The Pacific Crest Trail stretches across 2,653 miles of the most dramatic landscape America has to offer. It begins in the scorching desert at the Mexican border near Campo, California, through the brutal High Sierra, where icy passes and raging snowmelt-fed creeks demand respect and patience. Then north through the volcanic Cascades, where ancient mountains sleep with one eye open, their snow-capped peaks watching as you hike through forests so deep and green they feel like cathedrals. The trail ends, or begins, depending on your perspective, at the Canadian border, with Monument 78, but once hiked, it will never leave you.