Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, California State Parks, the PTCA, Backcountry Horseman of America, 60 Indian tribes whose current and ancestral lands are along the trail, hiking clubs, volunteers, thru-hikers, trail towns, and others.
In 2019, the Trust for Public Land announced that in partnership with the PCTA, it had protected 17 miles of trail in northern California, and identified climate change and fires, timber cutting, increased usage, threats to wildlife from human interaction, and maintaining funding from the federally administered Land and Water Conservation Fund as key management priorities.
While a Golden Spike ceremony in 1993 celebrated the completion of the PCTA, it was later learned that a missing easement in the Stevens Pass (Washington) area threatened the continuity of the trail.
[13] Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild, was published in 2012 and became a best-seller; the effect on the trail was initially modest with a small increase in inquiries to the PCTA.
According to a 2015 Associated Press article (which was published in newspapers throughout the United States, e.g.: the New York Daily News,[14] the Santa Fe New Mexican,[15] and the Florida Times Union),[16] the PCTA saw a dramatic increase in the number of hikers attempting to hike the entire trail.
Liz Bergeron, executive director of the Pacific Crest Trail Association, told Conde Nast Traveler that the PCTA saw increased numbers everywhere within a year of the movie's release—more day hikers, doubled website traffic, and more permit requests for thru-hiking; she said that nearly 2,000 people attempted a thru-hike in 2014, double the previous year.
[17] In response, the PCTA launched a campaign, with Strayed's support, using the hashtag #responsiblywild to promote safety and Leave No Trace practices.
[25] Long-distance hikers were also viewed as potential disease vectors who could spread the virus to rural communities with limited medical facilities that were already strained.
[27] The PCTA judged that it was more responsible to avoid the kinds of accidents that could require emergency services to operate in the wilderness environment, which could expose both victims and rescuers to the virus from necessary contact with each other, and which would take health workers away from much needed jobs on the front lines of the pandemic.