Welcome to Trail Angel Central – Your GO TO site for Trail Angels and Hikers to Connect for Success!

We hope you find this site to be useful and inspirational for both the hiker and trail angel (or future Trail Angel).

We have learned so much in the last 3 years while we have developed this resource site to simply –” Help connect Hikers and Trail Angels for Success”. We have kept the mission of this site wide open to promote trail angeling for hikers world wide and to promote any type of angeling services from easy hitches and magic to hosting and logistics.

Everyday we connect with both hikers and other trail angels and the same basic issue appears which is – How do we find each other? – How to Angels find hikers and how do hikers find Trail Angels. This website has a set of resources to help list trail angels and trail angel groups as well as information for trail angels on how to be better discovered by hikers!

It is designed to have pages for a specific trail and resources for that trail. The website has more generic information about how to become an efficient and more helpful trail angel that can lead to a trail angel success too!

Below are updates by the organizers about events, activities and observations.

Update December 2025

The First Annual Trail Angel Central conference is now being developed and we need your help! We have decided to hold the event around the weekend of May 29th 2026 in Pinecrest, California. Please visit the Events page on this website for some preliminary information about the event. If you wish to be involved in the planning of this event, there is contact information at the end of the page to connect and be helpful planner for this exciting event. Attendees, sponsors, trail angels and hikers are all encouraged to stay engage by joining the mailing list where future update of this event will be posted as well as other trail angel groups all over the world!

Happy Holidays and wishing everyone a happy 2026 hiking year!

TAC Organizers

Update August 2025

The latest Trail Angel Newsletter 2025 just went out and available here.

The important item for this newsletter is the future creating and planning of the TrailAngelCentral conference. Here are the details outlined in the newsletter

One of my long term goals for this organization is to create an in-person event where we gather the best of minds, energy and ideas about trail angeling in one place to collectively define and create / document best practices for the trail angeling community world-wide.  Why limit ourselves to one trail, or one country when this concept of trail angeling is a world wide activity that we can benefit from sharing and collaborating on challenges, ideas and solutions on a global intuition.

Trail angeling is an such a wide open activity that continues to grow and expand world wide to support long distance thru hikers on their adventures.  The advent of social media and other communication mediums has allowed for this activity that connects hikers and trail angels to grow and enhance the thru hiker experiences.  Trail Angeling has been done for hikers since hiking began but now it has moved to a well defined part of the trail experience while also providing rewarding human connections for many trail angels.  

Like any activity and interactions of humans, there are best practices for a more optimal and sustainable experiences for everyone.  The trail communities and cultures continue to evolve and change with more hikers and other influences like commercialization of trail services or trail organizations defining and directing trail angeling.
All of these can impact and now limit, or modify trail angeling opportunities in trail communities.

A goal for Trail Angel Central in 2025/2026 time frame is to create an in-person Trail Angel Central “Conference” event somewhere TBD.  At this event, the following loose set goals of could be achieved.

• Create a strategic plan with mission statement and general goals and action plan for Trail Angel Central organization
• Offer inspirational sharing and collaborating sessions with Trail angels and hikers offering best practices and sharing of ideas.
• Documenting best practices and inspirational stories for release on the website and future newsletters
• Educating trail angels and hikers of the vast differences and unique challenges that each trail community experiences and what solutions and best practices they have implemented.
• Helping educate trail angels and hikers that trail organizations (PCTA, ATC, Colorado Trail, etc )  do have completely different approaches for supporting and general respect for trail angels and their participation in the trail community. 
• Creating a best practices guide for Trail Angels and guides for how hikers can best support trail angels for sustainable experiences too.
• Reviewing, understanding and creating a strategy to counter the commercialization of trail community services at the expense of replacing trail angels offerings.
• New topics, ideas and experiences that trail angels have weathered thru and came to solutions that are valuable to future trail angels in other trail communities.
• Offer some affirmation to trail angels that their services are beneficial, important, valuable to the trail communities as well as the intrinsic value in human to human sharing that is an activity worthy of defending.
• Enjoy time with fellow trail angels and potentially develop new connections that encourages travel to each others trail communities and offerings.
• Other ideas created by event planners.

Trail Angel Central has spent about 3 years both hiking and trail angeling in trail communities throughout the world to better understand trail angel communities progressions, evolution and challenges.   We have met directly and connected with other trail organizations like the Arizona Trail that have a multi-trail  – trail  angel perspective that is helpful when developing best practices.    Hopefully a conference like this one would be a place to explore, expand and preserve, and create some best practices around trail angeling world wide.

We need your help in planning and creating such an event.  If you would like to propose an event place, dates, venue, or other logistical themes or other goals, please contact Trail Angel Central at TrailAngelCentral@gmail.oom.   Initially I might anticipate the event might be scaled for 30-100 persons.  It should be designed as national (USA) event (versus a specific trail conference) but could also be offered to those internationally who wish to attend too.  There is so much to be learned by hearing about trail angeling in other trail communities to help create best practices.  We look forward to your ideas, suggestions and energies to create at Trail Angel Central Conference for 25/2026!

Update July 2025

The PCT Nobo (northbound) bubble continues to come to the Sonora Pass Trail Angel cabin in Pinecrest. One night we had 20 hikers and we knew the other trail angel offering 1 mile away had 12 hikers the same night. We always ask hikers how they find Trail Angels and most are not aware of this centralized trail angel resource for the PCT. Most still use Far out comments as their goto resource for finding trail angel rides and hosting. This is why we encourage Trail Angels to read our website page about becoming an effective trail angel and getting general knowledge of how hikers typically seek trail angel assistance. The other method is Trail Angel Facebook groups but many hikers DO NOT want to be on facebook and miss those connection options.

The Sonora Pass – Pinecrest/Strawberry trail angel offerings continue to grow and many more hikers are now using these longer hitch locations as a resupply and zero option. As with many trail crossings and towns, hikers find newly added trail towns to the far out map and see other options besides the 1-2 original town options options primarily to the East on Hwy 395. The addition of the new Sonora Pass Trail Angel Facebook group now helps to get rides and hitches to new towns and options. The good news is that more and more trail angels are getting involved, connected and help when they can. Locals have a better understanding of who the PCT hikers are and what needs they might have. Public transportation in this part of the Sierras on the 108 highway is basically zero so trail angels and hitches and informed residents all to make it work.

This summer I’ve assisted a few hikers with food/weight loss issues and other injuries on the trail who require longer stays. Lodging at motels for a week can be very expensive while you recover from an injury and many hikers are limited budgets.

Update June 18, 2025

Hikers are appearing now at Sonora pass as larger number of PCT hikers and arriving at our Trail Angel Cabin in Pinecrest.

Update – May 30, 2025 – We are now back in Pinecrest California and preparing the Trail Angel Cabin for hosting of Pacific Crest Hikers starting around June 1st. We look forward to a fun and rewarding PCT hiker season of NOBO and SOBOs that get to Sonora Pass / Hwy 108 / Kennedy Meadows North road crossing. Just today a fire on Hwy 395 has started the fire season early this year so trail angels may be busy assisting hikers around fires and other issues that are critical for hiker safety and success.

Update – May 2nd 2025 – We are now hiking the AT and also doing Mobile Trail Angeling on the Appalachian Trail in Tennessee. We have met some incredible mobile trail angels and learning more about the offerings and challenges of Trail Angeling on the AT.

The AT has a large and growing set of paid services from hostels, shuttle services and hotels to serve the large AT hiking community. There exists some issues between the paid shuttle services and the hostels and the trail angels offering competing services for free or donations. Trail magic is still widely offered and does not compete with the paid services.

If anyone on the AT or other trails has researched or documented how to handle these contention issues between TA’s and paid service providers for hostels and shuttles. Has there ever been a court case between a Trail angel and a paid service provider? Trail angels here have experience some push back from vendors and are less likely to publish their information for offering free rides or free/donation based hosting.

Please contact Trail Angel Central by email if you have experience or wish to write something about this issue that help provide clarity and assistance in this issue.

Update – April 19th 2025 – We have added a trail spreadsheet for the CDT! If you wish to help manage this spreadsheet, please contact us or simply start to fill in trail angel notes as you wish to start to populate this spreadsheet of CDT Trail angels!

Update – April 4th 2025 – We are not in California at the Pinecrest Cabin to serve any PCT hikers yet, but we certainly wanted folks to know that this site is here to list many PCT Trail Angel resources and other Trail Angels on other trails now too!

Please click on the various tabs to find your trail and lists of Facebook trail angel groups and other resources.

We are always looking for others to help keep the Trail Angel list pages up to date to allow co-editors and contributors. If you find additional new Facebook Trail Angel Groups, please let us know so we can update that page for 2025 with the new groups or groups that have changed in the last year.

Update – August 3rd 2024

We are back at the Pinecrest Cabin after spending a week hiking a 80 mile section of the John Muir Trail and also driving to Oregon to visit my daughter. On the way to Oregon we did a few days of “Mobile Trail Angeling” where we followed the Pacific Crest Trail route on nearby highways and offers rides and other logistics for hikers. Our timing and location was perfect as numerous, large fires had just occurred in Northern California and 109 miles of the PCT was closed forcing hundreds of PCT hikers to get off the trail and get around fire closures mostly with the help of well organized Trail Angel /Facebook groups. Northern California has several Facebook Trail Angel group pages where hikers are often successful getting rides into town and out of fire and smoke areas. Some Trail Angel organizers in the Nor Cal area have also started a new tradition of local Trail Angel Facebook group members meeting in person at the beginning of the season to meet and plan for the coming season of hikers.

These meetings have been crucial to develop the coordinated effort that was needed to provide rides for hundreds of PCT hikers caught in the fire and smoke area of the trail.

Update July 3, 2024 –

The PCT hikers are starting to come thru the Sonora Pass area and working their way down to our Trail Angel Cabin in Pinecrest.

Update – June 29, 2024

We finished the first 330 miles of the AT and now back in California to start offering a trail angel cabin in the Sierras in Pinecrest, CA starting June 29, 2024. If you are hiking the PCT in 2024 and wish to contact, please call us at 650 793-0475.

Update- June 2nd 2024 – We are on the AT trail ready to start hiking and researching that trail community and methods that hikers and trail angels use to connect!

We are starting on June 2nd, 2024 from the Springer area of the trail and look forward to connecting with many trail angels and hikers in the future. If you can host us or interested to connect and learn about our project, please contact us at shown below. Each of these trail communities are different and we are now wishing to learn about the AT trail community and document the various ways that hikers find trail angels and how angels find hikers!

We can be reached by Cell/TXT at 650 793-0475.

See you all out on the trail!

Update – March 2024

The organizers of Trail Angel Central are still off adventuring, this time in a sailboat for a few months. We encourage anybody who wants to more actively engage with hikers with this site contact us and offer to help maintain the website and database of Trail Angel lists that we now have created. We can grant Word Press editing permissions to persons interested in taking over this role during this 2024 hiking season as we are distracted to focus on Trail Angel organizing at this time. You can contact us by sending an email to TrailAngelCentral@gmail.com.

Volunteer Help Needed for:

We plan to be at our cabin in the California Sierras near Kennedy Meadows North offering trail angel services to PCT hikers later this summer. We don’t really have a backup for Trail Angel offerings in the Pinecrest area when we are not there. This mostly leaves hikers to use just the Kennedy Meadows North Resort services. We certainly encourage other angels in the Sonora Pass corridor to jump and offer trail angel services to hikers anytime!

Update January 2024 – Another year as we expand our efforts to new trails.

In the past few months we have connected with the Arizona Trail and the Florida Trail to learn about their trail angel connections and share best practices. We have learned so much from both the trail organizations and some angels. We have been able to contrast how different trail associations and organizations set and define policy and acceptance / promotion of trail angels. We will be writing a future newsletter to explain some of these discoveries. We also have done some various hikes on the Arizona Trail, CDT, and now the Florida trail.

Update – December 2023 –

Newletter #3 was just published. Here are some of the highlights”

ROAD TRIP!

Trail Angel Central organizers are off on a major road trip this winter via our built out van.  During our travels we hope to connect with several other trail angels and also provide trail angel offerings to those on our road trip path.

Route and connect plans:
We plan to travel thru southern California and then head East toward New Orleans and Florida starting in California early December 2023.  We plan to cross the southern USA and hit trail crossings and trail towns on portions of the CDT, Arizona Trail, and explore other less know trails where the some Trail Angel organizing is just getting started.   Even a smaller 100-200 mile multiple day hike trip can benefit from the generous support of trail angels.  The TrailAngelCentral.org website and mission is to help hikers and trail angels connect for both short and longer well know trails.    We also hope to connect with other trail angel organizations that have already in place on trails like the CDT and the Arizona trail and learn from their experiences and share those best practices.

Connect with us!
We would like to connect with as many Trail Angels / organizers as we travels eastward.  If you would like connect with us, please text (650) 793-0475 or email us at TrailAngelCentral@gmail.com with your names, locations and connect options and we can see how we can coordinate a meetup.  

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Update – September – 2023

Trail Angel Central Newsletter #2 was just published! Please read it HERE and also sign up to get future Newsletters to stay informed.

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We are hosting hikers at our cabin in the Sierras now. Please visit the Trail Angel Cabin website at SonoraPassTrailAngel.org website for complete details.

Pinecrest Trail Angel Cabin Open for Summer 2023

In late May 2023, we finished the first 650 miles of the PCT and headed to our cabin to host hikers. Our cabin is located in Pinecrest California, about 37 miles west of Sonora Pass / hwy 108 trail junction and about 27 miles west of Kennedy Meadows North on Hwy 108. We have hosted now about 25 hiker sand several other guests and friends and family. We can host hikers here until we get back on trail or do mobile trail angeling on the PCT.

Hikers are starting to come thru the Sierras and we hosted 9 hikers the other hike in the second week of July.

UPDATE: April 2023 –

Starting in March 2023, Trail Angel Central has increased its activities in many ways. First we have paid for the monthly business hosting so you won’t get annoying ads anymore. We have outfitted a van that we will be using while we both hike and angel on the PCT this spring and summer 2023. Look for our van on the PCT! Maybe we can offer you some magic or other Angel help!

We have already started this angeling this spring by helping provide dinners and assistance at the PCT Southern Terminus and the campground at CLEEF starting in late March until April 4th. We will be alternating hiking and angeling for Spring and Summer 2023 sharing information about the TACO project.,

Additionally, we have been engaging with many PCT hikers during evening hiker dinners at the CLEEF campground right before they start on the trail. We are encouraging all hikers and angels to help spread the word and value of TrailAngelCentral.org website.

We are encouraging Angels on Facebook to mention the TrailAngelCentral.org website as an alternative to the Facebook Angel Groups as a well to connect with hikers. Please view the new PCT and other Trail – Trail Angel pages as Angels start to enter their information to connect.

TACO???

TACO – To help folks remember Trail Angel Central, we have heard that we can be thought of as “T.A.C.O” – Trail Angel Central Organization! Please spread the word to help create and expand this valuable hiker/angel resource for all.

HELP!

We need your help! Getting trail angels to list their contact information and offerings on the spreadsheet has been challenging. We are asking both hikers and Angels to please encourage all angels to view this site and check out the various listing options available to them.

We understand that some angels don’t want to list their direct contact information in the spreadsheet. To avoid direct cell/email information, one can enter into the PCT Angel Spreadsheet their name and describe that the best way to contact them is via a specific Facebook group. If you know of other resources for angels like a list at a Hardware store, etc, feel free to enter that into the appropriate Angel spreadsheet page.

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History

This site was started in July 2022 and will be a work in progress during the summer of 2022 and beyond. We welcome your feedback to make it better. Please fill out our contact Page form to contact us for any reason. We recommend you join and get your name and email listed so we can contact you with information about trail angeling and other events that we plan to host in the future.

We look forward to getting your input to make this an excellent resource for Trail Hikers.

To achieve our goal to connect trail angels and hikers for success, we are asking everyone to please take one or both of the surveys to give feedback we can share in the future.

Website Navigation

This website is designed from day 1 to support Trail Angel and Hiker CONNECTION and success for all of the major USA hiking trail systems. Initially this will include:

PCT – AT – CDT – AZ Trail

To find and share resources for a trail, please FIRST select the Trail, then select the desired service options.