Around the same time, I watched a few YouTube videos of Elina Osborne, a New Zealand-based filmmaker who was thru-hiking the PCT and documenting her experiences online. I loved her videos and her adventure, and thought it’d be the coolest thing ever to do the PCT one day, even though at the time it seemed about as realistic as climbing up Mt. Everest. It’s so long! It’s so far! How does one ever begin to plan that! (I later realized that you can’t really plan something like that, but rather you just have to kind of pack up your things and go out there!)

A few years later in January of 2024, I went on a backpacking trip with the UCLA Backpacking Club, which was probably a top-3 defining college experience for me because of all the different people I met. The cast of people from that trip is quite large, but most importantly features:

1. Akshat, who became a close friend that quarter and with whom I went on many long walks around the UCLA Botanical Garden with delicious Kerckhoff coffees

2. Alex, who became one of my closest friends to this day, and with whom I explored the UCLA Tunnels and played lots of Blokus

3. Dylan, who also became an Excursions Club trip leader that summer and with whom I led 2 AWESOME trips to Joshua Tree and Morro Bay

4. Brooke, who became my girlfriend about 2 weeks later and hiked the PCT with me! ❤️

And for the purposes of this narrative introduction, 5. Jess! Jess was a junior just like me, and had taken the spring quarter off the year before to thru-hike the PCT in 2023. I’d heard of the PCT by this point, of course, but meeting someone who’d finished the PCT and getting to personally know them made it seem so much more doable to me. It wasn’t just mythically-fit-and-athletic legends who did this sort of thing, but adventurous UCLA students just like me! And after realizing a few weeks later that I myself would be graduating next winter quarter, an attempt at a PCT thru-hike the following year didn’t seem too impossible. (Maybe I’ll even be that inspiration for some of you!)

Fast forward a few months, Brooke and I’d been dating for a while, and I successfully convinced her that a thru-hike together sounded like the best idea ever. We applied for a joint permit to do the PCT, got it, bought all the gear we needed, and in May of the following year, we were standing at the Southern Terminus, wondering how in the world we were actually there. 143 days later, and we were at the Northern Terminus, feeling the greatest feeling of accomplishment ever.

Having finished the PCT now, just a short year after first getting the idea of thru-hiking it, the best word to describe it all is simply, “grand”. Grand views, grand friendships, grand pain, grand hardship, yet all in all, the grandest adventure I could ever imagine. Right from Day 1, the scenery I saw and the people I met were nothing short of magical; the kindness of trail angels and the quick bonds forged with other thru-hikers are now lifelong memories and some of my most cherished.

The PCT was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, full of mental, physical, and topographic high and lows, yet through it all, I learned the importance of companionship in overcoming these challenges. I was so fortunate to thru-hike from start to finish with Brooke and 2 French friends we met on trail (Flo and Pablo), whose support and good cheer were the stuff of legend and made the whole thing possible. It made me appreciate so many things from back home: friends and family I sorely missed, non-dehydrated food, dryness and comfy couches, but now that I’m used to being back, I’m already looking forward to the next long thru-hike out in the great outdoors.

Funny enough, I don’t have too many overarching reflections or epiphanies from the PCT, simply a deep appreciation for the experience and gratitude for everyone I met along the way. Of course, the nature and scenery were unbelievably gorgeous; of course, I loved the companionship and camaraderie of hiking every day with Brooke, Flo, and Pablo; of course, every town stop and trail angel interaction was special and a cherished memory.

At the end of the day, I’m so glad that I delayed starting full-time work and took a 9-month break after graduation to thru-hike the PCT. I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to do so, and extremely proud of myself for seizing the opportunity with everything I had and embarking on this great adventure. I was looking for an epic one after UCLA, and boy did I find it in the PCT!

And now, time for the gear list! Most PCTers/other long-distance-trail-hikers I know of and follow online feature some sort of gear list, so I figured that I might as well go ahead and make one myself, too. If anything, it’ll give me a great starting point when packing for my next thru-hike! There are tons of great ones out there (my favorite is Elina’s itself), so I’m excited to add mine to the collection.

Last thing: this post will be ~1,000,000% MORE enjoyable if you read the footnotes in the gear list and their assorted anecdotes, quips, and photos, so please please PLEASE read this in your browser or the free Substack app! To use these delightful little creations (the footnotes), simply click on them, read them, then click the number again to return to the main article. It couldn’t be any easier. (Alexandra, have fun)

Wait, do you hear that? Is someone saying something? Is that a whisper in the wind? OH WAIT THAT’S ME ASKING YOU ONCE AGAIN TO PLEASE READ THE FOOTNOTES IN YOUR BROWSER OR THE FREE SUBSTACK APP!

Ok phew, glad we got that out of the way. Let’s get started!

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The “Big 3”:

1. Backpack: Hyperlite Unbound (55L, Black, Tall)1

2. Tent: Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL32

3. Sleeping System: Enlightened Equipment Enigma Sleeping Quilt/Pillow + Thermarest NeoAir XLite Sleeping Pad3

Clothing:

(You may notice a lot of Patagonia products here, which happen to feature extensively on this list as Brooke has a 60% off Patagucci discount with her job at Fleet Feet 🤑)

1. Mammoth Mountaineering Supply sun hoodie4

2. Shorts5

3. Pants6

4. Patagonia base layer pants7

5. Patagonia R1 Hoodie8

6. Patagonia Nanopuff Puffer Jacket9

7. Patagonia Granite Crest Rain Jacket10

8. Patagonia Granite Crest Rain Pants11

9. 2 pairs of underwear

10. 2 pairs of Darn Tough socks (for hiking)12

11. 1 pair of fluffy socks (for sleeping)

12. Beanie13

13. UCLA Parking hat14

Shoes:

1. Hoka Speedgoat 6s15

2. Flip flops16

Assorted Items Used to Prevent Starvation and Other Hunger-and-Thirst-Related Calamities (or AIUTPSAOHATRC, for short):

1. JetBoil Stash17 + Gas canister + Lighter/emergency backup matches

2. Sea2Summit Alpha Light Long-Handled Backpacking Spork18

3. Fuel transfer19

4. Talenti jar202122

5. Bear can23

6. CNOC water bag24

7. Sawyer Squeeze filter25

8. 1.5L Smartwater/Fiji/Essian water bottles26

Electronics:

1. iPhone with Otterbox case27

2. AirPods 28

3. Headlamp29

4. Battery pack30

5. Solar panel31

6. Charging cords32

Miscellaneous:

1. Black Diamond cork handle trekking poles33

2. Glasses34

3. Pocketknife

4. Chapstick

5. First aid kit

6. Hand sanitizer

7. Pen35

8. PCT business cards36

9. Toiletries37

10. Patching glue38

11. Sunscreen39

12. Wet wipes… for wiping

13. Sitting pad40

14. PCT permit41

15. Girlfriend42

Things that I brought with me to San Diego and were, over time, dropped off with friends on trail or mailed home (also known as “Why tf did I bring this with me” items, or WTFDIBTWM for short):

1. Backpacking chair43

2. Titanium cup44

3. Titanium bowl45

4. Physical wallet46

5. Toiletries bag47

6. Hand warmer battery48

7. Extra shirt49

8. An entire roll of toilet paper (wtf)

Favorite recipes/food to eat on trail:

1. Trail mocha

2. Ramen (So f’ing delicious. Add Cholula, dehydrated veggies, and bone broth for maximum flavor, nutrients, and yumminess)

3. Overnight oats in a Talenti jar (with peanut butter), prepared with love by your girlfriend

4. Wild huckleberries and blueberries in Oregon and Washington, respectively

5. Every single type of granola bar known to man x1000

6. Jolly ranchers (perfect sugar boost for climbs, 1 Jolly Rancher lasts ~1 mile)

7. Snickers (the highlight of every day)

Tips for thru-hikers or someone thinking about thru-hiking:

Honestly, I’m not exactly sure how big this list will be, and at the moment I’m drawing a lot of blanks. Likely, I’ll be coming back to this list in the following weeks as I remember random little tips and tidbits from the PCT. Happy Trails!

• If you’re hiking in a large group (a trail family, or tramily), you can often find free lodging in towns by posting in the local Facebook Group for the PCT trail angels in that town. One of the tramilies we hiked on/off with in Oregon did this very successfully in many of the towns on trail!

• Like I said earlier, there really isn’t any way to 100% prepare for the trail, so just bring everything you think you might need, eliminate 50% of it, and then eliminate another 50% once you’re actually hiking. The number of things I gave to visiting friends or mailed home is a little bit ridiculous when looking back on it

• Having a blog is such a great thing while thru-hiking, because it’s a super easy way to stay up-to-date with everyone at once without texting/emailing everyone the same updates and photos! Plus, you can include post office addresses at the beginning of your blog posts, so your dutiful readers can send you mail and packages on trail! Thank you to everyone who sent me things on the PCT!!!

• And many more to come…

23

To protect food from bears. Also a great chair and place to stick your many stickers onto. Legally required in the Sierras from Kennedy Meadows South to Truckee

25

A tiny little contraption that filters water magically well. Every single hiker that I met on trail used a Sawyer to filter water. See photo below to see this filtering process happening in the High Sierra!

A Quick Look at Google Flights revealed that out of the exotic beach travel destinations, Hawaii had the cheapest flights by far (only ~$350 round trip, compared to $800+ to the Caribbean, Central/South America, and I’m not trying to go to SD), so a Hawaii vacation it was. However, there was a little predicament about this: Even with cheap flights, Hawaii’s quite expensive, and the Dennis Gavrilenko Treasury was starting to run a bit low on funds after the 5-month PCT expedition. It reminded me of one of my sister’s wisdoms, paraphrased for you here: “When you’re young, you have time and energy, but no money. Middle-aged, you have energy and money, but no time. Old, and you got time and money, but no energy.” The key there is to figure out how to get the thing you don’t have at the moment.

A Google Search along the lines of “cheap places to stay in Hawaii” revealed a website called Worldpackers, which connected cash-strapped travelers with labor-strapped hosts, allowing travelers to adventure around and do odd jobs in exchange for food + lodging (this is the same thing as WOOFing, just a different website). Brooke and I were intrigued by this idea, so we made profiles on the website, paid the $60 membership fee, and applied to every single available work stay in Hawaii less than 2 weeks long.

We ended up choosing one in Maui, with these two guys, Ron and Shawn. They have a lovely property on the North Shore, and were looking for folks to help them landscape, garden, paint, etc. I happened to grow up landscaping, gardening, painting, etc., and found the idea of doing that in Hawaii tremendously exciting. So off to Maui we went!

The rest of this blog will be about the work stay, and the fun things we did all over the island. For starters, I must say that I didn’t do a day-by-day blogging like I normally do, mostly because I was completely burnt out from doing so for the 5 months on the PCT. Looking back now, that was an incredible decision in terms of properly relaxing. So, I’ll stick to the highlights here, and I figured that the most fun way to write this (and later reread myself, hi future Dennis!) would be in the form of an FAQ. Papa, if you’re reading this, you may recognize these questions; in fact, 90% of them are the ones you asked me when I got home, and since I liked them I decided to steal them here. Lol! (occasional embellishments are my own doing)

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Q1: What even is a work stay? Why did you decide to do one?

A work stay is when a traveler does work for someone in exchange for something, usually free lodging and food. The scope and type of work varies tremendously; I first heard about work staying from my friend Jackson, who took a gap year after high school to travel around Europe and work stays all over. Some of his highlights included shepherding in Ireland, building a church organ in Germany, and working at a hostel in Budapest. Clearly, varied work. There are a ton of different websites to do this on (Worldpackers and WOOFing being the main two, to my knowledge), Worldpackers is the one we went with because… that was the one that showed up first on Google.

I decided to do a work stay because it’d be a great way to save tons of money on a Hawaiian vacation (Hawaiian food and lodging is eeeeeexpensive), plus it’d give a nice structure to the day: work in the morning, chillax and travel in the afternoon. Especially after an intense period of go-go-go hiking the past 5 months, having 10 days with absolutely nothing to do might’ve driven us both a little crazy.

Q2: How much did you work? What did you do for work?

We did a work stay with Ron and Shawn, and worked ~3-4 hours each morning, somewhere from 8:30 to noon each day. Some days we ended earlier, some later. Brooke and I stayed at their house for 9 days, and worked on 7 of them. We had two full days off; during the first day, we hitchhiked across the entire island to relax on some West Maui beaches; the second, we hitchhiked up to the top of Haleakala (the giant volcano on Maui) and hiked in the summit crater (technically an erosional valley, but whatevs). Both days were fantastic!

As for the work itself, it was mostly clearing land on their property. Ron and Shawn’s place gets a ton of rain, which means lushness and greenery like you’ve never seen… and tons of overgrown vines and plants. Over the course of 7 days, we cleared ~100 square meters of land (from complete overgrowth to a clear field!), where they’re planning to plant some citrus trees and breadfruit! It was my first time using both a sickle (the tool on the Soviet Union flag) and a gas-powered chainsaw, which was both extremely fun and time-saving. Chainsaws are great! Plus, over the course of the work stay, Ron explained the general principles about how a chainsaw works (2-stroke engine, baby!) and I learned how to get it started. Did I mention it was fun?

Clearing the land involved chopping down crazy amounts of vegetation, dragging it over to the driveway, and loading it into their pickup truck to drop off at the Central Maui Green Waste Dump. Some of those vines were crazy annoying, but we did some great work together and managed to clear the entire area. Plus! I took some timelapses of our work, which you can check out here, here, here, here, and here.

On the last day, Shawn gave me a propane-powered flamethrower to burn some weeds in their driveway. That was 100% the highlight.

Q3: Who were your hosts? Was your stay nice?

The stay was an absolute 11/10 experience. Ron and Shawn hosted us, both super friendly and fun. They’d met in Texas, lived all over the US, and now have a lovely house and property in Maui. Their place has one main house (where they live) and a guest house with three bedrooms; Brooke and I got one all to ourselves, with a PRIVATE BATH AND SHOWER. Everything was so comfy and cozy and altogether magical. I felt like I was hacking the system by staying there.

Q4: What… did you do all day? Did you just work? Where did you even go after work?

A typical day went like this: Wake up around 7:15, jump into their swimming pool just outside our room. Dry off, say hi to the wild geckos (they live all over), then have breakfast with Brooke, Ron, and Shawn. They make their own jam! We’d have delicious toast, eggs, coffee, and fruit (papaya yum yum yum), chatting for about half an hour. Then, Brooke and I’d get dressed in work clothes (our PCT sun hoodies and shoes + cheap Costco pants), start working around 8:30/9, and end around noon-ish.

After we were done, we’d shower, jump into the pool again, have a delicious sandwich lunch with Ron and Shawn, and then have the rest of the day off! About half of the days we stayed at the house, reading, hanging out, and walking around the neighborhood. Ron and Shawn would sometimes go into town to do chores/assorted adult things, and would drop Brooke and I off to explore! We spent a few days checking out Paia (the fun beach town 30 minutes from their house) and the nearby beaches, and then would hitchhike back home. One day after work, we hitchhiked 2 hours to the Black Sand Beach near Hana, which was super fun and surprisingly easy to get to (one hitch there with a German couple, one hitch back with a North Dakota couple; note to self: don’t move to North Dakota). We also went to a ukulele festival.

On our two full days off, Brooke and I went to 1) the beach, and 2) the top of the Haleakala volcano for some hiking. The beach experience was great; Ron and Shawn were driving to Lahaina, dropped us off at the beach, and we spent the day hanging out there before hitchhiking 1.5 hours back to their house in 4 separate cars (rock climbers do multi-pitch traversals, but we had a multi-HITCH traversal!). The snorkeling on the beach was amazing (I saw my first ever needlefish and lots of turtles!), and the hitchhiking experience was so fun; on that trip across Maui, we got picked up by 1) a local high school canoeing coach, who told us about her husband’s canoe race last week from the island of Molokai to Oahu, a distance of 44 miles. His crew didn’t win because “the Tahitians came and they’re really good at this sort of thing”, 2) a pickup-truck-driving painter, who let us sit in the back of the pickup truck with all the crusty paint cans (it’s legal to sit in the back of pickup trucks in Maui!), 3) an upcountry local, and 4) Stan, a super chill Hawaiian dude who ALSO let us sit in the back of his pickup truck! An amazing hitchhiking experience! Across the entire island is 1.5 hours, when a bus would’ve taken 2.5 hours to go half the distance!

On the second full day off, we hitchhiked up to the top of Haleakala, the 10000-foot-tall volcano that is huge af. It took 4 hitches to get up there; 3 to get to upcountry, then 2 miles of walking through a neighborhood (lol), before getting picked up by Xiaohui and Christie, who drove us all the way to the top! Thanks! We checked out the summit hut, then went on an AWESOME 13-mile hike down the Sliding Sands Trail to the Halemauu Trailhead. The highlight of this hike by far WAS THE NENE GEESE WE SAW OMG I LOVE THEM!!! We got to the trailhead in the pitch black darkness, and hitched down with an Israeli couple WHO SPENT $40,000 USD ON AN ANNIVERSARY VACATION. What a budget. The last hitch home was in the back of a pickup truck, which had the best stargazing experience… ever.

Q5: Can you tell me more about the nene geese you saw in Haleakala National Park? I wish I saw a nene goose, they look so fun and cute and awesome!

Nene geese are the state bird of Hawaii, endemic to Hawaii (they only live there), and are, in fact, the rarest goose on Earth (~3500 in existence). This trip was my first time seeing them, they were so cute and fuzzy and cuddlesome I love them. We saw a few on the park road driving up to the summit, and two more in the Haleakala Crater on our hike. There are three wilderness cabins in the crater, and upon reaching one and turning on the water faucet, the two geese ran over to me and began drinking out of my cupped hands. Brooke reported that after this happened, “you were the happiest I’ve ever seen you”, and I subsequently and promptly edited the Wikipedia article on the nene goose to include a Gallery Section. Perhaps you’ll even recognize the human tourist:

I love nene, they’re the best birds ever.

Q6: Was your trip cheaper because of the work stay? What did you spend money on?

OMG THIS TRIP WAS UNIMAGINABLY CHEAP! Between the two of us, Brooke and I spent about $1200 combined, INCLUDING FLIGHTS!!! ~$350 for round trip flights (each, I bought mine with Chase Points so they felt free), ~$500 for groceries (ingredients for dinner and snacks for the stay; we went to Costco and Safeway; we don’t have a Costco membership, but my dad got us Costco gift cards and those let you in), ~$150 for a one-day car rental on the last day. That last one made me cry a little, but you gotta splurge sometimes. All the other days, we just hitchhiked around (we’re pros at this after the PCT!) or got rides from Ron and Shawn. Not bad for a 10-day trip to Hawaii!

(Side note, but I learned that a big reason everything’s so expensive in Hawaii is that everything has to be shipped from the US West Coast. An old American law protecting US shipping requires shipping between US ports to be done by a more-expensive US ship with a more-expensive US crew, so unless a cargo ship comes to Hawaii from Asia directly (rare except for car shipments, because Hawaii doesn’t have a huge population and its ports are quite shallow for giant cargo ships), they have to import everything from the mainland and that’s… expensive)

All in all, the work stay trip was a fantastic trip, and I’ll definitely be doing another work stay sometime in the future. Thank you, Ron and Shawn, for being the best hosts ever!

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Media appendix:

Looking back now, I’m so happy (and proud) that I kept this blog up the past 5 months… it would’ve been so easy to give up, convince myself “I didn’t have the time”, and later deeply regret not having such a cool archive of my travels. Now, I can go back and relive the adventure as if I was there again, and so can you!

Thank you so much to all of you for following along the past 2650 miles, writing letters, sending packages and support, and believing in me along the way. I couldn’t have done it without you all, you’re the best trail angels out there ❤️

If this is your first episode and you’re thinking “what in the world is happening right now”, start here!

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Day 138, 9/25/2025:

5 miles with 1200 feet of climbing.

The last section! It’s finally here! After a delightful day in Stehekin yesterday, Brooke and I boarded the bus this morning to head back to the trail, and subsequently decided to stop again at the bakery and have a long break there. The bus would come back again in 3 hours, so we figured that we might as well hang out at the bakery to wait for Flo and Pablo. We ended up spending 2 hours talking with Geoff, a British dude who canoed up the entire length of Lake Chelan and was celebrating at the bakery himself. He used to work for the California High Speed Rail Commission, and even planned the section around Tehachapi to not intersect the PCT!

We got back on the bus at noon, and laughed for the next half hour as the bus driver shared dozens of hilarious jokes (including one about bruised water from a waterfall), and we were back on trail in no time. AND EVERYONE WE KNEW WAS THERE! Flo, Pablo, Sam, Sky, Charlotte, Overflow, everyone! I missed them so much!

Brooke and I hung out at the ranger cabin for a bit, and then headed north toward Rainy Pass. Right before we left, I went to the bathroom shack to lighten my load, and I shat so hard that I got a cramp; It was so painful that I thought I might have appendicitis, and it took me a few minutes of laying on a picnic table before I regained my ability to walk normally. I can’t wait to be home.

Brooke and I hiked 5 miles to an established campsite in North Cascades National Park, and decided to camp there so that Flo and Pablo could catch up with us. We met them on Day 5 of trail, hiked the entire Sierras with them, and wanted to finish with them, too! Brooke and I set up the tent, I napped for a few hours, and Flo and Pablo arrived in the dark around 8 pm. We all ate dinner together, sharing stories from the last few days of trail and so much laughter. The gang is reunited again!

Day 139, 9/26:

25 miles today with 6500 feet of climbing. Wowza!

It was a long day of climbing today, with the first 20 miles being straight uphill. Fortunately, we’re all hiking warriors at this point, so the uphill was totally doable!

Since Flo and Pablo are back with us, Brooke left earlier this morning to get a head start on Le Dudes. She left around 7, the rest of us got up around 8, and we had a slow breakfast and coffee before departing around 9. The first few miles were nothing special, until I arrived at the National Park Service’s 6-Mile Camp, which featured the most exciting backcountry bathroom yet: a metal container that looked like a military vehicle ready to roll away. Other hikers had been commenting on FarOut about the oddity of this bathroom, so I just had to check it out. Well worth the detour.

Later, I passed two SoBo weekend warriors, who asked if I was hiking in a group of four and upon my confirmation, revealed that “the girl in front told us to tell you that she’s hungry and is ready for the stove.” Funny thing was, I didn’t see Brooke until 2 hours later, when we crossed the North Cascades Highway and received some trail magic. Keith, the same guy who drove us from White Pass to Chinook Pass, was giving out drinks and muffins to thru-hikers with Rabbit, our friend we met in Tehachapi and who’d finished a few days before. We all celebrated crossing our last paved road on the PCT, before carrying on uphill to Cutthroat Pass. I never did give Brooke the stove lol.

The scenery was unbelievably gorgeous, and I had the best time just FLYING uphill with Pablo as we reflected on our many months of hiking. Suddenly, four day-hiking grandmas heading downhill, stopped us, and GAVE US DELICIOUS AND FREE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES THEY BAKED THAT MORNING O M GOODNESS!!! The grandma-in-charge gave Pablo and I two each, and stuffed a third one into our side pouches. We got an “eat up, sweeties” before the grandmas packed up and carried on downhill. ❤️

At the top, Brooke, Flo, Pablo, and I enjoyed the fantastic views of the North Cascades before finding an ammo can geocache (which contained Dude Wipes lol) and hiking the last 5ish miles to camp. We set up our tents in the meadow in the dark before having dinner together and getting an early night in. Wonderful day :)

Day 140, 9/27:

27 miles with 4600 feet of climbing today. We’re in the home stretch now!

Now that we’re so close to the end, a series of “lasts” are happening… last time crossing a paved road, biggest climb left of trail, last geocache, etc. After a wet morning of rain in the tent, today we checked the “biggest climb left on the PCT” from that list, a 2500-foot climb up to Grasshopper Pass. Chirp chirp mofos. 🦗

Today was just a lot of chugging out miles and making it closer to the finish. Flo, Pablo, Brooke, and I hike strung out in a miles-long line, and saw each other often as we stopped for coffee, water filtration, and lunch at the climb’s summit (I gave Flo some Jolly Ranchers to power up the climb). Fortunately, we’re back in geocache land (including one hidden near an abandoned mine!), so I stopped occasionally to find 4 of them today. We eventually reached Hart’s Pass near sunset, where we were graciously offered beers and glizzies from a trail angel and carried on for another 5 miles to camp. I can practically taste the terminus now!

I must say, the North Cascades are even better than I could’ve imagined. Adrienne, you were right!

Day 141, 9/28:

22 miles today with 3800 feet of climbing.

We are SO close to the finish! The initial plan was to make it all the way to the terminus today, but I successfully convinced Brooke to hold out, camp just 3 miles from the terminus, and make it there first thing tomorrow morning. It’s her sister’s birthday today and mine on the 30th, so finishing on the 29th would give her three holidays in a row: Anna’s Birthday, Terminus Day, My Birthday. Yay!

Brooke set off ~45 minutes before me this morning, so after finding an ammo can geocache (the northernmost one on this trip!) and packing up camp, I set off after her. Interestingly, I observed some squirrels in the nearby trees that were throwing pinecones down onto the ground; it sounded just like someone taking down their tent poles, and it was fun seeing the critters preparing for winter!

Today’s terrain was rolling mountains, with what seemed like dozens of named passes being… well, passed. All day, we crossed paths with “SoBo” hikers (NoBo hikers who’d reached the terminus and were hiking back to Hart’s Pass), so tons of fist bumps were exchanged on the hike. That’ll be us tomorrow! The scenery was pretty smoky, but we still saw tons of beautiful mountains in the North Cascades.

We set up camp in a large clearing just 3 miles from the terminus. I set up a campfire for our group before it got dark (somehow using wet sticks, I was very proud of myself) and together ~10 hikers had dinner and bonded over campfire camaraderie. It was the first campfire on the PCT for many of the hikers, and a tremendous time overall. Went to bed early, excited for TERMINUS DAY TOMORROW!!!!!

Day 142, 9/29:

20 miles today with 3700 feet of climbing.

TERMINUS DAY BABY WE MADE IT TO CANADA WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 🍁🍁🇨🇦🍁🇨🇦🍁🇨🇦🍁🇨🇦🍁🇨🇦🍁🇨🇦

We woke up today, the day we reach the terminus, expecting sunny skies, warm weather, and a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Instead, we got pouring rain. Bruh.

Nevertheless, the show must go on. We’re so close! Since we have to head back through our campsite after we turn around at the terminus, we left 90% of our things in the tent, grabbed a few key items in our mostly empty bags, and carried down the 3 miles downhill.

We arrived at the terminus around 9 am, where Flo and Pablo were waiting for us with freshly-dried tears. Sam and Sky joined about an hour later, and we all celebrated at the end together; the original gang from the Mt. San Jacinto summit party was back together at the end (minus Zoe 😢)! We took tons of photos, popped our prosecco bottles at the terminus, cheered as dozens of other hikers reached the finish, then headed back to camp. It’s another 30 miles back to Hart’s Pass (which we have to return to since we can’t legally enter Canada from the PCT, though I did take a Canadian shit because I earned it 💩), which was made so much easier and more fun with Ze Little Present that Sam graciously donated to Brooke and I. 😉

HOLY MOLY GUACAMOLE I CAN’T BELIEVE WE MADE IT!! 5 months of hiking from Mexico to Canada, we did it!!!!!!!!

Day 143, 9/30:

15 miles with 3000 feet of climbing.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but we finished the trail today. TODAY! After 143 days of continuous hiking, we finally made it!

And even though it was our last day, it was still pretty intense: Brooke’s flight was leaving Seattle tomorrow morning, and we still had to hike 15 miles and hitch 200 miles across pretty much half of Washington State. Stakes high enough? Let’s do this 💪

We woke up at 5:30 am, left by 6:30, and were pushing a fast pace the entire way back to Hart’s Pass. Along the way, we ran into Worm (an Australian) and Merlin (who we met all the way back at the Sierra Butte Fire Lookout), and hiked on and off with them back to the car. They were a fun bunch, and even better, Worm’s stepdad flew from Australia to meet her at Hart’s Pass and pick her up. Best part was, he rented an 8-seater car, enough for us 4 + Flo and Pablo! Yay!

We victoriously arrived at the final trailhead, and just like that, we were done with trail. I thought it’d be bittersweet, but at the moment it was just sweet :)

We drove down to Mazama, picked up some baguettes and coffee for the road, and us 8 squeezed into the car for a 3-hour drive back to civilization. We made a quick stop at Grocery Outlet in town, where we all got some final snacks and for me, a birthday balloon. Worm dropped us 4 off at Brooke’s family friend’s house in Seattle, we had a lovely dinner celebrating the end of trail and my birthday, Jackson came over from Sherwood, and we all watched Rango together. What a perfect last day on trail and 22nd birthday 🎉

Day 1 Of Civilization, 10/1:

NO TRAIL MILES! WE’RE BACK IN CIVILIZATION!

I wasn’t sure if I should add this day or not, but I decided to because (1) it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want with it lol, and (2) I spent the day hanging out with Flo and Pablo in Seattle and generally having an amazing time. So here we are :)

Brooke’s flight left quite early, so we all woke up early, packed up our (now very light) bags, and went out to paint the town red! Brooke flew home to Sacramento, while Flo, Pablo, and I explored Seattle: we visited Ballard Locks, the Fish Ladder, the first Starbucks, Pikes Place Market, the Gum Wall, the Amazon Spheres, and just for the heck of it, took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island.

The ferry was an unexpected highlight of the day, and we had a great time strolling around Bainbridge and enjoying fish n’ chips, which we got for mostly free after a local handed us a $70 gift card to “help us out with lunch” upon learning we just finished the PCT. Later, we ate ice cream, had a slight fiasco with an in-person Darn Tough sock exchange, but otherwise had a perfect time on the island. Interestingly, the ferries all have communal puzzles on their tables, which commuters and tourists alike can complete during that extremely smooth 30-minute ride.

Back in Seattle, we three headed over to the train station and parted ways; I, north to Sherwood, Pablo and Flo, south to SeaTac to rent a car and drive down to LA. The end of an era is here!

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At long last, our Queen Stage is here! The Glacier Peak Wilderness! Beyond categorization!

If this is your first episode and you’re thinking “what in the world is happening right now”, start here!

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Day 128, 9/15/2025:

16 miles with 4800 feet of climbing.

After saying bye to my dad and uncle last night, Brooke and I spent the rest of the day relaxing at the Washington Alpine Club. It was one of the COOLEST places we stayed on trail: for just $65, you got dinner, breakfast, laundry, showers, and a bunk, and the Club lodge was a huge building full of nooks, crannies, and cute places to read. ~20 hikers (including Brooke and I) stayed there last night, and it was such great camaraderie eating dinner together and sharing trail stories with each other. Our table had a long conversation about GenZ slang, and we even called my brother so that he could explain some of the more niche terms to us “uncs”.

This morning, we woke up to a delicious 7 am breakfast, and spent the rest of the morning relaxing, drinking coffee, and hanging out in the Rec Room. Bubbles, another PCT hiker, showed us a giant box she was mailed recently, full of snacks and letters that her friends and family sent her from Japan. Fortunately for us, she loves sharing! The honey candies were particularly delightful :)

Around noon, we finally packed our bags and began the long, 3000-foot climb out of Snoqualmie Pass. Tremendous views and hundreds of ripe blueberries greeted us at the top, which I spent a lot time picking before carrying on to an alpine lake for lunch. There, I unfortunately spilled my entire bowl of ramen (one of the worst moments of trail), which ruined my day until we continued hiking about an hour later. We spent a long time ridge walking over rugged terrain before camping near another alpine lake, this one a lot muddier but featuring just as many berries. Yay!

Day 129, 9/16:

15 miles with 2200 feet of climbing.

Today was a mentally challenging day, and I ended up being so cooked that multiple multi-hour breaks were needed to keep me going. We started decently early, but a long reading break in the morning, and subsequently long breaks, resulted in me catching up to Brooke only by lunchtime, after which we decided to take a trail shortcut and relax by Pete Lake. After a delightful break on the sandy lakeshore, we climbed up across Waspus Pass, set up camp near Waspus Lake, and finally went to bed after a relatively-short mileage but still-long mentally day.

Day 130, 9/17:

26 miles with 6400 feet of climbing.

After yesterday’s many breaks, it was time to lock tf in and make up some miles today. Brooke and I powered over several mountain passes while stopping by dozens of gorgeous alpine lakes, (including my favorite Deep Lake), and ate lunch on a massive flat boulder that seemed to have been created for just that purpose.

Once nightfall approached, we reached the start of the “Dump Truck Challenge”: a 700-foot-gain, 0.6-mile long climb (that’s insanely steep), which PCT hikers attempt to complete as quickly as possible and subsequently post their times on FarOut. I flew up in 13:27, with Brooke closely behind at 16:47. Sometimes you gotta make your own fun 🚛

Day 131, 9/18:

4 miles with 200 feet of climbing.

This morning, Brooke and I looked into our food bags, found nothing, and thought something along the lines of “oh shit”. We had planned to make it to the Steven’s Pass Highway (where we’d hitch into the town of Leavenworth) last night, but with my many breaks we hadn’t made it on time and were critically low on snacks.

Fortunately, there were many options to take a side trail down to the highway sooner than absolutely necessary, which we decided to do after Brooke and I looked at me sitting under a tree this morning, told me I “looked cooked”, and convinced a weekend backpacker who was hiking down the same side trail as us to drive us all the way back to Leavenworth, where he lived. I was so exhausted that I could only nod in appreciation when he handed me an extra granola bar from his bag. Yay! Once in the car (hallelujah), we briefly stopped at the Steven’s Pass Ski Resort to pick up Brooke’s resupply package, then headed on into Leavenworth for a much-needed day off.

Leavenworth is an extremely strange town: it used to be an important railway stop, which was great for everyone until they moved the railroad and with it, all the jobs. The city council subsequently hired a marketing firm to figure out how to make the town relevant again, and they came up with the (genius?) idea of modeling the town center after a Bavarian mountain village. So now there exists a random town in Washington that looks like it was teleported from Germany.

(Except for the clearly American elements, such as wide ass roads, big ass cars, and a random McDonalds. lol. Even better are all the overweight tourists with their iPhones.)

Brooke and I spent the rest of the day relaxing in Leavenworth, walking around the cute shops in town and picking up packages from the post office. Thank you Mama, Papa, and Nancy/Dan (the family we met in Old Station!!) for your packages, food, and love!

The highlight of the day was dinner, where I devoured a DELICIOUS bigger at the local restaurant and enjoyed a free cider from the brewery. This place, just like in Cascade Locks, had a well-established tradition of locals buying PCT hikers free beer; at the Icicle Creek Brewery in Leavenworth, locals could buy an $8 “drink” for hikers, and the bartender would then put in a chip in the jar at the front desk. If a thirsty PCT hiker comes to the brewery and there’s a chip in the jar… then that’s a free drink!

Aaaaaaaaaand otherwise they’re out $8 if they’re no chips in the jar lol RIP 💀

Finished the evening off with some ice cream with a friendly tramily in town (oatmeal, Tazzie, et al), then headed off to bed at the cheapest Airbnb we could find. Nice!

Day 132, 9/19:

2 miles with 30 feet of climbing.

A microscopic day on trail, but that’s mostly because we spent 90% of the day in Leavenworth and hiked enough from the road so that we wouldn’t be tempted to stay in town another day. Temptation is, well, tempting!

Town today was nothing too special, since we did most of the town stuff yesterday. We did go to the rather robust nutcracker museum though, which apparently houses the largest collection of nutcrackers in the world? Who would’ve thought!

We eventually got a hitch back to trail with our new trail friends Momentum and Lilac, but not before squeezing in a quick ride down the nearby roller coaster. Our driver said he needed to run an errand and would be back in 30 minutes, so we all paid $20 for a roller coaster ticket, got a lift to the top, and yeeted down the mountain; you controlled your own brakes on that bad boy, and I was worried for a few turns there. The nets that would supposedly catch looked flimsy, to be generous!

Day 133, 9/20:

24 miles with 5300 feet of climbing.

It was a microscopic day yesterday, but a macroscopic day today. Brooke woke up like a lady on a mission and left super early; I, on the other hand, woke up like a man not on a mission, read my book until 11 am, and spent the rest of the day catching up with Ms. Rainbow Carrot. Mega bruh moment.

Even better, today was the weekend, so there were about 1727385947829200 day hikers and weekend warriors blocking the trail with their hiking speeds significantly below my 3.5 mph. I even saw an entire Boy Scout Troop heading up to Valhalla Lake, with one of the boys carrying a literal FRYING PAN on his backpack. I hope their steaks were yummy 🫡

Spent the day cruising over mountains and valleys, chatted with a few deer hunters along the way (there’s a ton of them out here), and caught up with Brooke by the late afternoon. After this late departure fiasco, I’m imposing a ban on reading books on trail because I go a bit overboard and read for hours when I should be hiking. We get significantly fewer hours of daylight these days, so big distractions like that need to be limited!

Look at me, reading TOO much! I’ll accept nominations for Scholar Of The Year at this time 😊

Day 134, 9/21:

12 miles with 3300 feet of climbing.

Sooooooooooooooooooooo Mother Nature decided to test us today, and that test came in the form of the coldest rain on Planet Earth. Brooke and I woke up to buckets of water falling from the sky, hiked 4 miles straight uphill, and realized it was so cold that Brooke was dangerously shivering. So, we set up the tent at 11 am, hid from the storm until 4 pm, and carried onward at 5. I was planning on catching up on blogs and watching a movie in the tent, but my brain had different ideas and ended up taking a 3-hour nap. lol. At least I feel rested!

Hiked a few more miles after the rain passed, and set up the tent on a beautiful ridgeline with (hopefully) a lovely sunrise view. We’ll need a big day tomorrow to make up for our shorter day today…

Also, we reached the 2500 mile marker today! Wowza!

Day 135, 9/22:

29 miles with 6800 feet of climbing.

Well, we needed a big day, and BOY DID WE GET ONE!!! We woke up for the sunrise, saw the beautiful ball of exploding gases rise above the Earth’s horizon, and set off on a giant day of hiking.

Today, we circumnavigated the Cascade volcano Glacier Peak, which is located in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. What a coincidence! This wilderness is known to be extremely remote (possibly the most remote stretch of trail), and since it’s a tall af volcano, the day’s hiking was uuuuuuuuuup and dooooooown and uuuuuuuup and doooooooown as we traversed up ridges and down ridges, just like when we circumnavigated Mt. Hood (I think the mountains took notes from each other). Fortunately, Brooke and I are extremely strong hikers (and modest about it), and hiked productively all day… and then a few more hours at night. We’re hiking machines at this point.

Highlights included the stunning Mica Lake, Milk Creek (which wasn’t as bad as people were commenting), and the stunning views of Glacier Peak all day. Milk Creek was a hoot because there was a community machete on trail where SoBo and NoBo hikers carried a machete and chopped branches near the overgrown Milk Creek; as we were there at the end of the season, there weren’t many branches left, and we zoomed uphill at a respectable 10 pm. Classic us.

Day 136, 9/23:

25 miles with 5000 feet of climbing.

Another day, another big slay. We’re within spitting distance of Stehekin (our last town day) and its famous bakery, so Brooke and I were particularly motivated to push mega miles today to reach town by tomorrow morning. It was more crazy elevation changes today, with a long descent to start off the day and one looooooooong ascent.

To have some fun, Brooke and I decided to strategically cut across the trail (translation: to save 5 miles, we forded across a crazy rapid river on a perfectly fallen log through dense brush and adverse conditions 💪), then climbed uphill through surprisingly thick wildfire smoke… who knew that wet Washington State has wildfires?? We hiked a few more miles in the dark before setting up camp within 15 miles of Stehekin. SO CLOSE

Day 137, 9/24:

15 miles with 800 feet of climbing.

STEHEKIN BABY, WE MADE IT! After the long and hard day yesterday, Brooke and I only had 15 miles to the ranger station, from which a bus arrived 4x a day to drive hikers to Stehekin 11 miles down the road. Brooke and I woke up at 6 am to make the noon bus, and arrived at 11:45. Flex 💪 While waiting, we checked out the nearby river, where we saw tons of red salmon laying their eggs! So cool! I’ve never seen salmon spawning before!

The bus ride into Stehekin was awesome, and we spent the hour chatting and reading. The bus stopped for 20 minutes at the famous Stehekin Pastry Company, where we ate delicious scones and drank even more delicious mochas.

And before we knew it, we were in Stehekin! Our final town! I picked up ALL my mail from the post office (I got so much, thank you Mama, Papa, Maxim, Emily, Ms. Heidi, Joanne, Саша, Katherine, and Hudson for sending me food and letters!! ❤️), jumped into Lake Chelan (the longest lake in Washington!), and hung out with fellow hikers and friends all day. The mood was festive and exciting, as dozens of hikers packed their last resupplies, drank plenty of wine, and celebrated the final stretch of trail. It’s crazy how far we’ve come, and how strong we’ve become!

(I also met Function and JuiceBomb, two hikers known for their legendary water comments 💦… I was honored)

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Now, all these months later in mid-September, we finally made it to Snoqualmie! Wow! We’re so close!

If this is your first episode and you’re thinking “what in the world is happening right now”, start here!

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Day 122, 9/9/2025:

29 miles today with 3800 feet of climbing.

Last night, Brooke and I were hearing these loud creeks and groans rumbling from the woods; I was quite concerned about what kind of animal was lurking out there (Bigfoot??), but we later learned that these sounds were from the nearby glaciers, breaking up and moving down Mt. Adams. lol

We later woke up, feeling extremely well rested, and thus began the start of a tremendous day. Brooke left around 8:30 am, and I stayed behind until 9:30 reading some more of my book in the warm tent. I just started Lessons in Chemistry (recommended by brooke), and WOW what a read! A real page turner, to say the least. I eventually quickly packed up, and spent the next two hours chasing down Brooke.

Around noon, we stopped for a delightful lunch break, during which we played several games of Durak and attempted to brew some coffee with my ground beans. I’d even bought some coffee filters in town, but nevertheless, every attempt at brewing a cup was a dramatic failure: filters breaking, morale plummeting, and the actual drink tasting like dirt. Worse actually. That sentence was disrespectful to dirt, which tastes so much better than whatever I made on trail. Mad respect to whoever figured out how to actually brew a good cup, because after a few failed attempts of drinking this bitterness, I’m starting to lose all hope. They say that Thomas Edison, upon failing to make his lightbulb, proclaimed that he’d discovered 10000 ways to not make a lightbulb; similarly, I’m discovering dozens of ways how not to brew a cup of coffee on trail. 🙃

Brooke went on ahead (again), well I stayed behind (again) to finish reading lessons in chemistry. 11/10 recommend, might be my favorite book I’ve read on trail, perhaps even all year. Spent the next mile hiking uphill with an elk hunter, who told me all about the elk hunting permitting process (1 tag/person/year; free for WA residents) and told me that I “was a lot chirpier than those other beat-up PCT hikers.” A day and a half in Trout Lake will do that to ya, that’s for sure!

I eventually caught up to Brooke, and we spent the next few hours hiking with beautiful views of Rainier and Mt. Adams. The best part was when brooke abruptly stopped on trail, spotting goats in the woods staring right at us. We walked over to investigate, and quickly learned that the four goats belonged to their elk-hunting owner, who used them for companionship and to carry his packs. We even got to pet them!

Finished hiking the last few miles in the dark, before setting up camp near the foggiest lake in existence at 11 pm. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Day 123, 9/10:

26 miles today with 5500 feet of climbing.

Today was the most beautiful day on trail. I didn’t expect to be writing that sentence outside of the High Sierras, but the Goat Mountains Wilderness is just that amazing.

We woke up decently early today, and were out on the trail by 8ish. We need to make it to the Kraker Barrel at White Pass tonight (25 miles away), so it was time for some hustling; there’s a big fire north of White Pass, so we scheduled a trail angel shuttle to drive us around it tomorrow morning. That means there’s no option but to make it there tonight!

Right away, the scenery was stunning: huge peaks with vibrant fall colors, vivid greens, grays, reds, it was gorgeous. We took our first stop of the day at Cispus Pass, where we chatted with another PCT hiker and unsuccessfully attempted to make another cup of coffee with the beans. The other hiker was a coffee pro, yet the best she could make was not even close to the real deal. At this point, I think I’ll cut my losses, leave the coffee in the Kraker Barrel hiker box, and stick with instant coffee for the rest of the trail.

The rest of the morning passed in high spirits, hiking in beautiful high mountain landscapes and poorly singly great songs. After a long climb up to another mountain pass and a short break to build a cute snowman (his name is Lil’ Snowy ☃️), brooke continued on the PCT, while I took a side trail to summit the nearby Old Snowy Mountain with a family of friendly day hikers. Epic views of the entire surrounding area greeted me at the top, along with unobstructed vistas of Mt. Adams, St. Helen’s, and Rainier. I later learned in civilization that my ascent of Old Snowy Mountain was the fastest one recorded on Strava… ever. I’m just like that.

After a quick lunch of some yummy ramen, I descended down the sharply named Knife’s Edge Ridge, and caught up to Brooke for a mid afternoon snack. More miles were crushed in the afternoon while listening to the Hobbit soundtrack to put me in the right mood, with ample breaks for hot cocoa and reading as needed. Eventually, we arrived at the summit of the final giant climb of the day, where foggy views of Rainier greeted us before we began a long descent down to the Kracker Barrel.

Fortunately, the map on my Geocaching app, Cachly, has extremely high resolution offline maps (thank you elrojo14!), from which I found a shortcut down through a ski resort that saved us a half hour of night hiking. We stumbled into the Kracker Barrel hiker area at midnight, quickly set up the tent along dozens of others (that’s unusual!), and collapsed into bed.

But my goodness, the scenery. Just look at these pictures!

Day 124, 9/11:

15 miles today with 2400 feet of climbing.

This Kraker Barrel is where Brooke and I locked tf in and were the most thru-hiker thru-hikers in existence. First step: resupply. The Kracker Barrel opened at 8 am for shopping, so brooke and I were eagerly awaiting when the doors opened to get more food and coffee; Brooke had organized a trail angel shuttle for us around the Wildcat Fire to the north, which meant we needed to be all packed up and ready to go by 8:30. We were literally in and out of a resupply (including sleep) in less than 12 US hours. We saw some goats the other day, but the real goats are us 🐐

The shuttle was some random guy’s nice van, and he drove us two hours to Chinook Pass. Awesome! Keith, our hero! It was a fun drive, during which I chatted with the other hikers and contributed to the destruction of a large bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. We somehow got to the topic of coffee, during which one of the hikers, a French man named Clément, revealed that matcha has the best profit margins at 80%. How did he know?

Well, it turns out that he owns five very successful cafes in Paris. In the Marais! Wow! I was in the presence of greatness (and great wealth) and I didn’t even know it. We all snapped a group photo at Chinook Pass, which I can now use to confirm that I know the owner of the cafes when I ask the baristas for free drinks on my next visit to Le France. Nice.

Once at the trailhead, Brooke and I did a little exploration (I’d been here last year with my sister and Sanketh, and had no idea I’d be returning a year later!), chatted with some park rangers who were cleaning out the pit toilets (I’ve never actually seen this be done; one of the hikers called pit toilets “pitty titties” and I might have to steal that), and headed off on trail. We stopped at the lovely Sheep Lake for lunch and a swim, before carrying on to Sourdough Pass (unfortunately, no sheep or bread loaves were spotted). Spent the rest of the day hiking up, over, and along high mountain ridges as the fog rolled in. Brooke and I briefly lost each other, had a crisis, found each other, and recovered. What a stressful two hours.

Day 125, 9/12:

23 miles today with 3000 feet of climbing.

Today was a very momentous day: Papa and Uncle Andrei were coming to visit us on trail! My aunt and uncle are visiting Antioch from Belarus for the next few weeks, and I’d been talking with my dad about him and his brother potentially visiting us up in Washington. It finally happened today. Yay!

I was very excited to see them, so we left the campsite relatively early and hiked all day to meet them near Tacoma Pass, the dirt road PCT trailhead we’d agreed to meet at. The scenery today was all forest, though we did spot a nice cabin along trail that we took a long detour around: other hikers were commenting about how they got norovirus after staying there, and apparently it got so bad that the CDC came in to swab the place. They found fecal matter (shit) everywhere, so I decided to skip that cabin and carry on ahead. I can’t afford to get norovirus twice in one year, once is enough for me thank you 🫡

Eventually, we reached an intersection with a fire road, which we took to shave a few hundred feet of unnecessary climbing from the trail. While walking, an elk-hunter-carrying pickup truck drove by, and by this point of my thru-hiking career I have no shame so I asked the driver if he had any cold drinks. He promptly pulled out TWO COLD BEERS AND SOME SAFEWAY CHICKEN TENDERS OH MY GOODNESS YOU ARE MY HERO!!! You gotta make your own trail magic sometimes! The chicken tenders and carbonation let us fly up the last mountain, on the other side of which we found my dad and uncle.

Hooray! At long last! I was so happy to see them both, and we all cooked dinner together and chatted while the sun set. They flew into Seattle this morning and drove up to the nearby trailhead to meet us, and it was just so amazing to be with them. Plus, it’s my uncle’s first time backpacking!! Best day ever :)

Day 126, 9/13:

5 miles with 300 feet of climbing.

We woke up at a decent hour this morning, and were excited to spend a fun day hiking in the Washington wilderness. Brooke, Papa, Andrei, and I packed up camp quickly, flew 5 miles down the mountain, and arrived at the Tacoma Pass trailhead with our SeaTac-rented Subaru waiting for us.

On the descent, we spent a good while deciding what our plan for the weekend should be; there were a lot of different variations of what we could do (stay on the PCT, go somewhere else, drive into town for lunch, etc.), and eventually we decided on the lunch option because Brooke and I were craving some town food. We drove down the fire road into the Snoqualmie Pass area, during which we passed tons of PCT hikers doing the road walk to shave off a few trail miles. That would’ve been us if my family didn’t come to visit! We had a few extra Chomps in the car, which the hungry hikers happily devoured.

We had a delicious lunch at Snoqualmie Pass (where we also saw the Dru Bru brewing company, the same beer brand that Hamburger Helper gave us free beers from in the desert!), and decided to backpack up to the nearby Rampart Lakes in the afternoon. This way, we all could hike together today and tomorrow, and then Brooke and I would carry on north on the PCT Monday morning!

It was a half-hour drive to the trailhead, and a short 5-mile hike with 2500 feet of elevation gain. Wowza! The trail reminded me a lot of Mt. Si with all its roots and rocks on trail, but after a few hours of ascending, Brooke, Papa, Andrei, and I made it to the top. There were also tons of berry bushes at the top, so we all picked hundreds of berries before dinner, yum! Papa taught me his professional way to pick them super fast while Andrei explained Belarusian blueberry combine harvesters to Brooke.

All in all, an 11/10 day :)

Day 127, 9/14:

The weather forecast predicted rain, so our group woke up early, packed up camp, found a geocache, and were heading back to the car by 8 am. We picked a ton more berries on the way and sped back to the car in the rain, making in just in time before the really bad weather hit. We’re backpacking professionals!

To celebrate, we had lunch at the same restaurant in Snoqualmie Pass we ate at yesterday (it was so good), then drove over to the nearby Washington Alpine Club lodge. Brooke and I were spending the night there, so Papa and Andrei dropped us off, we all said bye, and they headed home to CA! What an amazing visit ❤️

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As always, please feel free to mail letters, postcards, mail, business cards, or care packages to me on trail! Really, mail me anything, I’ll be so happy.

I always get so excited heading to the post office, and the next one will be in Leavenworth! This wasn’t a planned town stop, but we’re a few days ahead of our friends Flo, Pablo, Sam, and Sky, so we have time to stop by another town to wait for them! And guess what? That town has a post office! Yay! This address wasn’t in the last three blogs, so looks like it’s your special day :) (and if you send something it’ll be my special day ❤️)

Thank you so much to everyone who’s sent me packages, post cards, and letters so far; going to the post office is like Christmas, each and every time!

Here are the last two post office addresses on trail, along with my ETA to them. In case you’re wondering what to send, Brooke and I love Trader Joe’s baby food pouches, Walking Tamales (picture of these below, red ones are the BEST), instant coffee packets, yummy snacks of all kinds. and colored Goldfish (elite flavor). They’re the most delicious snacks ever!

PCT Dennis Gavrilenko -- 9/17/2025

(My phone number) c/o General Delivery

960 US Highway 2

Leavenworth WA 98826

(Note the arrival date!)

Dennis Gavrilenko, PCT Hiker, 9/20/2025

c/o General Delivery

31 Defacto Lane

Stehekin, WA 98852

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Day 116, 9/3/2025:

21 miles today with 3500 feet of climbing.

After our relaxing night in the Timberline Lodge, it was back to trail after a delicious breakfast buffet. We spent most of the day traversing the many river gorges of Mt. Hood, going up and down, up and down, all day long. Beautiful scenery accompanied us all day, and boy was it green! The forests here are stunning, and I can’t wait to be in this greenery for the next month.

Didn’t see too many other hikers today.

Day 117, 9/4:

26 miles today with 2100 feet of climbing.

We’ve made it to Cascade Locks! At long last!

Cascade Locks is the last town in Oregon before the PCT crosses the famous Bridge of the Gods into Washington, so naturally, this day had been highly anticipated for weeks. Even better, Brooke’s hometown friends, Julia and Gianna, flew into Portland to backpack with us for the weekend, so we had some company to look forward to!

But first, getting there: more rolling hills in the morning with epic views of Mt. Hood, followed by a looooooong descent to sea level and Cascade Locks. Best part? Waterfalls! Tons and tons of waterfalls, all along a steep river gorge that flowed into the Columbia. Brooke and I hiked together all afternoon, took a wonderful lunch break swim in the creek, and hiked behind the amazing Tunnel Falls, creatively named because it does, in fact, have a tunnel carved right behind it. Awesome!

Eventually, we made it to bike path leading to Cascade Locks, and sped the last two miles into town where Julia and Gianna were waiting. We celebrated our arrival with burgers at the local brewery, and even got free drinks as PCT hikers! The brewery had a fun tradition of keeping a “PCT Trail Magic Donation Fund”, whereby locals dominated money into a metaphorical pile. If there’s money, you get a free drink; if not, you’re paying! Fortunately, The Fund was well-stocked when we arrived, and so we naturally ordered some fresh fruit ciders.

A festive walk back to camp, where we all fell asleep to the sound of passing trains. Life is good :)

Day 118, 9/5:

10 miles today with 3000 feet of climbing.

Helloooooooo, Washington! The final state, we’ve made it at last!

Following a surprisingly restful night of sleep on soft grass, our group of 4 headed into town for some coffee. Yay! Along the way, I stopped by the Cascade Locks post office, where I got not one, not two, not three, but FOUR presents: packages from Emily, Mama + Papa, and Hyperlite, and a letter from Hamburger Helper. Best day ever! I carried my haul over to the cafe, where I enjoyed a fun unboxing over mochas with Brooke. I could get used to this!

Besides getting tons of snacks and meals, I got a brand new Hyperlite bag, sent straight from the company thanks to their generous warranty policy; I’d emailed them that my water bottle pouch had ripped and the back support was hurting, and they sent me a brand new one for free! Best part, they sent me a shipping label to mail my old bag back for “R&D purposes.” Sick!

After some relaxation in the cafe and a WhatsApp call with some Hawaiians (long story short, Brooke and I are doing a work stay on Maui after the PCT, and we had our interview this morning with our hosts!! We were accepted!!), Brooke and friends departed for the trail, while I stayed behind to resupply, write some postcards, and just chill in general. All, of course, while enjoying coffee.

And then, when it was least expected, a couple walks in and offers to buy everyone coffee! The girl had apparently thru-hiked the PCT last year, was passing through town again this year, and wanted to give back some trail magic herself. We shared some great stories, and it seems that she really misses the trail life… makes me so grateful I still have another month to go :)

After a few more hours of relaxing, I headed off with my new backpack and crossed into Washington! I took the required photos of me on the Bridge of the Gods (I love them!), and proceeded to hike straight uphill for the next 10 miles. Washington is no joke. I arrived at camp around 7, where Brooke, Julia, and Gianna were relaxing with a few other hikers. We saw so many more today, I don’t know where they all came from!

Day 119, 9/6:

26 miles today with 3800 feet of climbing.

We had a slow start today, and enjoyed the morning escapades with Julia and Gianna; they were flying back home tomorrow, but still slack packed 3 miles with us northbound, before turning right around and heading back to Cascade Locks. Fortunately for them, it was all downhill!

The rest of the day was quite cruisy: Brooke and I crushed some rolling mountainous miles in beautiful green forest terrain, and everything was going fine and dandy until no reason at all, a bee stung my foot and buzzed away.

WHY BEE???? I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING TO YOU!!! There was no hive, no nearby nests or other bees, it just stung me completely unprovoked. ☹️ I wasn’t too worried about it, until my ankle started swelling like crazy and it began hurting quite bad. NO NO NO WE’RE SO CLOSE TO THE END!!! Brooke and I carried on for a few more miles before we made a campsite along a river and headed to an early bed.

Day 120, 9/7:

No miles today, just hitchhiking.

This bee sting is no joke. I woke up this morning, it hurt to put weight on my ankle, and I thought I was cooked. After a short discussion with Brooke, we decided that between my ankle, the lack of roads on trail for the next 50 miles, and the general desire to finish hiking before the snow falls, it’d probably be best to strategically bypass (read: skip) ahead to Trout Lake, take a rest day there, and carry on when my ankle felt better.

Now that’s a plan! We hiked one mile to the nearest road, and relatively quickly got a hitch into town. We were dropped off at the bus station, but upon learning that the bus didn’t run on Sundays, figured that we might as well continue hitchhiking and hope for the best.

Boy, did the best happen! These Washington drivers are very hitchhiker-friendly, and within minutes we got a ride all the way to Hood River with these two awesome dudes, Denis and Jason. They were hiking Mt. Adams the next day to prepare for an Aconcagua expedition in January (Aconcagua is the tallest mountain in South America at 23000 feet), and they were great. Both met while working in sales at Yahoo, and Jason was apparently moved to LA and tried the whole “become an actor” stint. He was in some commercials! Including being the guy in a famous Honda beach towel one, which is actually so cool. What in the world are the chances we’d meet??

Denis and Jason treated us to delicious brunch in Hood River, and eventually decided to drive us all the way to Trout Lake for a laugh. The drive was beautiful, with conversation and laughter the entire way, and we were in town in no time. Brooke and I got a room in the Trout River Inn (11/10 experience right there), put down a MASSIVE pizza at the pizzeria across the street, and fell asleep watching Knocked Up. What a life :)

Day 121, 9/8:

12 miles today with 2700 feet of climbing.

After an extremely relaxing sleep in the be try comfortable bed at Trout Lake Inn, Brooke and I headed the mile into town to resupply and pick up our package at the PO. We were planning on walking there, but I lazily threw my thumb out when a car drove by, and crazy enough, it stopped to give us a ride. I say throw my thumb out, because that was literally what I did: just tossed up a thumb at the first car, and lo and behold we saved ourselves 20 minutes of walking. I love hitchhiking! Don’t panic! 42!

The rest of the day passed in a blissful mood: I spent hours catching up on my blog while sitting on the front porch of the General Store, and watched dozens of the folks stop by to chat, buy a quick snack, and hang out. It was beautiful really, the comings and goings of a small town. High schoolers popped over to grab lunch, old timers were greeted by all the visitors, little boys ran in to buy ice cream, hunters to buy ice, it was amazing. All the best parts of small town America, and I got a free front row seat.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and eventually it was time for Brooke and I to head back on trail. My ankle was doing a lot better after popping Benadryls like candy all day, and we got a free ride to the PCT on the 4 pm shuttle. And just like that, it was back to reality! We hiked 11 miles before camp, with unbelievable views of Mt. Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier. We saw the most beautiful sunset ever, and went to bed with the sound of rain pattering against the tent :)

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As always, please feel free to mail letters, postcards, mail, business cards, or care packages to me on trail! Really, mail me anything, I’ll be so happy. I always get so excited heading to the post office, and the next one will be in Snoqualmie Pass! There are only two more post office stops left on the trail (😢), so I’m listing both addresses so that y’all can prepare your mail. If you’ve ever wanted to send something to a REAL LIFE PCT HIKER STRAIGHT TO THE TRAIL, these are your last two chances!!

Thank you so much to everyone who’s sent me packages, post cards, and letters so far; going to the post office is like Christmas, each and every time! It’s honestly so crazy that we’re reaching the end already, the very last post office! So sad :(

Here are the last two post office addresses on trail, along with my ETA to them. In case you’re wondering what to send, Brooke and I love Trader Joe’s baby food pouches, Walking Tamales (picture of these below, red ones are the BEST), and colored Goldfish (elite flavor). They’re the most delicious snacks ever!

Dennis Gavrilenko, PCT Hiker, 9/14/2025

Chevron Station

521 WA-906

Snoqualmie Pass, WA 98068

(Yes I know this one’s to a Chevron Station, but it has a post office inside!)

Dennis Gavrilenko, PCT Hiker, 9/20/2025

c/o General Delivery

31 Defacto Lane

Stehekin, WA 98852

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Day 108, 8/26/2025:

23 miles today with 2600 feet of climbing.

Another great day on trail! Slept in and had a slow morning after getting up super early the day before, and took a nice long break at the first lake we encountered. There, I blew up my pad and floated on it in the water to find the tiny hole near the valve I then patched, had a coffee with Brooke, chatted with some grandma day hikers, and carried on uphill. Later, I rizzed up those same grandmas (light work), then played some Durak with brooke in a cozy snowshoeing lodge we found on trail.

Spent the rest of the day cruising over chill terrain, finding geocaches, and generally planning my world domination… life is good.

Day 109, 8/27:

24 miles today with 1800 feet of climbing.

Unfortunately, I had poor sleep again last night; despite my many attempts to patch the hole near the inflation valve, my Thermarest pad keeps on slowly deflating, so I wake up in the middle of the night on cold, hard ground. Not good. I have a new pad arriving in the mail once I get to Cascade Locks, but I still need to hold out until then and fix this damn hole. I thought I’d patched it at the lake with the grandmas I’d rizzed up the day before, but it seems that there’s still a small hole somewhere. ☹️

Anyway, after a slow morning and a groggy wake up period, Brooke made me a delightful trail mocha and headed on up trail; I stayed behind to chill in the tent a bit more, then packed up myself and was on the trail by 9:25 am. The next few miles were nice and cruisy, with rolling hills and lots of green forests. I was feeling quite good, passing lots of NoBos and clocking in 3.7 miles in the first hour… not bad!

Eventually, I caught up with Brooke, and together we walked until we met another hiker, Drizzle, who proceeded to tell us all about her sheewee, a funnel contraption women use to pee while standing up. Honestly really cool, and such a great conversation and laughter starter there.

We hiked on a bit after that, and decided at lunch to push on to Elk Lake Resort that night; I’d read that they made really delicious pizzas at the restaurant there, and I was more than happy to speed hike the 11 miles there before the pizza oven closed. So off I went! It took just under 4 hours to make it to Elk Lake, during which I listened to Acquired’s new Alphabet episode (tremendous) and managed to stay dry despite crazy thunderstorms. Once at the lake, I straight away got a cold drink, put things to charge, and waited until the last second to order pizza to guarantee a warm pie upon Brooke’s arrival.

Elk Lake was a lovely place, well worth the detour, and I spent the time chatting with a SoBo hiker called Deschutes, who despite being SoBo was quite a wonderful person; he’s taking a semester off school to go thru-hike, and honestly we had a lot of relatable things to talk about. Brooke eventually arrived, we ate our DELICIOUS pizza, and got a ride into Bend from the lady who’d sold me the cold drinks; Brooke’s cousin Cassidy lives in Bend and offered to post us up for the night, so we asked around for a ride and got one from the second car we asked :)

Our driver was lovely, and regaled us with grand tales of her hitchhiking adventures around China when she was 20 and the ugly man hitting on her at the RV Park she was staying at; we arrived in Bend in no time at all, spent hours chatting with Cassidy and her fun roommate Ella, and went to bed on a warm, cozy couch. What a life :)

Day 110, 8/28:

15 miles today with 2400 feet of climbing.

Another day, another tiring morning; I tried to sleep on my pad last night to check if my patch worked, yet it still deflated in the middle of the night… this poor sleep is really starting to get to me, not good!

But, I was determined to make it a great day. After quickly packing up our things, Brooke, Cassidy, and I ventured out to get some breakfast burritos at Lucy’s, grabbed a coffee at Looney Bean (BEST mocha I’ve ever had), and got dropped off on the edge of town to hitchhike back to trail. I spent a long while at the coffee shop chatting with Cassidy (I’d finally met her last night after months of hearing stories about her from Brooke), and was seriously struggling with the fact we needed to get back on trail; eventually, I got my shit together mentally, and we were off to try hitching.

Which was an immediate success! Juan picked us up with his friendly dog, and dropped us off right at the trailhead to get back onto the LCT. Juan himself was an awesome dude: ex-marine, future commercial pilot, and overall chill dude. We chatted about Marine Corps and Japanese life (he was stationed there as a a plane mechanic), and the 45 minutes flew by in the car.

And from there, it was smooth sailing. Brooke and I hiked 4 miles to get back onto the PCT through beautiful volcanic planes and between tall cinder cones, before taking a long break in the shade to wait out the smoke from a large fire near the town of Sisters. My lower back was killing me from my broken backpack too (which had been hurting me for a while, so much so that I’m getting a new one in Cascade Locks), which combined with the smoke made the conditions perfect for a nap.

The nap was more a slumber, and I finally left that site 3 hours later to catch up to Brooke. We flew over the rolling hills for the next few hours, during which we (1) diverted a stream that was flowing down the trail, saving the trail was damaging erosion, (2) found and sealed another hole in my pad (I’m really hoping this is the last one), and (3) ran into and subsequently hiked with Freestyle, a Czech hiker WHO REMEMBERED ME FROM MY GEOCACHING ADVENTURES IN SOCAL! I mentioned to him that there a geocaching trail magic event happening tomorrow, after which he mentioned that he saw someone geocaching in SoCal and was concerned that they’d just left their bag on trail, and that someone just so happened to be me. Mega lol. We chatted about chimney men too (my go-to conversation with Czech people), then Brooke and I carried on ahead before it got completely dark; we eventually set up camp in a gorgeous field of obsidian rocks (SO cool), and are off for an early wake up tomorrow!

Day 111, 8/29:

26 miles today with 3200 feet of climbing.

Wow, what an amazing day of PCT adventure! It started off nice and early: the much-anticipated geocaching event was happening today from 10 am - 1 pm, and I couldn’t wait to make it there! We only had ~12 miles of relatively flat hiking to make it there, and boy did we fly over it (despite the quite smoky conditions).

The landscape was very volcanic; most of the trail was through ancient lava flows on crushed lava rock, and one section even had obsidian everywhere! Obsidian! Amazing! It was all over the ground as if it grew there, with even a beautiful waterfall creatively named Obsidian Falls right on trail. 30 feet of gushing water, right into a pit of obsidian boulders. Amazing!

Eventually, we made it to McKenzie Pass Highway, where the geocaching event was happening nearby. Brooke went ahead to the GZ, while I took a quick detour to find all local geocaches (I knew that once I sat down in the camp chair at the geocaching event, there’d be no getting up; one geocache actually had some other geocachers there, who were extremely impressed by my ability to quickly traverse over the sharp terrain) and check out the nearby Dee Wright Observatory, which was DELIGHTFUL. It was a large building completely built from the local lava rock, with holes in the wall pointing to different prominent mountains. So cool!

And finally! Finally! I made it to the geocaching event! Boy, was it even better than I expected: dozens of geocachers, all of our hikers friends, and too many hot dogs and cold drinks to finish. Brooke and I spent a good 2 hours there, regaling other cachers with our PCT (and my geocaching) stories, and we even found a new geocache that was hidden that day for that event. There were some kids there too, who lived on a ranch nearby and told us all about their steer (castrated male cows) that they sold for many thousands of dollars.

They were pre-teens. Unbelievable stuff 🐄

After the amazing geocaching event, Brooke and I decided we needed a break from our break, and promptly took a 2-hour nap. The rest of the day proceeded quite smoothly; energized and feeling relatively alert, brooke and I quickly ascended over the next few volcanic buttes before camping right outside of Big Lake Youth Camp. Town day tomorrow!

Body pain update: my lower back and right leg hurt really badly; the back from my broken backpack, the leg for no reason (probs overuse). Let’s hope this gets better soon!

Day 112, 8/30:

17 miles today with 2200 feet of climbing.

Update: my back and leg got better soon. Yay!

This morning was the much-anticipated morning of entering Big Lake Youth Camp, almost as anticipated as the geocaching event! People have been commenting that the summer camp facilities offer free for hikers, so brooke and I hurried into camp for the breakfast scheduled at 8 am!

And found a complete ghost town. Turns out that the summer camp ended last week, all the counselors had left yesterday, and now there was no one really there. Mega bruh. We went over to the camp director’s cabin and hoped someone would be there, with no luck, of course.

Eventually, we saw a car drive by, and chased it down to ask for help. The Australian guy was a counselor who was just finishing up packing up his stuff and put us in touch with the camp director, who quickly pulled up in his golf cart to help us out.

First off, he opened the PCT Center, an entire building dedicated for PCT hikers and all our needs. It had everything: showers, laundry, charging, kitchen, chairs, it was unbelievable! Brooke and I planned to quickly get our package picked up, shower, and head out back to trail by ~10ish am…

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then our package was nowhere to be found, and FedEx was unreachable, and the camp director invited us to his cabin and made us two mochas EACH (thank you Les!!!!), and we decided that the box was a goner and we needed to scrounge the hiker box for food so we wouldn’t have to detour into Sisters to buy food, and the camp director gave us food, and we showered…

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then Flo and Pablo finally caught up to us at the PCT Center hut, so naturally we had to catch up with them and share all the lore from the last two weeks, and call our entire families, aaaaaaand by that time it was 1:45 pm and we’d hiked 0.6 miles for the day. The story of our PCT lives, right there.

Eventually, we did leave the youth camp (it was so amazing to be there, wow, one of the best stops on trail), with two other hikers in tow, and hiked with them for the next few miles until we reached… THE 2000 MILE MARKER! Wowoowowowowow! In the hectic mess of the the action-packed morning we had, I forgot all about that and it really did sneak up on us, but hey that’s pretty crazy, huh? 2000 miles done!

We continued on in high spirits, crossed the major highway into Sisters, and arrived in the trailhead parking lot expecting trail magic due to the sign on the south side of the road declaring so. Unfortunately, it seemed that that trail magic had ended and the magicians forgot to take down their sign, but on the bright side, Brooke and I did acquire a postcard! Our dear friend Will (hey!) visited this trailhead back in July and hid a postcard for us in a stump, sent us a video of where to find it, and today we finally got it. Thank you Will!

After basking in the glory of the postcard, Brooke and I joined three other hikers in relaxing in the grassy area near the parking lot, sprawled everywhere. We PCT hikers no longer have any shame, so any time any day hikers or weekend backpackers would return to the parking lot, we’d right away ask if they had any cold drinks to spare. Most said no, but fortunately, we did get some cold fruit from a van-life couple (hey and thanks!) and a cold Bubbly from another car, which we happily shared among us 5 hikers. Sometimes, you gotta create your own trail magic.

The rest of the day passed smoothly, until we learned that the lake resort we’d planned to top up our food stores on only took cash, and Brooke and I only had $17 between us in good ol hard currency. We panicked a little bit, but two weekend mountaineers from central Oregon (hey as well, hope your ascent up Three Fingered Jack went well!) shared an extra granola bar that’ll hopefully set us up for success; brooke and I barely have any food, and we basically need to hike 100ish miles to Mt. Hood with that. Call me Chris McCandless 🙃

The rest of the day was spent hiking along steep mountains (where we saw a family of 11 mountain goats!) and camping with Flo and Pablo, despite the fact that we left two hours before them and thought we were way ahead off. Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug 🐛

EXCITING NEWS! Flo and Pablo gave us $60 in cash on loan with zero interest (I hope), so now we can buy more food at Ollalie Lake! We won’t starve!

Favorite Brooke quotes from today:

“We have enough food… and we have $17.”

— Brooke, when we were treacherously low on food on our push to Mount Hood (before we saw Flo and Pablo), 8/30/2025

“I don’t know where our box is, but honestly, I’m not that pressed.” at Big Lake Youth Camp

Day 113, 8/31:

27 miles today with 5100 feet of climbing.

In The Lord of the Rings, Smegul finds the One Ring at the bottom of a river in The Shire, becomes corrupted, and transforms into Gollum. Well Smegul, today I’ve one-upped you!

Yesterday I read the following comment on FarOut on the Highway 24 pin: “This is a loooong shot buuuut one of the lenses in my prescription sunglasses just popped out yesterday while they were around my neck somewhere between here and 18mi from here. At this point I can't afford to order a new pair of prescription sunnies. If anyone finds a single lens, please text me & l'll buy you a beer.”

And guess what I found half buried in the dirt right by the pond where we camped with Flo and Pablo? THE LENS OMG!!! as soon as I got service, I texted the hiker who left the comment, Ratatouille, who was so extremely excited that her beloved lens was lost that she happily took me up on that free beer immediately. I sent her a photo of my excitement and the lens in question, and promptly received her own excitement in return:

After that exciting morning, brooke and I packed up camp quickly and headed uphill for the first climb of the day, stopping occasionally to pick an entire Talenti jar full of huckleberries so that brooke wouldn’t “look so longingly at them when we’re hiking by the plump bushes.” It seems that the prime huckleberry season is right upon us, and we spent many minutes bent over the bushes, picking berries straight into our mouths; it turns out that my childhood training of picking blueberries in Правдински wasn’t useless after all!

Over the next few hours, Brooke and I meandered over various ridges, all with tremendous views of Mt. Jefferson, which we were walking around today (they say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line… the shortest, but not the fastest! Had we gone in a straight line, that ascent over the peak of Jefferson would’ve taken ages). We eventually reached an intersection for an alternate route for a few miles, for which I successfully convinced Flo and Pablo to join us after winning our bet: the deal was that if I rolled a Yahtzee within five rolls, they’d join us. That Yahtzee 6s took only four attempts, and brooke and I were filled with the purest joy and excitement.

The alternate was an amazing decision; countless huckleberry bushes caused many, many stops (with Flo even sitting down to further shorten the bush-to-mouth berry pipeline), with a delightful lunch near Hank’s Lake and a beautiful descent through an old growth forest filled with mossy trees and countless mushrooms. We eventually made it to Milk Creek, and spent the next 9 miles climbing straight uphill with even more epic views of Mt. Jefferson’s northern glaciers. Brooke and I had dinner in the dark, and hiked the last few miles under the stars before setting up camp on an exposed ridge.   :)

Day 114, 9/1:

20 miles today with 1700 feet of climbing.

Happy September! Wow! They say that time flies, and boy does it… I feel like we just started the trail, and that was all the way back in May!

Today was an absolutely fantastic day. We decided we earned a slower morning today, and left camp by 8:30 after eating all the huckleberries Brooke had picked the night before. AMAZING

The goal today was to reach the camp store at Olallie Lake, then try and hitch somewhere closer to Mt. Hood; we had reserved a room in the Timberline Lodge (a beautiful hotel right on the slopes of the mountain) weeks ago, and got quite behind after too many huckleberry-eating and camp-director-mocha stops. But no matter. I have Brooke The Ride Bride, who can get me a hitch anywhere I need to go!

I anticipated that the hitchhiking would be the exciting part of the day, but it came even earlier than expected after Pablo, Flo, and I encountered an elk hunter on the descent into town. I, being curious of course, proceeded to ask too many questions about his gear, and promptly received an elk-bugling-demonstration after asking about his bugling-horn-that-looked-like-a-baseball-bat. It was unbelievable, and the contrast between him and Pablo warranted many a good chuckle.

Brooke and I eventually made it to the forest road, and blue blazed all the way to the camp store, where we stocked up on snacks and critically, got a hot cup of coffee. Hunger crisis, averted! All the worrying and despair a few days ago, for naught! We will live! We spent a good while relaxing and got some intel from the locals about hitching, who recommended hiking down the only forest road that left the lake and hitchhiking from there. We did just that, with TREMENDOUS success; we were quickly picked up by Chuck and Kelly, who drove us ALL THE WAY TO LITTLE CRATER LAKE, EXACTLY WHERE WE WANTED TO GO HALLELUJAH!!!!!!

We had a fantastic time in the car, drinking beers and chatting about anything and everything: the PCT, forestry practices, Oregon life, Kelly’s adventures in Switzerland; we even stopped to give another car directions, and it turned out that they were trying to get to the PCT to feed their son, who we hiked with 3 days before!

Chuck and Kelly dropped us off ~35 up the trail, we celebrated with sandwiches, and bade them a sad farewell. The trail really provides, and we were so grateful for the unbelievable hitch. Brooke and I spent a few hours relaxing at Little Crater Lake before hiking another 10ish miles toward Timberline. I can’t wait to make it there tomorrow!

Update: we got some free coffee grounds from our amazing hitchhike drivers, and I’m committed to figure out how to do a pour over coffee on trail. My first attempt this afternoon was so bad though, that Brooke called my concoction “bean juice”. Yikes

Day 115, 9/2:

11 miles today with 2900 feet of climbing.

We’ve arrived to Mt. Hood! Hallelujah! At long last!

Following our hitchhiking adventure yesterday morning, brooke and I were finally within hiking range of Timberline Lodge, the location of a much-anticipated hotel-room stay. The lodge is on the slopes of Mt. Hood, which meant that the entire morning was spent walking straight uphill to reach civilization.

And reach it, we did! Grand views accompanied us on the ascent, and we were inside by 2 pm. Check in was at 4, but the lady at the front desk kindly let us check in early. The rest of the afternoon was spent taking hot showers, eating yummy food, and laying down in an all-too-cozy bed. Air conditioning wasn’t invented when this lodge was built, so we were roasting in there. My goodness!

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As always, please feel free to mail letters, postcards, mail, business cards, or care packages to me on trail! Really, mail me anything, I’ll be so happy. I always get so excited heading to the post office, and the next one will be in Snoqualmie Pass! There are only two more post office stops left on the trail (😢), so I’m listing both addresses so that y’all can prepare your mail. If you’ve ever wanted to send something to a REAL LIFE PCT HIKER STRAIGHT TO THE TRAIL, these are your last two chances!!

Thank you so much to everyone who’s sent me packages, post cards, and letters so far; going to the post office is like Christmas, each and every time! It’s honestly so crazy that we’re reaching the end already, the very last post office! So sad :(

Here are the last two post office addresses on trail, along with my ETA to them. In case you’re wondering what to send, Brooke and I love Trader Joe’s baby food pouches (all snacks from there, really), Walking Tamales (picture of these below, red ones are the BEST), and colored Goldfish (elite flavor). They’re the most delicious snacks ever!

Dennis Gavrilenko, PCT Hiker, 9/14/2025

Chevron Station

521 WA-906

Snoqualmie Pass, WA 98068

(Yes I know this one’s to a Chevron Station, but it has a post office inside!)

Dennis Gavrilenko, PCT Hiker, 9/20/2025

c/o General Delivery

31 Defacto Lane

Stehekin, WA 98852

Let’s go!

If this is your first episode and you’re thinking “what in the world is happening right now”, start here!

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Day 104, 8/22/2025:

3 miles today with 60 feet of climbing. lol

After our four GLORIOUS days off in Ashland, brooke and I knew that there was no way we were catching up to Flo and Pablo on trail, so we decided to make a strategic bypass to Crater Lake. Strategic bypass = skip, but just fancier. It seems a lot cooler to “strategically bypass” a section of the trail rather than skip it. lol

And so off to Crater Lake we went! We organized a ride north from a trail angel, and arrived at the Mazama Village area by noonish. We didn’t have many plans except to just hang out and explore the national park, which we ended up doing with some tourist in town for a vacation. She drove us all around the park, until she locked her keys in her car and some truckers broke into her car to rescue us. It was wild: they fashioned a wedge to pry the door open, then used their truck antennas to pull the driver side trunk latch. All that was left was crawling through the trunk, opening the side door, and we were all set. Honestly pretty hilarious.

Later, we hiked down to the lake and swam in the only part you’re allowed to, then hitchhiked back to trail and hiked a few miles in the dark with Tanya, our Australian friend.

But my goodness, the water. So blue! So beautiful! Blu! Blue! Blue!

Day 105, 8/23:

18 miles today with 1900 feet of climbing.

Today was our first full day back on trail, and it was quite pleasant! We didn’t want to push the mileage too hard today, nor did we want to start too early and not feel well-rested, so we went ahead and slept in until 8:30, left the campsite at 10, and properly started hiking at 11.

Our first stop of the day was at the Highway 209 water cache; even though Oregon is supposedly nice and wet (hence the greenery), there’s actually not much water on this stretch of the trail, so a few extremely wonderful trail angels maintain large stores of water for PCT hikers. Our heroes. 🙏 This particular cache features tons of 5-gallon jugs inside a bear box, in which Brooke and I dropped off our extra food and carried on our way. Now that we’ve planned out and mailed ahead all of our food for Oregon, I’m trying to be much more disciplined about leaving extra food in hiker boxes, since anything extra I don’t eat will have to be carried 300 miles to Cascade Locks. No gracias there, señor.

With lighter packs and higher spirits, brooke and I set off north, back on the PCT proper at last (the Crater Lake portion wasn’t actually the PCT, but actually the Rim Trail). The next 9 miles were very flat and extremely cruise-y, during which I finished reading the last of my British sailor pirate series (my favorite in middle school) and had a delicious ramen lunch with Brooke. I’d found some dehydrated kale flakes and bone broth packets at the Grocery Outlet in Medford, so now my ramen lunches could properly earn a Michelin Star. Maybe even two? ⭐️ ⭐️

After the 9 miles of flat trail through forests thinned by drought, we exited the national park (next one is Rainier!), crossed the BUSTLING highway 138, and refilled our waters at the delightful water cache there. Boy, these trail angels are our SAVIORS out here! I had another delicious coffee before chatting it up with some SoBo hikers, who warned us of the quite sparse water on trail up ahead. Bruh moment, I thought we’d left those days behind us in the desert.

But the show must go on (I’m realizing that I like this phrase and use it often in this blog lol)! Brooke and I cameled up on water and continued north, this time uphill onto the slopes of Mt. Thielsen. We were fortunately in fantastic spirits, since we had a lot to chat about regarding our long and lovely stay in Ashland, plus the entire Epic Systems podcast by Acquired to boot. Brooke’s gonna be a PA and I wanted to relisten to it, so we enjoyed sharing the AirPod audio together on the ascent.

Finally, we made it to the junction to head up Thielsen Peak, and BOY was it a beauty! The sharpest and pointiest mountain I have EVER seen, just like the Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit! It took all my willpower to not drop off my pack and hike straight to the top, but alas we didn’t have four extra hours and daylight was quickly fading. We instead took some lovely photos with Thielsen in the back, wrapped up the last 2 miles to camp, and saw the most gorgeous pink/orange sunset before setting up our tent in a beautiful grove of trees a tenth of a mile off trail.

I had Joanne’s soup today for dinner, and boy were those lentils yummy. Combine that with epic views of Thielsen’s north face, a new moon with no cloud cover that provided EXCELLENT stargazing, and a chocolate left on my pillow by Brooke, and you have yourself a recipe for a happy camper right there. It’s good to be back on trail!