To end the summer, I wanted to do something big. Something that would push me to my limits and inspire me to keep having wonderful, exciting adventures outdoors during the school year.

For me, the Pacific Crest Trail epitomizes the idea of something big. To hike the entire 2,650 miles of the PCT from Mexico to Canada is an epic undertaking that becomes your life while you’re on the trail, eclipsing everything else. Lacking the time, resources, and experience to do the whole thing, I settled on a different goal: I would hike longer, harder, and faster than I had ever gone before – doing a 100 mile segment with a cumulative elevation gain of over 15,000 feet over a period of 5 days. I decided to do it solo as well - ostensibly to challenge myself mentally as well as physically by isolating myself from the rest of the world for 5 days, but also because I couldn’t find anyone else willing to do the trek with me.

Day 0 – 0 miles

Tuesday night, August 21st, my dad and I drove out to Crest Horse Camp, a small waypoint along the Washington PCT with a few nice campsites and accessible via a gravel road. It was dark by the time we got there, and we enjoyed a short campfire, then made camp and went to bed. Because my dad was my ticket to the trailhead and he had to work the next morning, we had decided to drive to the trailhead and camp before I started my hike. That way, I could start early and have full day to do my 21.5-mile day 1 trek, and my dad could see me off before heading back to the city to go to work.

Day 1 – 21.5 miles

The trip started very simply. My dad and I took down camp, I made us breakfast and packed my small 35-liter backpack with everything I would need to eat, sleep, and hike for the next 5 days, and then I left. My dad hiked with me for the first .5 miles, then headed back to the car, leaving me alone on the trail. I had six maps, provisions for 5 days, an ultralight tent and sleeping bag, fuel for six days, a borrowed set of trekking poles, clothing, water, and my journal. The first few hours of hiking were easy – the trail wound through a large lava flow before beginning to climb and drop while passing through the rolling hills of southern Washington. I moved quickly – I was planning on hiking my longest day the next day, and I wanted plenty of rest beforehand.

The trail dropped down out of the hills and I was soon hiking through fields of cedar, fir, and vine maple, crossing small streams on arching footbridges. The trail was well-maintained, and I was fresh from a couple days of rest after my recent climbing trip. I arrived at my camp at Trout Creek before 4pm, feeling pretty good. My first 20+ mile day was behind me, and I was feeling strong. I had enough time to dunk myself in the creek, read for a while, and make dinner and a campfire before the sun sunk below the treetops and I fell asleep in my tent.

Day 2 – 26.1 miles

I woke up a Trout Creek Camp with a little apprehension about the day ahead. I had never actually hiked more than 21 miles in a day before – day trip or otherwise, and I was about to do 26 with a full pack on. I ate a quick breakfast, packed up, and hit the trail. The trail quickly snaked its way back up into the hills, and I alternated between views of the nearby Mt. Adams when the trail broke out onto a ridgeline and trekking through lush forest where the undergrowth was so dense that the farthest I could see was just the the next bend in the trail. There was lots of elevation gain and loss, and by the halfway point I was feeling pretty beat. The next 13 miles were my first indication that this trip was going to be every bit the challenge I was looking for and maybe a bit more – I arrived at Gillette Lake at 5:30pm, exhausted. I didn’t bother with a fire that evening, just dinner, reading, and bed before it had even gotten fully dark.

Day 3 – 19.4 miles

Gillette Lake is situated almost level with the Columbia river, at 311 feet above sea level. The first two days of my trip were completed, and nearly half of my mileage behind me, but I still had to climb through the mountainous terrain of the Oregon side of the Gorge to get to my ending point of Timberline Lodge, situated on the side of Mount Hood at 6000 feet above sea level. Starting today and continuing to the end of the trip, my challenge would be vertical rather than horizontal. I made my way to Cascade Locks, noting the novelty of crossing the Bridge of the Gods on foot. In Cascade Locks, I made a quick phone call to my parents to let them know that I was okay. It had been two days since I’d had a conversation with another person, and it was a relief to get to talk to someone that knew me.

Soon, though, the phone was back where it belonged, turned off and stowed in my pack – and I was back on the trail. Growing up in Portland, I’ve hiked all over the Gorge, but I’ve never hiked the PCT from Cascade Locks to Wahtum Lake. It was interesting hiking a new trail in such familiar terrain, ending at a campsite that I had passed through on a backpacking adventure only a few weeks before. It was also much more difficult that I expected – my legs were weathering the strain of the sixty-some miles I’d put behind me quite well, but my feet were a different story. By the time I stumbled into camp at around 4:30pm, every footfall felt like someone was going at my heel and forefoot with a sledgehammer. I was glad when I could finally sit down, enjoy the beautiful clear water, and even swim in the lake.

Day 4 – 24.5 miles

Day 4 started with a view. As the PCT climbed up and out of the bowl of Wahtum Lake, it rounded a bend and suddenly Mount Hood was visible on the horizon. I remember doing a mental double take – first just looking at the view and thinking that it was one of the most beautiful sights of the trip, and then having a moment of sheer terror as I realized that I could probably see my planned campsite at the base of the mountain. All of those rolling hills and wide valleys between the mountain turned from scenery to obstacles in an instant. I picked up my pace.

By mid-morning, I had to stop to take a dose of ibuprofen to curb the pain in my feet – the sledgehammers had returned with a vengeance, and it took a lot of willpower to get back on my feet after sitting down to rest. By midday, I was stopping every half mile or so to take my boots off and massage my feet. After three of these stops, I realized that I might do better hiking in my camp shoes than my boots, and quickly swapped out my boots for the Keens that were dangling from the back of my pack. The difference it made was huge and immediately apparent. My boots had definitely worn out, and had no cushion or padding left. The Keens, on the other hand, felt great. I decided that I would be throwing my boots out as soon as I finished the hike.

Wearing my new shoes, I quickly covered the remaining distance to my camp just after the crossing of the Sandy River, running into the interesting character in the photo below along the way. This was my second longest day, but because my new camp shoes turned impromptu hiking boots made the second half of the day feel so much easier than the first half, I arrived in camp feeling energized. I made dinner, took photos, read, and prepared for my “victory lap” on Day 5. I’d been planning to even out my mileage over the whole 5 days, ending with a grueling 17 mile trek with the most elevation gain of the trip to Timberline from a campsite at Lolo Pass Road, but because I had met or exceeded my mileage goal every day of the trip so far, I had “only” 9.3 miles between me and Timberline. I went to bed thinking about a hot shower.

Day 5 – 9.3 miles

I woke up early on Day 5, ate a cold breakfast, and packed up in record time. 5 days in the wilderness had been amazing. It had challenged me, given me beautiful views, a lot of time and space for my thoughts, and a new perspective on what my limits are. But I was definitely ready for that hot shower. The final 9 miles to the lodge were the most scenic and the most difficult hiking of the whole trip. I hiked up thousand foot ridges on the side of scree slopes and then back down them through the forest. Every time I got the the top of a hill I would look for the roof of Timberline through the trees and would be rewarded with a glimpse of the Palmer chairlift, way off in the distance. Eventually though, the number of day hikers increased, the number of trees decreased, the trail climbed higher, and before long I was standing in front of the lodge at about 11am. I’d managed to pull it off – 100 miles in 5 days. The trip ended there. I went into the lodge of course, and had one of the best lunches of my life while staring out the window at Mt. Hood, but that’s wasn’t a part of the trip. The trip took place on the hundred-mile stretch of trail where I took part in one of the most difficult and one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, one where it was just me, the trail, and the pack on my back.

My pack is unpacked now, and my hiking boots are sitting in a landfill somewhere, but I’ll always carry with me the memory of my hundred miles on the PCT. And I don’t think I’m going to carry it on my head – it belongs where everything else I need on the trail goes: on my back.

More Photos from the Trip: