My PCT Journey, the Rest of the Story

After reaching the Canadian border, I had nine miles more to hike into Manning Provincial Park where some wonderful old friends met me on the trail, then helped me celebrate my accomplishment with a night at the park lodge. First meal off the trail? Fish tacos and a glass of white wine!

And that was it.

I had done what I set out to do. I had lived the best of the PCT and made it all the way from Mexico to Canada.

Now what?

I get to rest, of course! But this incredible experience needs to be processed physically (my body really hurts now that it’s not moving so much), and emotionally (that’s going to take a while).

But what about processing the data, the specific facts, the numbers? That’s what most people are asking about anyway. So, for my final post, I thought you might be interested in some of the data details of my hike.

My 2024 Northbound PCT Hike 

Start Date: April 7, 2024

Ending Date: September 14, 2024

Total Days on the PCT: 162

Total “Zero” or Rest Days:  21 days while actively hiking the trail, plus 15 more to heal my ankle after my sprain in Idyllwild

“Zero” days were spent resting, shopping for resupply, doing laundry, going to the post office and writing my blog posts

Total Distance Hiked: Approximately 1,700 Miles 

Average Daily Miles: 13.5

My daily mileage fluctuated drastically depending on the amount of elevation gain and loss, the availability of water, the state of the trail (rocks really slowed me down), the weight of my pack (especially after a town resupply), the weather (I would stop early if I didn’t want to be caught on a ridge in a storm), the location of towns and the mood/ needs of my me and my hiking partners.  

According to my Far Out App, here are the average miles I hiked in each of the PCT’s five sections:

–Desert Region from Campo, California to Tehachapi, California 

• Average 12.2 miles daily over 61 total hiking days
• I was slow to start, slow to restart after my ankle sprain, I celebrated my birthday off trail and the weather was incredibly hot necessitating long mid-day siestas. I admit, it seemed to take me forever to get past the desert region!

–Sierra Nevada Region from Tehachapi to Echo Lake 

• Average 14.0 miles daily over 39 total hiking days
• Huge elevation gains and loses and record breaking heat again slowed me down

–Northern California north from Echo Lake:

• Average 15.4 miles daily over 21 hiking days

–Oregon from Elk Lake to Cascade Locks:

• Average 11.9 miles daily for 16 hiking days
• I admit to trying to go slow, it was just so beautiful to actually “backpack” (not thru-hike) in Oregon again! 

–Washington from Walput Lake to the Canadian Border

• Average 14.1 miles daily for 25 hiking days
• Again- lots of up and down in this part, and I admit, I was still “backpacking” and savouring every last day on the trail.

So, clearly, from the beginning, it was obvious that I was not going fast enough to walk the full distance of the PCT. If you want to hike every step of the trail and make it to Washington before the snow flies, you do need to hike more miles per day. But if you get tired of the constant “push” for more miles, as I did, I encourage you to take the slow road and enjoy the journey. 

Longest Day: 22.4 miles

Average Daily Schedule:

During the months of May, June and July, while the days were longer, I often hiked from 5:30 am – 5:30 pm with a longer lunch break. In the colder months of April, and September, I often hiked from 7ish – 5:30 pm with shorter lunch breaks.

Total Areas Skipped Due to Forest Fires: 6

Wildlife Spotted Along the Trail: snakes (many different species including 3 rattlesnakes, deer, bear, mountain goats, marmots, pikas, birds of prey, salmon

Total Cost of Hiking the PCT:

I used a budgeting app on my phone to keep track of my daily expenses. It all added up very quickly!

• Food – $4,306 (California mountain towns are expensive places for resupply)
• Equipment – $1,858 (I did purchase a pack, poles and ice equipment before starting the trail)
• Clothing/ Shoes – $1,395 
• Accommodation – $1,027 (I mostly stayed in dormitories and with Trail Angels to minimize costs)
• Health – $701 (includes PT appointments for my hip and my ankle)
• Safety/ Navigation – $1,179 (this was the cost of my satellite beacon and service while on trail)
• Local Transportation – $236 (paying for rides to and from trailheads)
• Shipping/ Mail Services – $108 (shipping my resupply boxes)
• Laundry $21.00

With other miscellaneous fees, the Grand Total of My PCT Hike= $10,989 USD

My Favorite Equipment:

• Tent- Big Agnes UL 1-person Copper Spur (yes it’s a free standing, double-walled tent which makes it a bit heavier, but I never wished for anything else)
• Trekking Poles- Leki Cressida Cork for Women (so flexible and durable)
• Fanny Pack- Gossamer Gear Bumster (It held all my snacks and cleaned up so easily!)
• Ultralight Mat- Gossamer Gear 1/8″ Thinlight Foam Pad (Yes, the thorny bushes in the desert shredded it, but I replaced it later in the trail and I loved to lay on it for lunch, do yoga stretches on it after a day of hiking, and place it under my sleeping pad for more insulation.)
• Sun Hoodie- REI Sahara Shade Hoodie for Women (It lasted the whole trail and was the perfect layer in all weather conditions)
• Fleece- Columbia Light-Weight Fleece (Some people only take a puffy jacket, but I found my puffy too warm to hike in on cold days and ended up instead wearing my fleece at some part of every day. I wouldn’t leave home without it!)
• Shammie- Sham-wow Towel (I cut an 8×8″ square and used it as a towel after showers, to dry my feet after river crossings, to wipe my hands, clean my tent- invaluable for its ounces!)
• Spoon- Sea to Summit Titanium Long-Handled Spoon (No dirty fingers in my food!)
• Water Bladder- CNOC Wide-Mouth 2L Bladder (So many other hikers just used bottles or small mouthed bladders to fill up at a stream and it all looked very frustrating. The wide mouth was so easy to fill in all water-level situations.) 
• Bag Liner- Sea to Summit Silk/Cotton Blend Sleeping Bag Liner  (This liner kept my sleeping bag much cleaner, much warmer, and for really warm nights, I just used the liner instead of my sleeping bag as a cover. It was also my laundry bag and washed up nicely, too)
• Pee Cloth- Kula Cloth (It’s the one item women should never leave home without!)
• Bidet- Culo Clean Portable Bidet (I added this spout to a designated small water bottle and loved the clean feeling and the need for less toilet paper!)
• Satellite Beacon- Garmin In-Reach Mini 2 (I was shocked at how many people carried this gadget and never turned it on unless they wanted to send a message. It’s not a $400 cell phone, it’s a life saver! Turn it on so someone knows where you are when you fall off that cliff!)

*If I was to change anything, I wouldn’t carry quality (and heavy) rain-gear in the Desert or Northern California sections. Save that for the storms in the Sierra, Oregon and Washington.

What I Jettisoned During my Hike:

• Gossamer Gear Ultralight Umbrella (it broke) 
• My compass – this is not necessary when you have the Far Out App
• My bear canister at Donner Pass, but I replaced it with an Ursak Bear Bag
• My thermal underwear for the warm sections of Northern California and Oregon – which was a mistake because Oregon summers in the mountains are still cold. Keep your thermals! 

I’d like to point out that I am very proud of myself for my efficient planning and preparation. My equipment was dialed-in from the beginning and that made my experience less complicated from the start.

Equipment I Purchased Along the Trail:

• 1 CNOC Bladder (due to a broken seal)
• 1 UL Foam Pad
• 1 additional 10,000 mAh power bank to recharge on the trail (I carried a total of two of these)
• Shorts and Shoes! 

Number of Shoes Destroyed: 5

I switched between Hoka and Brooks, and my foot increased a 1/2 size early in the hike.

Number of Blisters: 1

Favorite Sections of the Trail:

• Sierra Nevada Mountains, especially the high Sierras, Mammoth Lakes through Yosemite National Park to the north of Lake Tahoe
• Washington State, the Goat Rocks and then from Stevens Pass North to the Border. I can never get enough of subalpine meadows!
• Oregon, it was so nice to be home
• And my biggest surprise, I really enjoyed the Desert from Mt. Laguna to Julian, so beautiful!

Favorite Stops Along the Trail:

• Julian for the free pie at Mom’s Pie Shop: the Strawberry Rhubarb with Cinnamon Ice Cream was the best!
• Mountain Valley Retreat near Warner Springs- It was a lovely way to celebrate my birthday
• Idyllwild – can I just live there?
• Deep Creek Canyon and Hot Springs – No weird naked people when I was there!
• Kennedy Meadows South General Store– it was so fun to ring the bell and cheer other hikers as they arrived out of the Desert section and into the Sierra
• Eastside Guest House & Bivy in Bishop- great vibe and beautiful grounds to cook and relax
• Vermilion Valley Resort– worth the hike or boat ride to enjoy this place
• Kennedy Meadows (North) Resort– great resupply, great vibe and a serve-yourself soft-serve ice cream machine!
• Elk Lake Resort, Oregon
• Timberline Lodge– the yummy buffet, and sitting in a fine dining room with all your grubby stinky clothes really is worth the price
• Washington Alpine Club at Snoqualmie Pass- a wonderful stopover with great food, services and generous volunteers
• Stehekin Pastry Company, or the “Bakery”, is revered for good reason on the trail 

My Favorite New Skill: Cold Soaking

I loved cold-soaking because it was fast, efficient, with no wait times or dirty dishes. I thought the meals were overall lighter to carry, very nutritious and foods were easier to buy. (I admit to only ONE very cold day in Northern Washington where I longed for a stove when some other hikers pulled out theirs to have an afternoon cup of coffee. That was hard… but for 161 other days… cold soaking was the bomb!) 

All my cold soaking recipes came from BackcountryFoodie.com (which I highly recommend for all of your food prep and nutrition needs!)

My Favorite Recipes from Backcountry Foodie included: 

• Lemon Pesto Parmesan Chicken and Ramen
• Ramen Pesto with Walnuts
• Morracan Couscous
• Pineapple Couscous
• Cranberry Couscous
• Buckwheat Groats with Apricots and Pecans
• Peanut Butter and Chocolate Shakes
• Any Fruit Smoothies
• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I also survived heavily on:

• Peanut Butter Crunch Cliff Bars, Liquid IV Electrolytes, Sour Gummy Worms and Skittles

Resupply Strategy: 11 Resupply Boxes 

I picked these eleven locations because they are well documented to not have a good resupply or it’s a long hitch to a store. I also appreciated the variation in my meals with special goodies in my boxes!

*Some of these locations required UPS, while others required USPS delivery.

• Idyllwild Inn (This box contained little food, but included my ice axe and micro spikes)
• Acton LA RV Resort (I was glad I didn’t have to pay for a taxi into town)
• Kennedy Meadows South, Grumpy Bears Retreat (This box included my bear canister)
• Independence Post Office (I could have skipped this mail stop and resupplied in Bishop.)
• Burney Falls State Park Camp Store (I rerouted this box, so I can’t speak of their resupply)
• Crater Lake, Mazama Village Store (I rerouted this box, but I heard resupply there was bad)
• Shelter Cove Resort (I rerouted this box, so I can’t speak of their resupply)
• White Pass, Kracker Barrel Store (This store was great, I really didn’t need a box after all)
• Snoqualmie Pass, Summit Inn Hotel (Glad I had this box as grocery supplies were minimal)
• Stevens Pass Ski Resort (I was very glad I didn’t have to hitch to Leavenworth, but if its cold and rainy and you want real food, the hitch and resupply could be worth it)
• Stehekin Post Office (I’m so glad I resupplied here, so I didn’t have to go to Mazama)

*Since I have friends near Portland, I rerouted my unused resupply boxes to Timberline Lodge/ Government Camp and Cascade Locks and was glad that I didn’t have to fully resupply in either of those places. 

My Favorite Resupply Towns:

When I didn’t receive a package, I shopped at the local grocery and gas stations (which surprisingly have a lot for cold soakers). Here are the locations where I found an especially easy resupply:

• Big Bear City
• Hikertown at Neenach Store
• Ridgecrest 
• Tehachapi- if you like Walmart
• Bishop
• Mammoth Lakes
• Kennedy Meadow North (This was my favorite small store resupply for cold soaking!)
• Ashland
• Bend
• White Pass Kracker Barrel Store

Invaluable Tips I Gained Along The Trail:

–Add liquid Dr Bronner’s to a small spray bottle with a little water. Wash with it after every #2!

–Tie a clothes line to the inside of your tent to dry things at night

–Sleep with all of your electronics and water filter to preserve them from the cold

–Sleep with your bra and the insoles of your shoes to help them dry and keep from freezing

–Change your clear water bottle caps to red Coke bottle caps- you’ll find them more easily on the ground

–Use a turkey-roasting plastic bag to line your food bag to help seal in odors 

–Always carry extra zip-locks of all three sizes

Add the following to your resupply boxes:

• Toothpaste in tablet form, lighter and less waste
• Compressed towels in tablet form; with a few drops of water, use these cloths to clean the sweat from your body and then save them to use later for toilet paper. They are super strong.
• Doggy poop bags to collect your toilet paper
• Leuko Tape strips; pre-cut them and place onto quick release slick sheets. Then put these strips into your first aid kit to use on any body part that has a hot spot (feet, hips, inside thighs, shoulders, etc)
• Earplugs; they will help you sleep when the wind is flapping your tent all night or campmates are too loud

**Don’t carry laundry detergent, soap or shampoo – it’s mostly supplied or easy to buy at the moment 

My Favorite Memories Along the PCT:

• The desert blooms around every turn in Southern California
• The high prairie grasses and oak woodlands of Angeles National Forest- it reminded me of Little House on the Prairie
• The awe of seeing big mountains way in the distance and walking there within a matter of days
• Inhaling big burgers and multiple refills in the sunshine with Wazzu on the front porch of a restaurant in Wrightwood
• Watching sunrise through the wind turbines near Tehachapi
• The delight of reaching the top of Forester Pass, the highest point on the PCT
• The bright wildflower meadows at Lake Tahoe with flowers reaching above my head
• Swimming and camping at Jefferson Park with Frozen, swimming in Pear Lake with Esther, swimming in any of the Sierra high lakes – they all are the highlights of the PCT
• Introducing Oregon to my hiking partner Frozen- she was so excited about everything we saw
• Dancing at Trail Days with all the friendly faces I had met on trail
• My party at Cascade Locks- having the support of all of my Portland friends
• Basking in the sunlight after four days of intense fog, and drying out at the cabin near Snoqualmie Pass
• The impromptu sing-along on a rainy night at the Washington Alpine Club
• The expansive and fall-color kissed sub-alpine meadows in Washington’s Glacier Peak and Pasayten Wildernesses
• Singing… throughout all the miles… singing the camp songs of my childhood

My Favorite Trail Magic:

• Patrick is known on trail for the ice-cream cooler he installed in the back of his van. He also brings a grill to cook things like hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches. I got to benefit from his generosity and smile twice on trail in the most perfect of locations, when I was nearly spent from heat and blowing sand. 
• On day four, there was a 50K running race along the PCT and the organizers spared no expense to feed the PCTers as well. That was fun!
• Lolo Pass- in the days before PCT Trail Days, many vendors showed up at different trailheads to promote their products. I savoured three homemade Sloppy Joes from Obroz Sunglasses. Definitely a worthy stop!
• And my most favorite trail magic of all: the I-10 cooler -A cooler filled with icy Gatorade awaited discovery at the bottom of the painful decent off San Jacinto Mountain. It had been such a hard day, the generosity of this trail-angel made me cry!

My Favorite Trail Angels:

All of them! Thank you to Laura and Matt, Denise and Mark, Sheenie, Patty and Gary, Peggy and Kevin, Magic Man, Annette, Mini, the Professor, Hamburger Helper, Mike, Jim, Patrick, Spilly Billy, Todd, Devilfish, Sergio, the Volunteers of Eldorado National Forest at Carson Pass, Dibs, Kentucky and all the unnamed volunteers that help stock the water caches throughout the trail.

Then, thank you to my own personal trail angels, Mark, Nancy, Stephanie, Ken, Brenda D, Jae, Sylvia, Andrea, Craig, Brenda R, Katie, Gayle, Kate, Leo, Marta, Kim, Fanny, Henry, Laura, Oliver, Chuck, Karen, Dawn, Brent, Wazzu, Jim, Eliza, Lyssa, Dan, Arielle and all my other readers who read my blog posts, cheered me from afar and inspired me to keep trekking. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing in my adventure!

Donations to Border Angels

At the Southern Terminus, with my back to the Wall, I felt profoundly privileged to have the means and ability to walk from the US side of the Mexican border all the way to Canada. Most people in the world would never be able to do that. To acknowledge this privilege, I asked readers to consider making a donation to Border Angels, a humanitarian aid organization working to help immigrants at the US-Mexican border. I don’t know how many readers actually donated, but I do know that two friends of mine, Leo and Marta, decided to make a donation to Border Angels every two weeks during my hike. This was like an incentive program for me- the longer I hiked, the more people I could help. Thank you to Leo and Marta, and the rest of you for making a difference for others. 

Most Inspirational Person I Met on the Trail: Vivian. By far.

Vivian is a woman about my age from Québec, Canada. She had always wanted to hike the PCT. But now, she has advancing MS, and one foot longer than the other. She planned to hike a section of Oregon because it would be the easiest for her to walk with her leg brace. Her brace, and her lack of balance slowed her down considerably and she was only able to walk around seven miles a day, which meant she had to carry a heavy pack with much more food and water to last her between resupply points. When I met her, she had just completed walking from Cascade Locks, up and over Mt Hood and was camping around Timberline Lodge. She clearly was struggling just to get down a gully to get water from the stream or set up her tent.

I asked her about her hike, and she cried as she told me how amazing it all had been. She told me that after so many years of dreaming, the PCT was actually so much more beautiful than she had imagined and she was mad at herself for waiting so long in life to live out her dreams. I took her phone number and promised to connect with her again. When I did, I found out that her symptoms prevented her from getting much further, and after a nasty fall, she had to quit and go home. 

I was so lucky that my body supported my adventure. I am healthy and was able to walk in rugged terrain on my own. After meeting Vivian, I tried really hard to be even more grateful, every step of the journey. 

Vivian says that she’s going to keep training, keep fighting and hopefully return to the trail again. I hope she does. Everyone should be able to live out their dreams. 

I did. 

For almost six months, I hiked in some of the most beautiful wilderness areas I’ve ever seen and I met interesting and generous people all along the way. Of course, when I started, I thought it would be fun to say that I walked the entire distance from Mexico to Canada, which is to say, I wanted to brag about being a “Thru-Hiker”. But in the end, the miles didn’t seem so important. 

So, Why Didn’t the Miles End Up Being That Important to Me?

Everyone has their own reasons for hiking. Some join the trail as an endurance sport, smashing through the miles for the fun of the challenge. Some just like to walk – all day. My hike was definitely different. Maybe it’s because I’m a little older, and a little more contemplative. 

First, the hike was hard and I was exhausted from the pressure to always “push” for more miles. It is often said that thru-hiking the PCT can be thought of as taking a series of 5-day backpacking trips. I started the trail with this in mind, and quickly came to the conclusion that this description is woefully misleading. When I backpack, I linger to observe, to experience, to be. But when one sports a PCT Thru-Hiking Permit on their backpack, there is a very real pressure to crunch more miles, with longer days. It’s very much a competition in which each hiker has to intentionally decide whether they are going to be part of it, or not.

I discussed this pressure at length with many other hikers and somewhere in the Sierra Nevada, I acknowledged to myself that although I was loving the experience, it was the incessant “push” that was making it all very un-fun. I didn’t enjoy the days when I had more than 20 miles to cover. Walking that much didn’t give me time to sit by the lakes, take pictures of the light flooding across the desert or listen to the intense silence of the forest. And if I didn’t have time for all of that, what was the point of being on the trail? By skipping forward, I eliminated the pressure and definitively decided to not participate in the race.

Additionally, many hikers wear earbuds throughout their days, listening to music, books on tape or podcasts to distract them during their long hours of walking. I didn’t hike the PCT to disconnect, I intentionally went to reconnect with the natural world. I liked whiling away the afternoon watching the clouds, the dragonflies, the pikas and the grasses in the wind. As I strolled along, I identified the flowers and trees by name and greeted them as old friends. I sang and made up songs and stopped to consult my maps, trying to understand how the geology and geography of the area came to be.  

Some hikers lived for the food and the social experiences of the next town. Or, they were speed focused, and they carried many days worth of food in order to skip towns altogether. I actually carried more food so I could stay out in the wilderness for more days at a time. But then I purposely lingered in towns, enjoying them like a tourist, too.

I hiked the PCT because I loved the idea of living simply outside, depending completely on my body, and the contents of my pack, to get me to the next destination. I lived out my days in rhythm with the light, the temperature, immersed in the changes of the weather and the slow march toward the next season. I got to experience spring in the Desert, and then again as I climbed into the Sierra Nevada, watching the life cycle of the plants and the arrival of the birds. Skipping ahead to experience fall in the Cascade Mountains was such a gift as it ignited memories of my younger backpacking years and the awe of being strong enough to be there again. After all these years of dreaming, I really did it. I hiked the PCT!

And the best part of all? I slept in my tent for over 150 nights, mostly without my rain cover, so that I could stretch out as the sun set, watch the stars, dream under the intense moonlight and wake with the first rays of dawn. For a while, I’d say I was a little feral. I loved it. 

I miss the trail. I miss the simple life. I miss being part of the outside world. 

In the end, I wouldn’t change any day of my hike in order to push for more miles. In the summer of 2024, I hiked, strolled, skipped, stumbled and hobbled most of the way from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail just the way I wanted to. My experience was the journey – and the destination.