Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off

They say all good things must come to an end, and so it is with Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off. This year, as we have for the past 17 years, the ADZPCTKO organizers will gather at Lake Morena County Park to greet hikers passing through, offer them a cold (or hot, depending on the weather) beverage, and some advice from those who have been there before. But we won't have the trappings that have come to define kick off in recent years: hot meals served to hundreds...Continue reading

We know you've been waiting for word about this year's ADZPCTKO so you could make your plans to attend. We apologize for the delay, but here's what has been going on: For various reasons, we didn't have a contract for use of the park until early February. That didn't give us enough time to plan the type of educational and fun event that we've become known for, so we've decided to take a year off. We're going to spend a lot of time in the coming months planning and retooling ...ADZPCTKO for 2017. We welcome your suggestions. I'm sorry we won't see you at Lake Morena this April, but perhaps we'll run into you on the trail this summer. Have a great hike!

Greetings Pacific Crest Trail Community! This is an official update regarding ADZPCTKO 2016! We realize that we are releasing the dates of the kick off later than we have in recent years. Primarily, our reasoning is twofold: 1) The campsite reservation system for the County of San Diego underwent a major revision in the last year and we are now required to have a contract with the county in order to hold our event at Lake Morena Campground. They have experienced a series of... setbacks, which have prevented us from receiving the contract in a timely manner. We reserved the campground for the event long ago, but are STILL waiting for the final contract from the county so we can begin to negotiate the terms. We have been assured that we will receive the contract soon, but until that happens, we can’t go forward with key things (renting equipment; lining up food service; notifying vendors, potential presenters, and attendees, etc.) We had hoped to have a contract in hand before making any announcement, but since we have been getting so many inquiries, we are letting you know what’s happening now. 2) In the past, we have not announced the details of the event until fairly late in the season because we want to encourage hikers to plan their start dates independent of the KO. The PCTA’s implementation of the permit quota has helped to spread out the herd and we would like to do our part by encouraging you to use our ride share board on the ADZ website to find a ride back to the KO from wherever you are on the trail. It has been used quite successfully in past years. Please keep in mind that the ADZPCTKO is put on entirely by volunteerswho also have full time lives outside of this event. We work very hard to put on a great weekend for the hikers, and could certainly use more help. If you are interested in joining our gang, please let us know and we will add you to our email list! Thanks for your patience. We will post updates regularly (at least once a week) whether we have new information or not The ADZPCTKO Organizers.

One day only! Turns out that we have a few cabin and camp spaces left, so registration has reopened for today (Saturday, April 4) only. Links to the appropriate registration page are at the top of the home page www.adzpctko.org

Confirmation emails have gone out to everyone who registered for a campsite or cabin. Check them out and be sure we got your information right.