CDT Completion

In August 2021, Congressman Neguse introduced the Continental Divide Trail Completion Act, legislation which would direct the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to work together to finish the 3,100-mile Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (CDT). More than 40 years after its creation, the trail remains incomplete due to gaps in public lands along more than 160 miles of its route. In these areas, the CDT is forced to follow along roads to connect one completed section to another.

Congress created the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) in 1978 as part of the National Trails System, a network which spans all 50 states. The CDT is the highest, most challenging, and most remote of 11 National Scenic Trails, running along the Continental Divide through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. 230 miles—7.5% of the entire trail—traverses Colorado's 2nd District. The trail's corridor helps protect the headwaters of the Colorado, Rio Grande, Columbia, and Mississippi Rivers, and when the trail is complete, it will connect an unbroken corridor of more than 2 million acres of public land for wildlife to safely traverse along their migration routes.