Hiking solo, Brian “The Ambassador” Esch plans to complete the last of his 2,650 miles and reach the end of the Pacific Crest Trail by Oct. 1 — but he’s not alone.

Esch, 30, of Sparks, Nevada, started his trek May 24 and is among the growing throng of people hiking the PCT. At a popular pit stop early on the trail in Southern California, Esch said, he was the 1,083rd person to sign in this spring.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Esch, who stopped in Bend on Thursday to pick up a new jacket, munch a burger and down some local brews before returning to his trek .

Hikers covering 500 miles or more of the PCT register for long-haul permits, with the vast majority of “thru-hikers” like Brian starting at the U.S.-Mexico border near Campo, California, and heading north. The Pacific Crest Trail Association waits until later in the year to release permit numbers for the hiking season, but Jack Haskel, trail information specialist for the Sacramento, California-based nonprofit, said there’s been 30 percent or more issued this year than last year.

In recent years, the association reports on its website that it has issued more than 1,800 permits each year to people planning a single trip of more than 500 miles.

Social media, newspaper articles and documentaries all have contributed to the surge in popularity, with one account of the trail in particular amplifying the increased interest. “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,” the 2012 book by Portland-based author Cheryl Strayed, a New York Times best-seller and the first book in Oprah’s Book Club 2.0, continues to stoke curiosity about the PCT. The autobiography tells how Strayed used a 1,000-mile hike on the trail to heal personal wounds from the death of her mother and the end of her first marriage. She hiked from the Mojave Desert to the Columbia River.

“Word is getting out about how great the PCT is,” Haskel said.

The “‘Wild’ effect,” as folks familiar with the trail call it, should only expand with “Wild” coming out as a movie starring Reese Witherspoon late this year.

“I think it is going to add a lot of pressure to it,” Esch said.

Long trail

The Pacific Crest Trail runs from the border with Mexico to the Canadian border, crossing California, Oregon and Washington. Along the way, the national scenic trail passes through the Mojave Desert, the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades, including the Three Sisters, Mount Washington and Mount Jefferson wilderness areas near Bend.

In all, the trail passes through 26 national forests, seven national parks, five state parks and three national monuments, according to the Pacific Crest Trail Association. First proposed in 1926, Congress designated the PCT, as well as its East Coast counterpart, the Appalachian Trail, as one of the first national scenic trails in 1968.

For hikers, the long-haul permit for the PCT allows them passage through sensitive areas in all of those forests, parks and monuments.

Hackel said there are ongoing conversations about how to sustain this increasing level of use without degrading the trail. Although possibilities include more education, regulation and even permit limits, there isn’t a specific proposal being considered.

“At this point there isn’t really a clear picture of what the right number of people on the trail is or what the impacts could be,” he said.

Total user numbers, including people out on day hikes, runs or backpack trips through a section of the trail, are unknown and could number in the millions.

“The PCT is so long that it is hard to get a picture of what the situation really is,” Hackel said.

Volunteers’ view

Haskel and Lloyd “Gusto” Gust, 90, of Bend, said the popularity of the PCT has grown over the past two decades and keeps growing. Gust served as a “trail angel” for about 20 years before hanging up his wings last year.

“Twenty years ago it was maybe a hundred thru-hikers (per year) and that’s gone up to a couple of thousand thru-hikers,” he said.

Trail angels volunteer their time, offer their homes and maybe even pour beers to help PCT hikers along on their journey. While Gust last year stopped driving out to the PCT trailheads west of Bend to pick up hikers, he was still involved this year with connecting hikers with people willing to lend them a hand.

He started offering support before the era of smartphones and social networks. Hikers used to pass Gust’s phone number and word of his kindness down the trail via word of mouth.

Having hiked the entire PCT himself, Gust is a champion for it and said it brings money into Bend. When hikers hit Central Oregon they are often due for a new tent, perhaps a sleeping bag or a stove, and they frequently end up buying that in Bend.

While there’s been an increase in hikers in recent years, Gust said he didn’t see an increase in demand for his help. He credits this to the technology and the new ways people stay connected to the outside world while hiking the trail.

This hasn’t been the case for all of the volunteers. Esch told tales of trail angels near the southern start of the PCT overwhelmed by the “herd,” or large crowd of hikers who begin their trek around the same time in late April. Think of a cross-country race, where racers start as a big bunch and only become separated after a couple of miles.

One place about 200 miles into the trail that once saw an average of about five or 10 people a day had crowds of about 50 or 60 a day this spring, Esch said. That’s where he signed in as hiker number 1,083.

PCT hikers live by mottoes, including “Hike your own hike” and “The trail provides,” he said. Those can be hard to follow when there’s such a crowd.

The herd has spread out and thinned by the time the hikers pass through Central Oregon, but the increased popularity of the PCT was noticeable this summer.

“We’ve seen tons and tons of people coming through on the trail,” said Abby Schoonover, marketing director at Elk Lake Resort. Only about a mile from the PCT, the resort west of Bend along the Cascade Lakes Highway is a popular place for hikers to stop, collect a resupply package and possibly grab a meal that isn’t freeze-dried .

In the middle of August about 10 people per day came off the trail to the resort, she said.

Like Hackel, Schoonover said the growing popularity of the PCT stems from more and more people hearing about it , with information passed through blogs and books. She also mentioned “Wild.”

“I think that people are more aware of it than they used to be,” she said. “There are people coming from all around he world to do it — people just know about it.”

Help wanted

Talk of the increased popularity of the PCT quickly turns to the need for more volunteers to maintain the trail and serve as trail angels.

Already Dana Hendricks, Columbia Cascades regional representative for the Pacific Crest Trail Association, is seeing some impacts of more people on the trail, particularly the creation of new trailside campsites.

“And people pooping everywhere, frankly,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know how to bury their poop properly.”

She expects to see more wear and tear in coming years.

Hendricks guides volunteer trail maintenance along 450 miles of the trail, between Windigo Pass in Oregon near Crescent Lake and White Pass in Washington near Packwood. The stretch crosses through Central Oregon. There’s a crew of roughly 50 people who have adopted about 10-mile portions of the trail in the stretch and they coordinate projects with hundreds of volunteers.

Projects include backcountry trips on which volunteers hike in for a week, carrying trail-maintenance tools and supplies in by mule, Hendricks said.

While most of the week is work, the middle day is an off-day for people to enjoy part of the PCT.

Taking over as the main trail angel in Central Oregon for Gust, Brian “Uber Ducky” Douglass, 65, of Bend, also said he needs help.

It would be “nice to have 10 to 12 people” volunteering, he said. Hikers call him “Uber Ducky” because of how he expresses his loyalty to the Oregon Ducks, including his green 1987 Plymouth Reliant with a yellow racing stripe. Trail angels and hikers earn nicknames, like “The Ambassador” and “Gusto,” from others in the PCT community. Douglass said he helped about 50 people as a trail angel this summer.

They include Esch, whom Douglass picked up Thursday afternoon from Santiam Pass and brought into Bend. He returned him there Thursday night so he could get a good start on his hike Friday morning.

Out on the trail, Esch said, hikers aren’t talking about how many people are there or why they are on their treks. He said 90 percent of the conversation is about gear, with other popular topics including where to find water and how many miles they’ve covered in the day.

“(For) the thru-hikers it is kind of unsaid,” Esch said. “We are here because we are here.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7812, ddarling@bendbulletin.com