A few hours after dictating this note I sat at the northern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail, three months of walking north from the Mexico border behind me. Each member of my trail family followed one by one; Rocket burst into tears, Chimi let out his loudest whoop of the whole trail, and Zip, restrained as usual, let out a simple “Oh man,” with a satisfied smile. We spent lots of time in that bare dirt patch in the Canadian border clearcut. We took our terminus photos, drank celebratory Vitamin Rs (Rainiers), signed our name in the final trail register of our journey, then filtered out, heading back south for a cruisy 30 miles back to Harts Pass where Alaina awaited with celebratory drinks and those classic salted baguettes from the Mazama General Store.
I had no real reaction upon reaching the terminus. My idle time spent sitting in front of the monument post was silent, solemn. It was awesome, of course - I made it, after all. I had realized and fulfilled a dream I previously thought unattainable. It was and had been simultaneously an awakening and an affirmation of what I already knew, that fully immersed in nature’s majesty is exactly where I am meant to be. It was the greatest experience of my life. Yet those words from my Notes app, dictated mid-stride on the phone that had replaced the one that I destroyed in Yosemite, dominated my mind. It was the most coherent distillation of what I had been forced to accept over the past few weeks and what echoed in my mind as I watched Chimi and Zip drink Rainiers out of their shoes on the monument in the pouring rain.
I had no real reaction upon reaching the terminus. My idle time spent sitting in front of the monument post was silent, solemn. It was awesome, of course - I made it, after all. I had realized and fulfilled a dream I previously thought unattainable. It was and had been simultaneously an awakening and an affirmation of what I already knew, that fully immersed in nature’s majesty is exactly where I am meant to be. It was the greatest experience of my life. Yet those words from my Notes app, dictated mid-stride on the phone that had replaced the one that I destroyed in Yosemite, dominated my mind. It was the most coherent distillation of what I had been forced to accept over the past few weeks and what echoed in my mind as I watched Chimi and Zip drink Rainiers out of their shoes.
I wasn’t done with the trail. Not even close - and perhaps I never would be.
To hike the PCT uninterrupted without a skip, flip, flop, jump, etc. is all but a unicorn in the modern world. Fire season out west dictates who and what can pass through where and when along the PCT each year, and my hike was not immune to those ill-effects. My continuous hike ended under the I-5 underpass at Soda Creek south of Mount Shasta, 1502 miles in. My trail family and I decided on the logistically easier option of finding a ride to Ashland, Oregon, bypassing 217.4 miles of the trail - a crushing blow, but one I was able to sit with and prepare for over the course of the week since the closure went into effect. That was just the way things were going to be, and that was okay. Our night spent in Ashland was perhaps the most restful and most necessary night off thus far.
Four days later we were forced to skip again. Upon cresting the rim of Crater Lake we were greeted not just by the stunning lake view, but by a massive smoke plume billowing from the slopes of Mount Thielsen. This fire, amongst numerous other smaller blazes in the immediate area, had started during the previous night’s lightning storm, and within minutes of reaching the rim I was informed via a single shitty bar of cell service that the trail had been closed through that area, just miles north of where we stood.
The brand new Trail Fire rages on the west slopes of Mount Thielsen, necessitating our second fire skip in less than a week.
Those 24 hours before and after Crater Lake were among the most emotionally chaotic for myself and others in my group, but I’ll write about that at greater length in the future. What’s important for our purposes is that another skip was coming, and I had no preparation this time. Suddenly it felt like everything was coming undone.
One final, but major skip came in Washington a couple weeks later due to fires in the Glacier Peak Wilderness and a “false alarm fire” I’ll also write about at a later time near Waptus Lake. This skip took us from Snoqualmie Pass to Harts Pass, from halfway through Washington to 30 miles from the end in less than a day. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in how things panned out for us. To be forced to the end so bluntly was jarring, but I was forced to make peace (or approximate making peace) with the situation in the final hours of my journey. In doing so, I thought back on the entirety of the past three months in juxtaposition to my imminent return to the real world, and ultimately came to the realization outlined in that note.
There’s no way I wouldn’t want more and wouldn’t return in some capacity, regardless of the final outcome.
Nearly nine months removed from reaching the Northern Terminus, on May 10, 2025 I found myself back at the Southern Terminus of the PCT, geared up for another month on the trail - and before you ask, I’ll go ahead and answer the burning question in your mind: yes, it’s fucking awesome to be so correct about my predictable self.