Amelia's PCT Blog 2025

We had dinner together on the shore of the lake, waving across the lake to some other thru hikers who had camped nearby. It was just one of those amazing days on trail where nothing was really planned too much, but it just ended up being perfect.

With the exception of climbing up hills while it’s super hot out, I’m never that far behind the rest of the group, and Roses made a comment yesterday,  You’re a really strong hiker and today Warpaint said something like you’re pretty fast if you’re keeping up with us. That feels really good.

Shortly after we got going this morning, I came around a bend and everyone was sitting there. I thought it was quite early for a break and the boys just pointed at the pile of rocks that were laid out reading 2300 and they were waiting for everyone so we could celebrate as a group. This mile marker means that we have 350 miles left of the trail, and then another 30 miles back to Hart’s Pass.

We had hiked already about 4,000 ft of ascent and we were both pretty tired. Up ahead was Knife’s Edge, which is a section that can be dangerous when it’s windy because you walk on a narrow ridge with sharp drops on both sides, and there was this snow patch up ahead as well. We were both really tired and thought it might not be a good idea to hike that section while exhausted. So we found a campsite up on the top of a ridge with an amazing view of all the mountains.

Eventually my social battery just completely died and I went to meet everyone at the bar, but I really could barely talk to anybody. Four Fingers had a rental car and he had offered to drive me back to the Airbnb if I wanted because he was also partied out and wasn’t drinking that night. So around 9:30 I asked if he could bring me back. I said goodbye, which was sad because that’s probably the last time I’ll see him on trail.

Everything with this group is so light, so fun, so playful. It’s exactly what I really needed at this exact place in time. So much of the trail has felt so heavy. I’ve done a lot of soul searching, I’ve processed a lot of old stuff, I’ve had an emotional roller coaster relationship that was dramatic at best, and extremely toxic at worst, and now I feel free to be myself, the version of me I’ve wanted to be for so long. Uncomplicated, unserious, unbothered. Just me. Just Amelia.

The last 6 miles went by quickly. It was actually the first time any of us got a view of Mount Hood since it had been cloudy at the top of the other ascent with the snow which apparently was the other spot where it was possible to see Mount Hood. I’ve seen Mt Hood many times before, but this time it felt real that I was approaching Washington. 318 miles without stopping in a town, without a single zero day, hiking by myself. Until now anyway.

When I saw them, it occurred to me that they were probably the people who had the southern accents – the people who had to camp in the bushes because I scored the only campsite just before the park boundary where we weren’t allowed to camp. A long-awaited case of karma being delivered – 2,000 miles later. Muahahahah.

After I left the Germans at the creek, I started ascending up a hill that was lined with blackberry bushes and what I think are blueberries, although they look quite different from commercial blueberries so I’m not sure if I should eat them, but the blackberries are sweet and small. Funky Flames told me that any berries in North America that look like raspberry or blackberry with those multiple berry bundles are safe to eat. I feel like a bear just moseying along in the forest eating berries as I please.

I stopped for lunch on a ridge with an amazing view of the valley below. As I was sitting there, I kept hearing rocks falling from the rock cascade on the side of the mountain behind me. I saw little white dots and I swore they were moving. I zoomed in on my camera and I spotted a group of mountain goats! That’s a new animal I have not seen before on the trail.

Not too long after I got there, three boys were walking along the forest road presumably back to their car, and The Goddess and Cookies started yelling over to them. Hey how’s it going? Do you want some food? The boys had rope and climbing gear, helmets and they seemed confused. Why would these random people be offering them food? From an RV parked on the side of a forest road? But they were curious, and they came over. They asked how much money the burgers were and The Goddess told them that the food was free and they were…

It feels like hiking through an absolute nightmare landscape of just weird rocks. It feels like you’re on another planet. The lava rocks are all loose rocks which hurt my ankle quite a bit, but I made decent time up through the lava fields and down the other side and straight into a burn area.

It feels like I’m in a fake place. It’s so beautiful – between all the butterflies, the wildflowers, and the snow-covered mountains in the distance. It feels like I’m in a Viagra commercial, or inside of a mural that should be on the wall of a now defunct Ponderosa restaurant. It doesn’t feel like a real place, but it is, and I get to be here.

We rounded a corner on the trail, and these white floating things started coming towards us through the air. The boys had been sitting on the trail behind the corner making a stockpile of snowballs from a stray snow pile and waiting for us for who knows how long. We grabbed a bunch of snow to throw at them but they ran down the trail, laughing. After the fire, after all the turmoil I’ve felt on the trail so many times, it felt nice to just experience something so playful and light, like a snowball fight.

There is this culture on the trail, of people just pushing themselves to exhaustion, pushing past injuries to the point that it’s dangerous, pretending not to care about possible dangers. I don’t think it’s heroic. I don’t think it’s brave though. It puts yourself and others at risk if you can’t take care of yourself out on the trail. But of course there’s a balance, because you will experience pain out here. You will experience hardships, and you do have to keep pushing through them to get to the other side sometimes. But there’s a very delicate line between being…