Taken directly from their website, edits in green:
California
Opened: 2009
Length: 360 miles (579 kilometers)
Best for: Tree huggers
While the purpose of so many hiking trails is to travel from point to point, the journey is meant to be the destination when it comes to California’s Bigfoot Trail. Celebrating the region’s rich biodiversity, the 360-mile path wanders from Crescent City on the Pacific Ocean through the Klamath Mountains—where there have been more than a few sightings of the eponymous creature. First imagined and hiked in 2009 by local botanist and guidebook author Michael Kauffmann, who’s currently raising funds to support the project on Kickstarter, the route is certainly a world-class hike. It passes through six different wilderness areas as well as Redwood National and State Parks and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Along the way there are 32 different conifer species—including those redwoods—as well as oak groves interspersed with tropical temperate rain forest. The region also shelters an incredible range of other plant and animal species, some refugees from ancient times when glaciers didn’t cover these mountains as they did the nearby Sierra Nevada and Cascades. Even the mountains themselves are dynamic and alive due to earthquakes, mudslides, and wildfires that can change the very topography and obliterate sections of the trail.
Logistics: While it has a guidebook online and a mapped out route encompassing existing trails, the Bigfoot is not an official trail (as its creators make clear before sending any erstwhile hikers out on it) but a linkup of existing paths. That said, it’s a challenging route, though well enough mapped out that it’s easy to plan and set up resupply spots along it. Kauffmann is willing to help out those who are interested in following his route.
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