Here's your chance to sample life on six spectacular trails in North America with your guide, Emmy® award-winning filmmaker Mick Davie. Each trail holds rich secrets of American history and stories of the people who traveled them. You'll learn about different terrains, climates, and a host of incredible wildlife. America's Great Trails is a feast for your senses that can help you rediscover your connection to the natural world.
America’s Great Trails
Take a hike! Travel off the beaten path as you join acclaimed outdoorsman and documentary filmmaker Mick Davie along six of America's most beloved and beautiful trails.
Overview
About
Michael Davie is a journalist, documentary filmmaker, and avid outdoorsman who has been chasing dramatic, real-life stories for more than 20 years, from the glaciers of Denali to the front lines of the Balkans and the Middle East. His work has earned widespread recognition, including an Australian Film Institute Award for his feature documentary The Choir and Emmy Awards for the National Geographic films War Child and Gorilla Murders. For the film Liberia: American Dream?, he and his team received the prestigious Edward R. Murrow and duPont-Columbia Awards. He also cocreated and codirected the landmark series Belief, hosted by Oprah Winfrey.
Trailer
01: Pacific Crest Trail
Explore the Pacific Crest Trail—an extraordinary route that stretches 2,650 miles from the deserts of Southern California on the Mexico border all the way to the Canadian border in Washington state. Mick provides a plethora of practical tips about common risks and dangers, what essentials to pack, when to hike, and where to start. You’ll also hear the history of the trail and discover scenic points and destinations that can’t be missed.
30 min
02: Hayduke Trail
Journey with Mick along the hazardous 800-mile backcountry route of the Hayduke Trail. The red rock canyons and high desert of the Colorado Plateau in southern Utah and northern Arizona produce some of the most arid, inhospitable—yet strangely beautiful—scenery on Earth. While Mick provides tips for everything you need to make this a safe, fun, and manageable trip, he also clues you in about cinematic spots along the route, where scenes from the movies Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Thelma & Louise were filmed.
25 min
03: Pacific Northwest Trail
Travel one of the most scenic and rugged long-distance trails in the world—the 1,200-mile Pacific Northwest Trail. It runs from Montana’s Glacier National Park on the Canadian border, west through Idaho and Washington state, ending along the shore of the Pacific Ocean at Cape Alava—the westernmost point in the United States. Hikers will climb more than 205,000 feet, which is more than seven Mount Everests. And as Mick points out, no other trail on Earth can take you from wolves and bears to seals and whales.
25 min
04: Continental Divide Trail
At 3,100 miles, the Continental Divide Trail is the second-longest National Scenic Trail in the United States, and arguably the most rugged, remote, and hazardous of them all. Running from the Apache country of the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico and ending in Glacier National Park on Canada’s border, it’s a journey that takes five to six months and only about 60% of thru-hikers make it all the way. Mick shares the wild stories and history of this arduous yet uniquely scenic trail and gives you practical tips to stay safe and comfortable as you hike.
26 min
05: Great Allegheny Passage
Join Mick for a change of pace as you explore the Great Allegheny Passage—a mostly flat hiking trail from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cumberland, Maryland, commonly known as “The GAP.” At just 150 miles, it’s a journey along rivers and streams, through tunnels and over bridges, moving from an urban industrial landscape to a small town rural one. Travel along as Mick shares stories of the founding of America and the rise of the coal- and steel-driven industrial age to the passing of that era to the region’s rebirth and regeneration as an outdoor destination for hikers and other enthusiasts.
28 min
06: Appalachian Trail
Mick takes you on the Kentucky Derby of triple crown hikes, the most famous and popular long-distance hiking trail in North America—and quite possibly the entire world—the Appalachian Trail (AT). Passing through 14 states, following the ridges and contours of the Appalachian Mountains, this epic trail stretches roughly 2,190 miles, from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine. As you travel along with Mick, marveling at the gorgeous scenery and landscapes, you’ll hear the story of how the AT came into being and was built in under seven years using volunteer labor and you’ll get to hike the 13-mile stretch of intense ups and downs known as “The Roller Coaster.”
29 min
