For long-distance hikers
The North Country Trail Guidebook
Unlike most long-distance hiking trails in the U.S., there is no comprehensive guidebook currently available covering all of the NCT. However; the NCTA is currently developing a “Best of the NCT” guidebook and anticipate it to be available from the University of Michigan Press in April 2013.
For more information in the meantime on planning a long-distance hike, feel free to contact us or look at the other resources below.
Other hike planning resources
- NCTA’s hiking maps
- NCTA’s GPS / GIS data for the NCT
- Some of our partner trail organization currently produce their own guidebooks for their trails (e.g. Superior Hiking Trail Association, Kekekabic Trail Club, Border Route Trail Association, Buckeye Trail Association, Finger Lakes Trail Conference) that are available directly from them.
- NCTA’s Chapters & partner organizations are also great sources of information on their trail segments.
Thru-hiking information
- Challenges of thru-hiking the NCT – With a length of 4,600 miles and lots of connecting roadwalks, pulling off a thru-hike of the NCT is a big challenge. One of the biggest challenges is weather encountered on an end to end hike. Assuming you start at a terminus and average 20 miles per day, 4,600 miles is 230 days or 7-8 months. That means you’ll have to start / finish your hike in wintry conditions in either the Adirondack Mountains of New York or on the wide open prairies of western North Dakota. Brrrrr!
- Sample thru-hike itinerary – We are in the process of creating a sample thru-hike itinerary for illustrative purposes. As soon as this is available, we’ll make sure to make it available. In the interim, please check out the links to some on-line thru-hiker’s journals.
- Links to long-distance hikers’ online journals – There have been a few people who have thru-hiked the NCT in recent years. Here are links to their websites…
- Nimblewill Nomad’s 2009 Odyssey on the NCT and his corresponding Trekking the North Country Trail book
- Andy Skurka’s 2004-05 “C2C” trek, which included all of the NCT