] 3,100 miles and five to six months from your start, the crown of the continent, Canada just beyond.

[ Light music continues ] And so you reach the end, and bid farewell at last to the wild child, perhaps with some relief, but inevitably, with a touch of sadness.

[ Dramatic music plays ] I feel a twinge of it myself, even though my own hike today will take me no farther than this windswept mountain pass.

So what draws us to the wildness, the strangeness, and the remoteness of the Continental Divide Trail?

[ Snow crunching ] Well, I suspect it's the untamed parts of our own natures that are calling us, the ancient roots of ourselves that yearn to run free in places like this, and to commune now and then with others who feel the same way.

Vendor: There's your Mickey Mouse.

Davie: Yeah?

And to be put to the test.

[ Dramatic music continues ] If this is a sentiment that speaks to you, the CDT may be the answer.

It's a challenge that calls to the wildness in us all.

[ Wind whispering ]