Hello hello and welcome back! We are in the home stretch folks. There are less than 315 miles left to be recounted. I’m so glad to have you along for the ride with me!
As many of you may have realized after reading the most recent blog post, there were a tremendous number of run-on sentences! So many run-ons that my mom laughed and my high school English teacher would have been appalled. I started to get pretty tired of writing every night on the PCT, so I started using the speech to text feature on my phone. Apparently I forgot to check the punctuation and was missing about forty periods. Good thing y‘all are smart, and I’m sure you understood what I was saying. To those of you who didn’t think the sentence structure was appalling, that’s because I fixed it as soon as I realized something was amiss!
Day 125: 9/12/2025; mile 2340.2 - 2362.6
Today we had a big push until we reached Dennis’s family who would be meeting us on trail, about 5 miles south of a dirt road.
We had 22 miles ahead of us, and didn’t want to keep his Dad and Uncle waiting too long! We hiked quickly today, although I must admit I was deterred by some delicious huckleberries.
I picked the largest berries I’d ever seen. It was as if they were waiting just for me! The PCT intersected a dirt road about 4 miles from where Dennis’s family would be, and a kind hunter gave us each a beer and a piece of Safeway fried chicken.
It was absolutely incredible. Finally, just as the sun set and we needed to pull our headlamps out, we stumbled into the campsite with the Gavrilenko’s. We recounted the days adventure, made a plan for the next morning and were off to sleep within the hour.
Day 126: 9/13/2025; mile 2362.6 - 2367.3 (+ lake loop)
This morning we hiked the 5 miles back to the car that Dennis‘s family had rented and decided to go into town for lunch at Snoqualmie pass.
I ate a delicious grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup and convinced the Gavrilenko fam to try coffee my favorite way - black with whipped cream on top. We bought beers from Drew Brew, a brewery we had had trail magic from 2000 miles back in the desert (shoutout hamburger helper)!
Once we got to town I picked up my resupply package that my parents graciously sent. It had so many fun notes and delicious goodies inside!
We then decided that there weren’t any particularly exciting sites in the stretch of the PCT that Dennis‘s dad and uncle wanted to hike so we decided to drive to the Rampart Lake Loop. It had a lot of elevation game, but was supposed to be beautiful. This hike was a bit of a butt kicker even for Dennis and I who have been on the PCT for 126 days.
We pretty much climbed uphill the entire time except for one small flat section. It was 2,500 feet uphill when we finally got to the top there were hundreds of huckleberries and blueberries, so of course we had to stop and pick them with his family. Then we found a nice little cozy campsite on some grass by the lake and set up our tent before it got too windy. We ate a hot dinner and then snuggled into bed because we needed to prepare for an early morning to beat the rain tomorrow.
Day 127: 9/14/2025; zero PCT miles hiked
This morning we woke to a cloudy sky at Rampart Lakes.
Together we found a geocache before heading back to the car. The rain hadn’t begun yet, but it was chilly and we didn’t want to get soaked. We stopped to fill a water bottle with blueberries for Dennis’s mom and then began our descent.
It took a few hours for us to traverse the slick boulders and root systems that snaked their way across the trail. Finally by 11:30am we had arrived back at the car.
The rain wasn’t horrible and I couldn’t wait for lunch at Commonwealth. Unfortunately for me that lunch would have to wait because Dennis wanted to find another geocache on a 4 mile hike. I walked to the entrance of the tunnel hike, realized it was dark and cold, so I threw a bit of a tantrum ;) and got to wait in the warm car.
By 3:30 pm I had my hot soup and grilled cheese, I was a happy camper. After we dined we headed to the Washington Alpine Club, a ski hut that houses PCT hikers during summer.
We reserved a bed in the dorm, showered, and did laundry while waiting for the group dinner. There were 19 other hikers staying the night so it felt like a fun day at summer camp!
Day 128: 9/15/2025; mile 2396.3 - 2411.0
We hustled downstairs for breakfast at 7am, only rising early to ensure there would be food left with all the hungry hikers in attendance. There were delicious egg baked quiche things, zhuccini bread, pancakes and grapes. We were sitting in a large dining hall with communal tables and it was probably the most fun breakfast we’d had in trail. The Washington Alpine Club Guys House was fully run by volunteers, so all the hikers helped out with a chore. I ended up with the glamorous task of cleaning the bathroom. My childhood chore was cleaning the toilet, so I didn’t mind and quite enjoyed helping keep the house clean. After writing numerous postcards Dennis and I said goodbye to our friend Bubbles who had just hiked in with a bunch of Japanese snacks shipped from home.
She shared her treats with us, and then we began the big climb out of Snoqualmie Pass.
The climb was actually pretty mild, so Dennis and I cruised separately until we reached the first lake. I stopped to gorge on huckleberries because I was working up a lunchtime appetite. We finally had a late lunch around 4pm, and finished hiking as many miles as we could before it got properly dark. As the sun set, there were some silly pikas and marmots yelling around us.
Day 129: 9/16/2025; mile 2411.0 - 2434.2
This morning was a struggle to get out of camp early. I left by 10am, and Dennis was still reading in the tent. Today’s views were absolutely stunning!
I was lucky to run into Whimsy and had someone to talk to for a few miles. We hiked together for about five miles until we reached a cute bridge to eat lunch at.
We relaxed on a little river island and dined on ramen. Dennis was, as the kids these days say, utterly cooked. We decided to take an alternate route from the PCT to pass by Pete Lake and the west side of Waptus Lake. This enabled us to have less climbing and a slightly more relaxing day. We ended up neroing, only going 15 miles, but it was worth it!
Day 130: 9/17/2025; mile 2434.2 - 2456.4
Today we only hiked 22 trail miles, but 26 Strava miles.
Today was my second lucky day in a row because I had Whimsy for company for another six miles! It’s a huge bonus to have anyone new to talk to because it makes the miles fly by. Today we saw lakes of the most turquoise and green colors. Dennis took a dip at Deep lake, and I picked a ton of blueberries.
We had to hike quite late again which ended in some tears (when does it not!).
After 6 miles of night hiking we approached the dump truck challenge, a 0.6 mile stretch of uphill, 700ft of climbing. I desperately didn’t want to try the challenge, but Dennis encouraged me. After 10 minutes of wallowing we headed up. I swear Dennis was sprinting ahead so he was lost to the wind. Dennis killed the challenge in 13:00 and I followed behind with 16:47. Not bad with a 24 mile warm up to get there.
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