Some of the best trail magic Brooke and I received on trail was from a trail angel named Hamburger Helper, who with his friend hiked up bags of foods and cold drinks for us, Flo, Pablo, and Quinn. He shared with us some deliciously cold beers from Dru Bru, a brewery up in Snoqualmie Pass in central Washington. That trail magic was on May 20th, even before Idyllwild.
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!
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 ❤️
