Episode 71 - PCT Update #19

Snoqualmie Pass —> Stehekin

Oct 03, 2025

In Le Tour de France, the “Queen Stage” refers to the largest, the grandest, the most intense stage of the 21-day race. Often, the Queen Stage features 2 or 3 climbs labeled as HC: hors categorie (“beyond category”), climbs that are so hard that they are literally beyond categorization.

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!

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)