Sacramento Valley Hiking

Sacramento
Valley
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Pacific Crest Trail
of the Sacramento Valley Region
covers 397.2 miles of the PCT (Tahoe to Mt Shasta),
amounts to 15% of the entire trail,
and is the least visited part of the PCT

Go Light! Know where the water sources are.

“The gold standard in maps" for the Pacific Crest Trail

"Thanks for working so hard to make sure hikers and equestrians have the best information possible"
Beth Boyst, US Forest Service PCT Program Manager

"Wow, these are really cool!"
Yogi

Adobe Reader (PDF) hike maps	edition	notes
Overview maps	2008	3 MB (includes recommended seasons)
J--Castle Crags to Parks Cr	2008	19 MB minor rev. 2010
I--McCloud River to Castle Crags	2008	12 MB
H--Burney Falls to McCloud River	2008	28 MB
G--Subway Cave to Burney Falls	2008	26 MB minor rev. 2010
F--Collins Pine to Subway Cave	2008	25 MB
E--Belden to Collins Pine	2008	23 MB
D--Bucks Summit to Belden	2008	11 MB
C--Quincy-La Porte to Bucks Summit	2008	15 MB
B--Wild Plum to Quincy-La Porte	2008	19 MB
A--Donner Summit to Wild Plum	2008	20 MB

licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
(attribution = just leave our name on it, no need to contact us)

For thru-hikers, more information is available about resupplying and trail angels in the book Yogi's PCT Handbook we recommend the Wilderness Press PCT guidebooks for trail maps, other than the 15% we cover. These would be "the silver standard in maps", and an outstanding buy. Cheaper from Amazon	Print out all the maps for our 400 miles of the PCT. It takes 29 sheets of paper (printed on both sides), and weighs about five oz.	our 1/7th of PCT biggest footbridge (Middle Fk Feather) biggest falls (Burney) biggest/widely seen peak (Shasta) mud pots/fumaroles PCT midpoint Sierra/Cascades line highest pt N of Tahoe area biggest canyons (Feather River) biggest cave (Subway) best maps least visited
You will carry an average of maybe a pound or two less water enlightened by our water source information. Also, you may choose to do as we do, and never carry a water filter, with water source knowledge reducing the risk.	our review of Erik the Black's Pacific Crest Trail Atlas, 2nd ed Northern California $50 inc shpg (weight 6.45 oz): "it is mostly a recompilation of information found in the Wilderness Press guidebook, including the errors (which suggests the field checking was incomplete). Many of the water sources were missed. Moderate quality, but very expensive"	These maps supersede Jeffrey Schaffer's PCT maps in the Wilderness Press guidebook. Jeffrey was the first to map the trail in detail, did it before there was gps, and had only the roughest of USFS maps to go by. It is with greatest respect we dedicate these maps to him. He showed us the way.
Volunteer The trail always needs work. The PCTA will welcome you, IF you work under their supervision. They get paid by the Forest Service based on the number of hours you work, but for some of us that defeats the purpose for being a volunteer (i.e., to do something good at no cost for our country). The PCTA is good for beginners who need training and guidance. We have found the PCTA unfriendly to independent groups.	The Congress has directed the Forest Service to be encouraging to volunteers, but we have found them not to be. Ignored applications, arbitrary termination of agreements, etc. Try your local Ranger District and they may be helpful. If that doesn't work, ask your local congressman's office to provide backup. If you establish a good relationship with the local rangers, this can be an effective way to go.	When we maintained the PCT under agreements with the Forest Service, we observed much maintenance had been done by people without official approval. We appreciated it, but there are federal regulations against it, so do so at your own risk. In our area, probably more trail maintenance is done this way than by official crews, especially on the secondary trails. Without their efforts, more National Forest system trails would have been lost due to lack of maintenance.
	Review of Forest Service series of 10 PCT maps $119.50 for all 10 from PCTA These "map[s] of the PCT [are] fully functional for trip planning and navigation" --according to the PCTA. We disagree. We think it is dangerous to hike the PCT with such large scale (lack of detail) maps. It will be hard to find the PCT at the un-signed cross trails. These are substandard as hiking maps. Pretty for wall decorations, though :-)