Injury is the leading way PCT hikers left the trail in 2025. Most of those injuries were overuse. Overuse is pace wearing a costume.
Among hike-ending injuries in Halfway Anywhere’s 2025 PCT survey: foot overuse 28.6%, knee 20%, plantar fasciitis 8.6%. The Trek’s 2025 AT survey is an AT hiker-report: fewer than half of respondents were injured — and broken bones still ended the hike for 71% of those who had one.
Halfway Anywhere 2025 PCT hiker survey →The Trek 2025 AT thru-hiker survey (AT hiker-report only) →- Week one is not the test. Short days, early camps, extra food. The hikers who look strong in month two often looked cautious in week one.
- Listen to the same pain twice. A hot tendon that is worse the next morning is not a tight muscle. Zero, or a short day, is cheaper than a month off.
- Strength still matters on trail. A few minutes of calf and hip work at camp is not training theater. It is how you keep the same injury from writing the rest of the hike.