Garmin-compatible GPX files for the official 2025 Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) route

Thanks to Galen Keily and everyone at PCTA for their hard work and extraordinary contributions to our trail community! We would be lost (literally!) without them. All of the data and files on this page are based on the official PCTA files located on the PCTA's official data and download page and PCT Data Share Public for 2025, specifically the master file titled Full-PCT.geojson. 

In past years, users have had trouble uploading the official PCTA gpx files to their Garmin devices (Inreach, watch, etc.) and 3rd party navigation apps for a variety of reasons, usually related to the size of the files, sometimes due to the actual file size (Mb) and other times more to do with the number of points (latitude/longitude) contained in the files. Two standard solutions are to split the complete PCT file into smaller files (i.e., regions or PCT sections) and/or lower the resolution (and file size) by discarding some of the latitude/longitude points within the files. In extreme cases, each PCT section could be represented by one start point and one endpoint, resulting in a tiny file. As you add location points, you achieve a much more accurate route, necessarily a longer route (in miles) and a larger file size. Conversely, you could work with a file that is so accurate and large that your target Garmin device or navigation app crashes when you try to upload/import it. The trick is to find your happy place with a gpx file that is accurate and small enough for your use case. Different individual people and different individual devices will have different happy places so there is no one size fits all. With this in mind, I have generated many variations, including different route lengths (section, region, full PCT) and different file resolutions (1=low resolution small file, 9=high resolution large file).

Are you experiencing any of these problems?

If so, consider using a smaller route length and/or lower resolution gpx files.

Note: the official PCTA data and all the files on this page are for NOBO hikers, but most devices and apps allow you to reverse the route very quickly to support SOBO hikers.

GPX files generated from PCTA master data

You can find 315 gpx files here to meet your individual needs. The filename for each file contains essential information, including the route it includes, the resolution of the file, and the resulting route length in miles. Remember that the overall route length gets shorter each time you subtract points from a file. For California section A, the highest resolution file (9) is more than 3MB and has 46k points, representing 107 miles. The lowest resolution file for this segment is only 88Kb and has 1k points representing 99 miles. 

Files already uploaded to Garmin

I have already uploaded all the individual section files to Garmin in resolution 6, which is my personal sweet spot. These files may or may not align with your needs, but if they do, the following links may save you a lot of time. Simply click the link below and then select "Sync to device."