Across North America and beyond, some of the most breathtaking hiking trails in existence are quietly disappearing — threatened by climate change, erosion, funding shortfalls, and shifting land use policies. Glaciers that once framed iconic routes are retreating at alarming rates, coastal paths are crumbling into rising seas, and remote wilderness corridors face mounting pressure from development and resource extraction. For serious hikers, this reality adds a layer of urgency to trip planning that goes beyond simply choosing a scenic destination. Understanding why a trail is at risk can deepen your appreciation for the landscape and make you a more thoughtful visitor — one who treads carefully, follows Leave No Trace principles, and supports the conservation organizations working to protect these places. Whether you're a seasoned backcountry explorer or a day hiker looking to experience something truly extraordinary, these threatened routes represent some of the most compelling and irreplaceable terrain left to walk.
Known to regulars as 'The Kek,' this rugged 39-mile point-to-point trail runs through the heart of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from Snowbank Road near Ely to the Gunflint Trail. In April 2026, the U.S. Senate voted to reverse a 20-year federal mining moratorium in the Boundary Waters watershed, reopening the region to proposed sulfide-ore copper-nickel extraction by Twin Metals, a subsidiary of Chilean company Antofagasta. Scientists warn that pollution from sulfide-ore mining in the headwaters could flow directly into the wilderness and contaminate it for at least 500 years. The trail itself is exceptionally remote and primitive — hikers pass more than a dozen lakes and rarely share the path with another soul. If mining moves forward, this interconnected lakeland wilderness, which also supports critical habitat for the Canadian lynx, gray wolf, and moose, may be fundamentally altered forever.
The Edge of the Glacier Trail in Kenai Fjords National Park offers one of the most visceral encounters with climate change on Earth — a close-up wall of blue ice that is visibly retreating year by year. Exit Glacier, one of 35 glaciers flowing off the vast 700-square-mile Harding Icefield, has retreated rapidly, and park officials have had to extend the trail twice just to keep up with the shrinking terminus. The glacier is now approximately 2.5 miles long, a fraction of its former reach — in earlier days, its terminus extended roughly 8 miles down the Resurrection River valley. Temperatures at the glacier's foot now stay above freezing well into winter months, accelerating year-round melt in a way that was unheard of a generation ago. This trail remains the only road-accessible section of Kenai Fjords National Park, making it a rare and urgent opportunity to witness a living glacier before it disappears entirely.
Grand Gulch is a 20-mile point-to-point backpacking route winding through the red-rock canyons of Cedar Mesa in southeastern Utah, widely regarded as an outdoor museum of the Ancestral Puebloan world. Hidden deep within the canyon walls are some of North America's richest collections of cliff dwellings, granaries, and rock art — sites that lie far from paved roads and require a BLM permit to access. The trail's protective shield weakened significantly when the Trump administration dramatically reduced the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument, potentially reopening adjacent lands to oil, gas, and mining extraction. Prior to monument designation, federal managers had already flagged more than 100,000 acres along the monument's eastern edge near Bluff, Utah, for potential energy leases, and those ambitions have not gone away. Hikers walking Kane Gulch to Government Trailhead pass through thousands of years of human history — a journey that may look very different if industrial development moves into the surrounding landscape.
This 7.2-mile out-and-back trail near Bend, Oregon, follows Tumalo Creek and Bridge Creek through a 14,829-acre roadless area in the Deschutes National Forest, passing waterfalls and old-growth forest just 11 miles from the city. The two creeks are not just scenic — Bridge Creek supplies clean drinking water to the city of Bend, supporting its population and even its craft brewing industry. For 24 years, the Roadless Rule shielded this area from road construction, industrial logging, and development, but the USDA announced plans to rescind the rule in 2025, putting these protections at risk. According to the Forest Service's own draft Environmental Impact Statement, repealing the Roadless Rule would adversely affect 327 threatened and endangered species, degrade water quality, and increase wildfire risk across tens of millions of acres. A public comment period drew over 600,000 responses, with more than 99% opposing the repeal — but a final decision is expected by early 2027.
The 273-mile Long Trail is America's oldest long-distance hiking path, and the 28-mile segment from Bolton to VT 15 on Mt. Mansfield — Vermont's highest peak at 4,393 feet — offers some of the finest ridge-walking in the Northeast. The threat here isn't a single policy or industry: it's climate change steadily dismantling the forest ecosystem that makes this trail remarkable. Rising temperatures have unleashed bark-boring pests that are killing off ash, birch, and sugar maple trees at an accelerating rate, and scientists warn these species could disappear from Vermont's landscape within decades. The alpine tundra at the summit, the state's rarest ecosystem, is also at risk of being overtaken by shrubs as the treeline creeps upward, while moose populations may migrate away as conditions warm. The Long Trail's autumn color display — a sensory spectacle that draws hikers from across North America — may fundamentally change as the maple forests that produce it decline.
Coyote Gulch is a 6.5-mile loop through one of the American Southwest's most stunning canyon systems — a sandstone labyrinth of natural arches, slot canyon passages, and cliff-hugging trails within Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. The monument was simultaneously shrunk alongside Bears Ears by the Trump administration, stripping protections from vast swaths of the surrounding landscape and potentially opening them to mining and drilling operations. Grand Staircase–Escalante was originally designated in 1996 specifically to protect its extraordinary geological and paleontological resources, including some of the most significant dinosaur fossil beds in North America. With monument boundaries reduced, the buffer zone that kept industrial activity away from these fragile canyon trails has narrowed dramatically. Hikers who walk Coyote Gulch today are passing through terrain that sits in a contested legal and political landscape — one that conservation groups are actively fighting to restore.
The Shakadang Trail is one of Taiwan's most celebrated hikes, following the turquoise Shakadang River through a narrow gorge of polished marble cliffs in Taroko National Park on the island's east coast. The trail has a long history of closures due to typhoon damage and rockslides — but the 2024 Hualien earthquake, one of Taiwan's most powerful in decades, proved to be a turning point, triggering a deadly rockslide that destabilized large sections of the gorge. Officials declared extensive portions of the trail unsafe for foot traffic, and parts of the corridor may never reopen to hikers given the scale of geological damage. Taroko Gorge sits within one of the world's most seismically active zones, where tectonic forces continue to reshape the landscape without warning. For those lucky enough to hike the sections that remain accessible, the translucent green river and sheer white marble walls create scenery that rivals any gorge trail on the planet — but access is fragile and may be further curtailed at any time.
