This post originally appeared on The Trek, which you can read here.

If you want to see more from my 2025 PCT thru hike, make sure to check out my Instagram (@annamckinney22) and TikTok (@magicinthemountains) for daily vlogs!

*these posts are coming straight from trail, I apologize in advance for typos!*

Day 142: August 27, 2025

Location: Southern Washington
Start: Mike Urich Cabin – 2350.2
End: Unused Dirt Road – 2373.9
Miles: 23.7
Ascent: 4859 | Descent: 5043
Sleep: Tent

Today was kind of a weird day. We woke up at our normal time and piddled around camp hoping trail magic would show up at the cabin. There was a comment on FarOut saying that there would be trail magic and that they had breakfast, but we weren’t sure what time they would arrive. Pinky and Hangman headed out first and Truffles, Pimento, and I waited until around 8am before giving up hope and hiking on.

As we were leaving, we walked by a road close to the cabin. Sitting in the road were several coolers and supplies for trail magic! We waited around for a minute and an older guy showed up declaring he had brought trail magic and would be at the cabin all day. He said he’d start making breakfast sandwiches soon, but it’d probably be about 30 minutes before anything was ready. We decided to keep moving rather than waiting around, but he gave us a couple of beers for the road.

There was a lot of up and down today. Nothing too crazy, but enough to be annoying. I think I’ve decided I’d rather do one big climb the majority of the day and then it be flat or downhill the rest. Going up and down constantly wears me out! We crossed tons of dirt roads all day. We even passed a few coolers that said “PCT hiker trail magic”, but they were all empty or full of trash.

We hiked through a burned area but thankfully it was overcast all day. We got a couple last views of Rainier, but other than that the views today were underwhelming. Honestly I got pretty bored today and spent the majority of the day listening to my book and thinking about stuff back home. I know we’ll only be out here for about 3 more weeks and I’m trying to soak it all up, but I’m also tired and ready to be done.

After a few miles we got a stream and everyone stopped to get water. There were comments on FarOut about taking a forest service road alternate into town, and we all decided that we would do that. It would shave off a few miles, had less elevation, and would take us by a state park where we could shower and charge our stuff so that we wouldn’t have to worry about that in town.

We cameled up on water and carried out several liters each since this would be our last water source for 12 miles. The overcast weather turned dark and I was convinced it would rain. We left the water and got back on the roller coaster constantly going up and down.

The next few miles passed by without anything eventful happening. We took a dirt road for a couple miles to cut out one climb and then were back on the trail climbing again. We descended to a wooded campsite and our whole group met there for lunch. Without the sunshine and being high in the ridge, it was chilly and we all put layers on to eat. We hung out there for over an hour before reluctantly taking off our layers and heading out.

It was mostly downhill from lunch to the water source. We again all stopped to get water and sat with other hikers while filtering. We got cell signal and everyone played on their phones for a while before finally getting a move on.

It wasn’t far from the water down to the forest service road at Tacoma Pass. This would be our road walk and we were eager to get there. When we arrived we were excited to see trail magic! Crumbs, a 2024 thru hikers from Vancouver, had driven down for the day and had drinks, cookies, fresh fruit, and sandwich supplies! We also ran into Holly and her partner, Andy, whom we hadn’t seen since the Sierra. It was so good to catch up and indulge in some yummy food. We sat around for nearly an hour before finally deciding to begin our road walk.

This is where the day took a turn because apparently everyone had different ideas of what the evening would hold. It was 11 miles on the road from Tacoma Pass to the state park, and it was around 5pm when we started walking the road. Obviously we weren’t going to make it all the way there tonight. Some people thought we weren’t stopping after 3 miles on the road at a makeshift campsite, others thought we weren’t stopping after walking until we found water and a place to camp.

It turned into us walking about 6 miles on the road in search for water and camping. Everyone was tired and nerves were shot from a long day and uncertain camping conditions. Thankfully around 7pm we found a stream near the road and were able to get water. Shortly after we found a decent sized pull off on the road and decided to set up camp there. Everyone put up their tents and went to bed, there was no socializing. It was a weird end to the day, but hopefully we’ll all be in better spirits tomorrow when we go into town. At least we have fewer miles to do now to get into town. We did about 17 miles on the trail and 6 miles on the road.

Day 143: August 28, 2025

Location: Southern Washington
Start: Unused Dirt Road – 2373.9
End: Snoqualmie Pass Trailhead – 2396.5
Miles: 22.6
Sleep: Cowboy

Today was another weird day. We woke up around 6am on the side of the dirt road. I had slept surprisingly well and was only woken up once by a car driving by around 1:30am. It took a while to get moving, but everyone was packed up and on the road by 8am.

I hung in the back with Truffles but early on into the trek I was on my own. I passed the time by getting caught up on journals and calling my parents. It took much longer than expected to make it down the mountain. In reality I have no idea how far we walked today, Gaia said about 15 miles but also showed a route we didn’t actually take.

Finally around 11am we all made it down to our connecting point. The FarOut comments were a little confusing here because we weren’t sure if we needed to turn off on a bike path or venture into a state park. After some digging we learned that the bike path was actually part of the state park and the showers we were hoping for were at the far end of the trail.

A little discouraged we began walking in the bike path. One sign I read said it was about 7 miles on the bike path to the trailhead with the showers. It was flat gravel in the exposed sun, so it was pretty boring. I pulled my Sunbrella out for the first time in months and was so thankful for the shade! We stopped a couple of times along the way at bathrooms, but tried to keep on chugging.

Around 12:30pm we finally reached the Hyak trailhead. There was a small building complete with multiple bathrooms, a shake, and outlets. We took turns in the shower and all did sink laundry while we charged our electronics at the outlets. We sat on the side of the building in the shade for several hours waiting for our stuff to charge and our clothes to dry. Everyone snacked or ate lunch and finally just before 3pm we were ready to make the final push into town.

We got off the bike path and followed the paved road 906 into Snoqualmie. It was about 3 miles and stretched in for a long time. Eventually we walked right into the heart of “town”, which it turns out only exists because of the ski slopes. There was a small grocery store, a couple of restaurants, a motel, and a gas station. We had sent ourselves resupply packages to the gas station so we went there first to pick them up.

When we got our packages we sat outside the gas station at the picnic table to sort through them. We all still had a bunch of food left over in our food bags, and we had mailed ourselves way too much. Between the 5 of us we ended up donating nearly a full resupply to the hiker box at the motel.

With town chores done we walked across the street or the brewery to get a round of drinks before hiking out. We ran into D&D at the brewery and got to hear first hand all about Mrs. D falling and fracturing her elbow in Goat Rocks. We enjoyed our drinks and the company for a while and eventually grew hungry. Hangman went across the street to Pie for the People to get pizza for us. We ate it at the brewery and finally began making moves to get back on trail.

The trail out of Snoqualmie was straight uphill, and jt was around 7:30pm when we finally left town. We knew we wouldn’t get very far tonight, so our plan was to camp out at the trailhead. According to FarOut there were supposed to be several campsites tucked in the trees. When we arrived, though, all the spots were already taken and there were multiple other people wandering around looking for spots. Truffles and I ended up cowboy camping behind the pit toilets. Thankfully they aren’t too smelly… the parking lot is also right by the highway so it’s very loud, I’m interested to see if we get much sleep tonight.

Day 144: August 29, 2025

Location: Northern Washington
Start: Snoqualmie Pass Trailhead – 2396.5
End: Seasonal Stream and Tentsite – 2418.1
Miles: 21.6
Ascent: 5768 | Descent: 5483
Sleep: Tent

Today was a really tough day! I slept surprisingly good in the parking lot behind the pit toilet. I put in my earplugs and used my Buff as an eye mask so I didn’t notice the sounds of the highway at all. We got up early to make sure we were out of the parking lot before people were out and out, and we were on the trail around 7am.

We began climbing straight away. This would be one of our biggest elevation days in a long time, and it was going to be steep for the first few miles. We cruised along pretty good until we got to a water source about 3 miles in. Truffles and I stopped for water and ended up sitting at the water source for nearly 3 hours. We were both having a tough day mentally and needed that time to compose ourselves. Tears were shed, but eventually we got moving again. At this point we are so close to finishing that all we can do is keep hiking north, even if it isn’t always what we want to do.

The rest of our group was far ahead of us at this point, but we kept going at a slow and steady pace. I couldn’t believe how many people were out on the trail on a Friday morning! The amount of weekenders was shocking, but apparently this is one of the most popular sections in Washington and is a quick drive from Seattle. We eventually reached the top of the ridge and were above tree line. What absolutely insane views!! It looked like what I amazing the Alps look like. We would end up staying above tree line for most of the day and would be ridge walking the whole time.

We stopped at Ridge Lake for lunch. There were lots of other people there so it made for good people watching while we ate. There were even some guys fly fishing in the lake. We talked to a very chatty section hiker before filling up on water and heading out. According to FarOut there wouldn’t be any water up on the ridge until we got to camp, so I packed our 3 liters of water.

The views just kept getting better and better as the day went on. It was fairly hazy, but we could still see a decent distance. Most of the surrounding peaks had snow on them and they were sheer and jagged. The trail was very narrow in spots with steep drop offs. We scrambled over scree fields and traversed over lane boulders. The steep drop offs made me nervous and I felt like I was back in the Sierra. These are the places that you can’t slip or make a mistake because if you do end up falling, you probably won’t stop until you hit the bottom. I was nervous and took my time going across the ridge, but that just gave me more time to take in the views.

We were constantly going up and down, it didn’t feel like the trail was ever flat or level all day. It was exhausting, especially with my fried nerves and mental fatigue. Late in the afternoon we caught up to Pinky, Hangman, and Pimento at a pond. They had managed to scoop water from the low water line and gave us some spare water. We all set off together to tackle the final ascent of the day. It was short and steep, but the views from the top were some of the best of the whole day. I think today maybe one of the prettiest days we’ve had on trail so far!

After creating the top of the ridge, I thought the hard part of the day was over. We had a long descent to the campsite, but it was all downhill so I didn’t think it’d be that bad. I was wrong! There were seemingly endless switchbacks the entire way down. While it may have not been as physically taxing as climbing, the constant back and forth and steep downhill wore me out and I was just ready for the day to be over.

We stopped for water at Delate Waterfall and ran into D&D. Mr. D had apparently fallen on one of the scree fields and slid and ways down the mountain before coming to a stop. He was able to climb back up to trail, but banged up his hand pretty bad and was convinced his pinky finger was broken. He didn’t need patching up and was okay to keep hiking, but they have had a time! Mrs. D. fractured her elbow just before White Pass and has been hiking with her arm in a sling. They are bound and determined to finish the trail, I’ll give them that!

A few more miles of downhill switchbacks and we were finally down to the valley floor. We dropped to get water before walking a short distance to the campsite. The campsite was huge, but it was almost 7:30pm and it was full of weekenders. We couldn’t find any sites at the main campsite, so we kept walking going to find something tucked in the trees. Thankfully we found a few unofficial sites back in the bushes that were just big enough for our 3 tents. We got the tents up as it was getting dark and ate by the light of our headlamps.

I am mentally and physically exhausted. We barely did 21 miles but I feel as physically drained as when we were doing 30+ miles. I am hoping that after a good nights sleep I’ll feel better in the morning. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for Truffles and I.