The 20 Best Pacific Crest Trail Books

The Pacific Crest Trail is a thin strip of land that stretches from Mexico to Canada. It inspires creative thinkers, fuels adventurous spirits, gives hope to overworked nine-to-fivers, and exposes new souls to the breathtaking scenery of our public lands.

The best Pacific Crest Trail books span the gamut of non-fiction genres. From hiking guides to memoirs to photo collections, they all have something unique to share. And, compelled by the magic of the PCT, there tend to be bits of harmless, yet fantastic fiction mixed into the stories found within their pages.

After reviewing dozens of books about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail we have compiled a list of the best for your reading pleasure. Each book on this list is worthy of your attention. Our top picks standout for their professional composition, intriguing stories, and sheer beauty.

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The 5 Best Pacific Crest Trail Books

These are our five favorite books about the Pacific Crest Trail. Each has received numerous chart-topping reviews and has unique traits that make them stand out from the rest. Read on to see our detailed reviews of each book below.

Category	Picture	Product	Overall Rating*	Price
Best PCT Book Overall		The Pacific Crest Trail: Exploring America's Wilderness Trail	97	Check Price
Best PCT Guide Book		Trekking The Pacific Crest Trail	93	Check Price
Best PCT Memoir Book		The Trail Provides	95	Check Price
Best PCT Coffee Table Book		The Great Alone	91	Check Price
Best PCT Book to Have While Hiking		Pocket PCT	87	Check Price

*Ratings are based on Amazon customer reviews at the time of publication and can change.

Best PCT Book Overall: The Pacific Crest Trail: Exploring America’s Wilderness Trail

As the only illustrated book officially published with the Pacific Crest Trail Association, The Pacific Crest Trail: Exploring America’s Wilderness Trail is backed by credentials that no other book on the subject can match.

The exquisite images and trivia-filled text make it an interesting conversation piece. Hundreds of contemporary trail photos and previously unreleased historic images adorn the pages with their beauty and charm. It’d be easy to skip right past the text and spend hours perusing through the captivating pictures.

Though a bit heavy-handed on the history of the trail and its technical details, the information is well written. Descriptive prose is woven into the fact-laden text, giving it life that makes the reader wish they were out on the trail to experience the magic first hand.

The lengthy introduction was written by Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild. She introduces the trail, providing her own unique perspective that fans of her book or movie will get a kick out of.

Experienced and aspiring PCT hikers will enjoy this book, as will history buffs, nature enthusiasts, and the guests of your home who happen to pick it up off your coffee table.  It’s worth its price for the photos alone— the history lesson is simply a nice bonus.

Best PCT Trail Guide Book: Trekking The Pacific Crest Trail

Trekking The Pacific Crest Trail is a comprehensive guide for hiking the PCT. The guide has been designed in such a way as to be useful to thru-hikers, section hikers, and ambitious day hikers.

The book opens with a thorough introduction to the trail serves as a tantalizing appetizer that could stand on its own as a small pocket guide to the trail. In the opening pages, the author outlines what a hiker will likely experience on the PCT. He made sure to cover everything from the types of vegetation you’ll discover to what it feels like to cross the border into Canada at the end of a 2650-mile journey.

It’s the trail breakdown that serves as the main course of this guide, however. Broken down into 101 stages, the PCT is divided into digestible chunks that can be examined in short bursts or easily referenced when you’re actually out on the trail.

The meat of this guide is the trail segment descriptions. Each part is laid out in its entirety with the most essential details every hiker needs to know highlighted for clarity. Trail mileage, camping sites, water sources, and town info are all neatly organized for the reader to absorb.

The clear and colorful trail maps are the potatoes of this awesome guide. They’re a useful navigation tool when on the trail and provide perspective when you’re reading the guide at home.

Cleverly designed to be carried in a backpack, the book is compact, lightweight, and has a mildly waterproof cover. We think it’s best used as an at-home planning tool, but you can certainly carry it with you if you wish!

Best PCT Memoir Book: The Trail Provides

The Trail Provides is one of the truest and most common sayings you will hear thru-hikers say to one another on long-distance trails. It’s something that every thru-hikers must learn through their own struggles.

It’s difficult to review a memoir without giving much of the story away. Instead of describing the details of this book, we’re going to describe who we think will like it, and who likely may not enjoy it.

This is a fascinating read for those who have not hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, and those who have never thru-hiked any long-distance trail before. It is a relatable tale of a young man fed up with the corporate world who embarks upon a soul-searching journey.

This journey is filled with struggles, and from each struggle, the author emerges with a new nugget of wisdom, a piece of truth that could only be learned through hardship. The author is honest in his vulnerability and rejoices at the compassion he finds, unexpectedly, in others. 

Those who have completed the PCT or a similar trail may be turned off by this story. The reason being that they have already lived through this tale. They have already learned these lessons, and as such may be frustrated by the author’s ignorance, especially in the beginning pages.

Though a bit soapboxy at times, the author does have some profound thoughts to share and has done well to put those thoughts into words. The story and characters outshine the trail itself.

Overall, it’s a great read. This book portrays the internal struggles of undertaking a PCT thru-hike. It doesn’t go into much detail about the actual hike or trail, but hiking the PCT is, to some, more about the people, and their own thoughts, than the dirt under their feet.

Best PCT Coffee Table Book: The Great Alone

To be frank, The Great Alone is an unorthodox choice for the best coffee table book. It’s more of a memoir which usually would be too text-heavy to really consider leaving on your coffee table. But this book is broken up into manageable bite-sized portions of text, and the images are rich and eye-catching.

The author Tim Voors was known by the trail name Van Go on the PCT, partially due to his habit of leaving his watercolor paintings at trail registers and gifting them to his fellow hikers. 

His playful watercolors are a highlight of The Great Alone. There is some impressive photography to see in this book as well, but the watercolor paintings make this book stand out from the ever-growing pile of trail memoirs on bookstore shelves.

Voors’ deep thinking and whimsical nature both shine in his writing, and they’re brought out in the design of the book as well. It’s all mixed together quite well, and makes for a fascinating read.

There are a few sections of this book that you may want to gloss over if you’ve read similar memoirs, such as Voors’ gear list, but his anecdotes and philosophical daydreams are far more enthralling than most of the rubbish you’ll come across in the bargain bin PCT memoirs.

It’s the variety of content, the author’s dichotomous mind, and the vibrant imagery that make this such an odd, but surprisingly enchanting coffee table book.

Best PCT Book to Have While Hiking: Pocket PCT

Written by three-time Pacific Crest Trail thru-hiker and co-creator of the Guthook’s Guide to the Pacific Crest Trail Paul Bodnar, the Pocket PCT is truly an expert’s guide. There are few who can claim to know the trail better than its author.

Weighing in at 4.9 ounces and measuring 5″ by 8″ by 1/4″, this book can fit inside of your pants pocket, a hipbelt pocket, or easily get lost in the void of your backpack’s primary chute.

To keep the book small, Bodnar kept out any unnecessary fluff. This is not a comprehensive guide that you want to use to study and plan your thru-hike with. For that, scroll back up to our pick for the best trail guide.

Instead, what we have here is a succinct guide containing only the most essential information that any hiker needs to know while they are hiking the trail. The Pocket PCT is a page by page playbook of the PCT’s elevation profile that is punctuated with the most important points of interest: such as water sources, tent sites, and towns.

Each chapter begins and ends with popular resupply points. The resupply points are loaded with phone numbers and addresses of vital stopping points like post offices and grocery stores.

As far as content, that’s the jist of it. This is meant to be taken and used on trail. It’s a simple and to the point quick reference guide that is essentially a physical alternative to the digital Guthook’s PCT app.

Why You Should Buy a Pacific Crest Trail Book 

Aspiring hikers will find inspiration and excitement in the memoirs and anecdotes of those who have already hiked the trail. They’ll also learn from the mistakes of others, and aspiring hikers can use trail guides to properly prepare for their own upcoming PCT journey.

Past hikers can relive the trail through the lens of another. This is even more true when many years have gone by when much of a thru-hiker’s own experiences may have been lost to the sands of time. Reading another hiker’s story can rekindle a lost love for hiking and spark memories that haven’t been thought about in years.

Those that lack the ability for one reason or another to actually hike the trail can get close to the experience by flipping through the pages of prose that privileged backpackers put together.

Tips and Features to Consider

There are a few important considerations to think through before purchasing a PCT book.

• Memoir, guide book, or coffee table book. First, you must decide which style of book you want to read. Guide books are specific tools filled with highly-detailed trail logistics that help hikers plan for their hikes. Coffee table books are usually photo-heavy tomes filled with beautiful images, but aren’t often rich with written content. Memoirs are stories of the trail as told through the eyes of the author reflecting upon their own personal journey.
• Publication date. More important for guide books than the other book styles, the publication date is a good indication of how dated the material is. Books that are a decade old may reference places that no longer exist, sections of trail that have been moved, or use inaccurate mileage.
• Perspective. Perspective is important because it gives you an indication of the story that is being told. Most PCT memoirs and trail guides are written by young fit white men who have privileged and ambitious trail experiences that will be much different from those shared by lesser represented groups. This can affect the story, but it can also have major effects on how a guidebook is written.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need a guide book to hike the PCT?

Although it is a good idea to read a guide book before hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail, it is certainly not required. Many people use apps like Gaia GPS or Guthook’s Guide to The Pacific Crest Trail rather than read a guide book.

Do PCT memoirs tell you everything you need to know about the trail?

PCT memoirs tend to give a solid representation of the mental and physical struggles of the trail, but they usually don’t offer much in the way of logistics. You’d put yourself in a better position to hike the PCT if you read a guide book as well as a memoir or two.

What books should I read if I liked Wild?

If you liked Wild and want to experience similar stories, check out our list of Pacific Crest Trail memoirs below. A fantastic one that is similar to Wild’s story, but told from a male perspective, is The Trail Provides, our top memoir pick.

Has Cheryl Strayed written PCT books other than Wild?

Cheryl Strayed has not written a PCT book other than Wild, but she did write a lengthy introduction that can be read in our top overall pick, The Pacific Crest Trail: Exploring America’s Wilderness Trail.

More Great Pacific Crest Trail Books

We’ve listed 15 more books about the Pacific Crest Trail that we think you’ll love. Though they didn’t receive a top recommendation, they’re still great reads and come highly recommended by readers.

Jump to:

• Pacific Crest Trail Coffee Table Books
• Pacific Crest Trail Guide Books
• Pacific Crest Trail Memoirs

Pacific Crest Trail Coffee Table Books

Pacific Crest Trail Guide Books

Pacific Crest Trail Memoirs