May 12, 20221 min read

The Continental Divide Hikers are in route – and many will visit Anaconda!

The CDT:

3100 miles between the borders of Mexico and Canada
Five states: New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana
Takes approximately five months
Southern terminus – Crazy Cook Monument or Lordsburg. NM – typically start April-May
Northern terminus - Glacier National Park at Waterton Lake or Chief Mountain border crossing – typically start in June

Map from USDA Forest Service

Who does this? Thanks to a CDT survey done and reported by halfwayanywhere.com about the 2021 class, we know some things about these adventurers:

Gender: Male – 62.3%; Female - 34.4%
Age: 30-34 @ 31.03% followed by 25-29 @ 25%. Average age is 35. Cool to know that 3.45% are 60-69 and 1% of the total are over 70!
Education: 22.4% have advanced degrees; 50.7% have a Bachelors degree; 21.8% have some college education or an Associate Degree
Geographic representation: 9 different countries - USA leads 91.3%; 41 different states - Colorado the highest at 14.1%

Photo credit Zach Vanderplate

Other interesting facts about the 2021 class:

17.3% are first-time hikers
50.9% began the hike alone
In 2021, 37.9% of first-time hikers began the hike alone
Most difficult section: Colorado @ 80.3%
Easiest Section: New Mexico @ 67.9%
80% of those who started finished the hike
Most prevalent reason for not finishing the hike: injury @ 38.2% and most often incurred in Colorado @ 41.7%

So how are they able to take so much time to do this hike? And what kinds of things do they experience along the way? See all survey results at: https://www.halfwayanywhere.com/trails/continental-divide-trail/cdt-survey-2021/

It won't be long before the 2022 CDT class starts arriving in Anaconda! Let's welcome them!