Josh Garrett is an American athlete, hiker and veganism activist. In 2013 he set a world record for the overall fastest known time for a thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, which traverses the American Cordillera of the United States from Campo, at the Mexican border, to Manning Park in British Columbia.
Garrett was born in Los Angeles in 1982. He attended and competed for Santa Monica College in 2001, placing in the state's top 10 for the 1500-meter run. He has a Master's Degree in Exercise Science from Long Beach State University [1] and works as an exercise physiology teacher and cross country coach at Santa Monica College. [2]
In 2013 Garrett broke the record for the overall fastest known time for a thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, [3] which traverses the West Coast of the United States from Campo, at the Mexican border, to Manning Park in British Columbia. Garrett started the 2663 mile hike on June 10, 2013, and finished on August 8, achieving the record with a time of 59 days, 8 hours and 14 minutes, [4] averaging 45 miles per day. [5] He was the first person to hike the trail in under 60 days. [6] He held the record for the fastest known time until August 10, 2014. [7]
Garrett hiked to raise money for the charity group Mercy for Animals, [8] his hike being described in the press as a "mission" for the animals. [9] In media interviews about his record Garrett spoke mostly about his cause. [10] He told National Public Radio, "We don’t need to eat meat or any animal products in order to be healthy or in order to be strong, and I just wanted to go out there and prove that -- and I hope I did.” [11] When the Los Angeles radio station, KNX, named Garrett their "hero of the week," Garrett said in the segment, "I did it to raise awareness that this sort of feat of endurance could be powered by a vegan diet… No matter how hard it was I just kept reminding myself that what I was going through was nothing compared to what animals are going through on factory farms." [12]
The Appalachian Trail, also called the A.T., is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost 2,200 miles (3,540 km) between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy claims the Appalachian Trail to be the world's longest hiking-only trail. More than three million people hike segments of it each year.
The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), officially designated as the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, is a long-distance hiking and equestrian trail closely aligned with the highest portion of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, which lie 100 to 150 miles east of the U.S. Pacific coast. The trail's southern terminus is next to the Mexico–United States border, just south of Campo, California, and its northern terminus is on the Canada–US border, upon which it continues unofficially to the Windy Joe Trail within Manning Park in British Columbia; it passes through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington.
The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail is a United States National Scenic Trail with a length measured by the Continental Divide Trail Coalition of 3,028 miles (4,873 km) between the U.S. border with Chihuahua, Mexico and the border with Alberta, Canada. Frequent route changes and a large number of alternate routes result in an actual hiking distance of 2,700 miles (4,300 km) to 3,150 miles (5,070 km). The CDT follows the Continental Divide of the Americas along the Rocky Mountains and traverses five U.S. states — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. In Montana near the Canadian border the trail crosses Triple Divide Pass.
The John Muir Trail (JMT) is a long-distance trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, passing through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. It is named after John Muir, a naturalist.
The Colorado Trail is a long-distance trail running for 486 miles (782 km) from the mouth of Waterton Canyon southwest of Denver to Durango in Colorado, United States. Its highest point is 13,271 feet (4,045 m) above sea level, and most of the trail is above 10,000 feet (3,000 m). Despite its high elevation, the trail often dips below the alpine timberline to provide refuge from the exposed, storm-prone regions above.
Scott Gordon Jurek is an American ultramarathoner, author, and public speaker. Throughout his running career, Jurek was one of the most dominant ultramarathon runners in the world, winning the Hardrock Hundred (2007), the Badwater Ultramarathon, the Spartathlon, and the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run (1999–2005). In 2010, at the 24-Hour World Championships in Brive-la-Gaillarde, France, Jurek won a silver medal behind Shingo Inoue and set a new US record for distance run in 24 hours with 165.7 miles. In 2015, Jurek set the Fastest Known Time running record for the 2,189-mile Appalachian Trail.
MegaTransect was the name for a project conducted in Africa in 1999 by J. Michael Fay to spend 465 days on the expedition hike of 2,000 miles across the Congo Basin of Africa to survey the ecological and environmental status of the region.
Thru-hiking, or through-hiking, is the act of hiking an established long-distance trail end-to-end continuously.
Scott Williamson is an American thru-hiker, most noted for being the first person to complete a continuous one-season round trip of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). He is also noted for his speed records for hiking the PCT.
The Triple Crown of Hiking refers to hiking the entire length of three major U.S. National Scenic trails:
Jennifer Pharr Davis is a long distance hiker from the United States of America who serves on the President's Council for Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. She has been called "the Serena Williams of long distance hiking" by Baratunde Thurston and is also an author, speaker, National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, and Ambassador for the American Hiking Society. She has hiked over 14,000 miles on six different continents, including thru-hikes on the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, the Colorado Trail, the Long Trail in Vermont, the Bibbulmun Track in Australia, and numerous trails in Europe and South America (e.g., the Tour du Mont Blanc, West Highland Way, Laugavegur, GR 11, GR 20, and the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, Cotahuasi Canyon and the Inca Trail.
Francis Tapon is an author, global nomad, and public speaker. He has walked across the United States four times via its three major mountain ranges. He also walked across Spain twice. He was the first person to do a round-trip backpacking the Continental Divide Trail. In addition, he thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and Appalachian Trail southbound. He has traveled to over 100 countries of the world. Lastly, he is the author of the self-help travelogue Hike Your Own Hike and the travel narrative The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us. He traveled to all 54 African countries from 2013 to 2018 and climbed to the highest point of 50 of those countries. In 2019, he was inducted into the California Outdoors Hall of Fame.
The Great Western Loop is a hiking route that is 6,875 miles (11,064 km) long, and passes through several states of the western United States.
The Tahoe–Yosemite Trail (TYT) is a long-distance trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. The trail courses 186 miles (299 km) from Meeks Bay at Lake Tahoe to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park. The trail is a foot and equestrian path that passes through the Desolation, Mokelumne, Carson-Iceberg, Emigrant, and Yosemite Wilderness Areas and the Meiss Country (Dardanelles) Roadless Area.
Timothy Olson is an American ultra-runner who was the former recordholder for the Pacific Crest Trail in 51 days, 16 hours and 55 minutes. He won the Western States 100 in 2012 and 2013, including the former course record of 14 hours, 46 minutes and 44 seconds in 2012.
The Oregon Skyline Trail is a long-distance trail in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. The trail extends 428 miles (689 km) from Cascade Locks on the Columbia River south to Siskiyou Summit near the Oregon-California border. The century-old trail is a foot and equestrian path that passes through nine wilderness areas, Crater Lake National Park, and Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Historically known as the Oregon Skyline Trail or Skyline Trail, the entire length of the trail was incorporated into the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail in 1968.
Elizabeth Thomas is a thru-hiking champion and former women's unassisted speed record holder for the 2,181-mile (3,510 km) Appalachian Trail. She holds the hiking "Triple Crown," having completed the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail. She is the pioneer of the Chinook Trail in Washington and the Wasatch Range in Utah. She is Vice President of the American Long Distance Hiking Association-West, an ambassador for the American Hiking Society, and an outdoors writer for Wirecutter, a New York Times publication. She is also Editor-in-Chief of Treeline Review, a hiking gear publication. As of 2018, she completed 20 long-distance wilderness hikes.
Jennifer Mabus is an American YouTuber and hiker. She spent 173 days thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail solo in 2018, filming every day of the journey, and posting vlogs to her YouTube channel covering every day of the journey as she hiked. She competed collegiately in cheerleading for the Nevada Wolf Pack.
The Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation and management of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, a 2,650-mile hiking and equestrian trail in the western United States that runs through California, Oregon, and Washington. The southern terminus is in Campo, California at the Mexican border approximately 50 miles east of San Diego. The northern terminus is at the US–Canadian border at E.C. Manning Provincial Park, which lies just north of the border between Washington and British Columbia.
Bart Smith is an outdoor photographer who concentrates on documenting America's National Trails System. Over the course of more than 25 years, he became the first person to hike and photograph all of the 11 national scenic trails and to traverse all of the 19 national historic trails. The 30 national trails go through all 50 states, with a total mileage of more than 50,000 miles.