June 26, 2025

Campsite at mile 2647.3 to northern terminus at the Canadian border (Nobo mi 2655.8; Sobo mi 0), then back to Hopkins Lake (Nobo mi 2649.4; Sobo mi 6.4)

14.9 miles 

It’s a pretty morning when I wake just before 6. Mixed clouds and sunlight again. I lay down after my routine early morning pee and fall asleep, then wake at 7:45 semi-panicked because Andy suggested 8:30 as the time to leave camp, and there’s no way I can have my coffee and pack up before then. But I endeavor to try, and mostly succeed.

We wish Jared happy trails in case we don’t see him again and then head out, finding the main PCT and navigating around a mildly unsettling snow bank at the top of a viewpoint. We pass a few hikers coming down, including one, Halloween, who is very excited to be out on the trail. He gives us advice about some of the deadfall coming up, and then I notice his yellow AT tag. He hiked it in 2017.

“Of course you asked him about the AT,” Andy says when we move on. “I saw the tag and I was like, I know where this is going.”

“Well, obviously.”

The entire day from this point is downhill all the way to Canada. It’s going to be rough on my poor knees, but at least the view down to Hopkins Lake on these initial switchbacks is sublime. It’s this deep greenish turquoise, glowing in the light. I’m happy we’ve had a chance to do this section because it’s honestly turning out to be one of the most beautiful parts of the entire PCT. 

Sure enough, Halloween’s advice about the trees proves to be useful—there’s an open area you can cross through to avoid some of the worst of it. But there are many more downed trees after this, and lots of overgrowth. Must be hard to maintain this remote section, especially in the early season, and especially with the recent staffing chaos. 

Then there’s another rocky talus area, and of course I have my eyes peeled for pikas. And Andy spots one! I cannot handle how cute they are. This one isn’t carrying a little leaf in its mouth like they do sometimes, but it’s still incredibly adorable. 

After a little while of forest we arrive at the junction with the Pasayten River Trail, which is also the Pacific Northwest Trail. It’s here that I think of Mash, because he hiked the PNT last year after the CDT and also went to the PCT Northern Terminus at last. (That’s a lot of trail acronyms. That man can hike.) Hey Mash! 

Not long after the junction there’s a large campsite with a high quality sitting log where we take a break. It feels weird knowing that we’re so close to this thing we worked towards for months—and years at this point—and that the next time we see this campsite on the way back up, we will have been to that terminus. 

No delaying. It’s time to meet the real terminus now. We set off together downhill and into the woods again. 

The beginning of this final descent is not super nice hiking: it’s overgrown, with annoying pokey deadfall. “This is funnn!” I say sarcastically, but in that high pitched voice we used all the time in the Brooks Range in 2023. It’s a deep cut, but I endeavor to explain to Andy what this voice is from.

“Ok, so have you ever seen…” I have to stop because I’m already laughing imagining how I’m going to explain this. “It’s this early YouTube video, it’s really niche, but—“

“Everything about you is niche!” Andy interrupts, turning around to face me. “Look at yourself in the mirror!” He gestures vaguely at me and I process myself through his eyes: wacky Patagonia shorts, Petunia the Possum hanging on my shoulder pocket, King Gizzard fishie face button, all kinds of pins on my hat, AT and PCT necklaces, felt Pride heart keychain from Scotland, “healthy feet” amulet from a shrine in Japan, a Palestine watermelon I crocheted. Point taken. 

I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe and I have to take a few steadying breaths before I continue. “Anyway, it’s this video, there are like, stick figures? And they’re having a party. And the one lone figure is like ‘we’re having a party!’ And the others are like ‘hooray!’ and they’re dancing and shit. But then it escalates and the one lone stick figure is like ‘My anus is bleeding!’ And all the other stick figures are still dancing and saying ‘This is funnn-uh! Hooray!’ while the guy is just bleeding out.” I’m honestly mostly just making myself laugh by the end of this explanation. 

“Nope, I can’t say I’ve seen that,” Andy finally replies after a beat. 

(Here’s the link if you want to lower your IQ.)

I get ahold of myself eventually, at least enough to not gouge another cut in my leg on all the deadfall. We pass over a few creeks, the trail turns mostly nice, and we start getting reflective about our 2022 hikes. 

Andy asks me if I have any regrets about my hike. I do, but only one or two. He says he’s pretty happy with how his thru hike went, even if his decision not to go to the border when he skipped to Washington cost him seeing the terminus on that actual hike. We discuss our “why”: why we did the PCT in the first place. I have to dig a little to get to the answer, and there are at least three that ring true: I’d seen the Sierras on the JMT and wanted to return to do the full hike. I remember meeting PCT hikers in 2017, seeing them zip up switchbacks and thinking “I want to be that strong PCT hiker one day”—and then I was that hiker. And I think I wanted to prove to myself that the AT wasn’t a one-off, that I could really pull off another thru, that, despite never seeing myself as athletic or physically gifted while growing up, I was completely capable of doing this demanding, rigorous thing not once but twice. And eventually, hopefully, three times.

A shift in mood. We can feel it close. Andy walks into an open patch of overgrown grasses and smiles back at me. “You’ll like this section, Passport,” he says, and then I notice the wild paintbrush on either side of the trail. There are both kinds I’ve seen on the PCT: the flame-orange-red of the desert, and the hot pink of Washington, of Oregon, of Three Sisters day and that magical field of flowers after the obsidian. It’s like the end and the beginning decided to meet me here together, one last time.

Is it just my imagination, or did the forest just turn quieter? The blowdowns cease and that soil path with pine needles picks up again. We see the clear-cut that marks the border, but the trail turns away from it, meandering, then there’s a bend. I’m reminded of Shinto shrines in Japan. Almost all of them have a long walkway between the first torii gate and the main part of the shrine. The path, the sandō, is meant to inspire meditation, a transition from the outside world to the inside, more spiritual world of the shrine. 

I almost dread turning the corner and seeing the monument, because seeing the monument really means that the story is over, that, even though I technically still have miles to hike, the cover is being closed for now, and the book is being put back on the shelf. Spiritually, emotionally, logistically, it’s time for this chapter to finally be over at last. 

One last switchback through quiet green forest. The end pulls you, ready or not. “There it is,” Andy says, and I can hear the grin in his voice. Unceremoniously, the path ends in the clearing, and there is the monument marking the northern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s a sister, not an exact twin, to the monument in the south. But it’s similar enough. I recall the morning light giving way to backlit clouds. Reaching my hand through that stupid border fence to Mexico. Feeling nothing but simple excitement. Beginning the walk with Andy. And now, ending it with him here. 

I’m crying, obviously. Andy hugs me. The beginning curves around to meet the end. We take photos of each other in various poses, then, when Jared comes down the trail, he takes photos of us together. OG founding members of the Turbo Twats. April 19 buddies forever. We begin as we end. 

For the next hour we eat lunch, we write in the logbooks, we gift Canada with catholes. I continue to stare and stare at the monument, reading its inscriptions, as if this will make it all sink in. And I take my empty bottle and fill it with dirt from the base. There. It’s done. Now this is the real end. 

A monument is just a monument. A trail is just a trail. But imbue it with meaning, elevate it to the symbolic level, and it becomes holy. There are stories about shrines in Japan surviving earthquakes, typhoons, even the atomic bombs. People knew where the holy places were and enshrined their gods there intentionally. This is a holy place. It survived the fires, at least so far. This collection of wood at the arbitrary border of two countries—a monument that has become more than it is, a shrine imbued with the hope and joy and relief of thousands of hikers over the years, the start or the end of a very long journey—is holy. 

Did the people who contributed to that act of congress on October 2, 1968 referenced on the monument know what they were beginning? How many lives would be touched by that ruling, by this eighteen-inch wide, 2,650-mile long ribbon of dirt from this spot to its sibling along the border in Mexico? I think of all the minds and spirits who have stood here before me. I think of all who will come after. I think of my tramily, and the other hikers, and the trail angels, and everyone and every place along this sacred ribbon. I am rich to have lived here for a little while. I am blessed to have walked this holy path here. 

But you can’t stay on the mountain, or at the terminus, forever. To want to sit still while the world changes is to go against nature. Two other hikers from Germany come to the monument and take their own photos, and it feels like our moment has passed. Like the PCT gods are gently ushering us out. You’ve had your moment. I love you, but it’s time to move on. 

We pack up, touch the monument one more time, and then turn our backs and walk the way we came. Andy senses my mood and walks ahead, so I’m alone. I keep looking behind me as the terminus fades from view. A few switchbacks later, I see it down the hill through the clear cut. As I take my last look at the monument, my eyes shift to the trees on either side of the clear-cut. They seem to be telling me it’s okay. That they’ll be here whenever I want to come back. Words suddenly pop into my head, a prayer for the trees at the end of the PCT:

Thank you for knowing me.

Thank you for welcoming me. 

Thank you for healing me.

And thank you for giving me pain,

so that I may learn to be more like you. 

I turn and walk south. I start out reflective and melancholy, but it doesn’t take long for my thoughts to shift away from 2022, and from the terminus, and to more recent and upcoming things. I have to get the yearbook submitted. It’s late. I haven’t heard from my mom this whole time. Is everything okay? I love Phantom Island and I can’t wait for the orchestra shows, to see my Gizz friends at the concerts and make more. I need to get working on crafts for tour and for the fall craft show. What am I going to put on the One Hundred Years of Solitude test I promised my incoming seniors? What’s my new tactic to fight AI in the classroom this year? The PCT is lodged deep within me. But my shifting thoughts are proof that things move on. That this is in fact natural. And that I can come back to this place whenever I want. That the trees and the paintbrush and the rocks and the pikas and the rushing streams will always love me, and have me, and know me. 

I catch back up with Andy somewhere in the overgrowth and deadfall. We talk and process aloud for a bit. We agree that it feels strange to have finally ended the hike in Canada, but also good to have closed the book. We take a break again at the same campsite as before, the one with the good log, greeting hikers who pass en route to their own holy moment.

I walk alone for a little while after this, the hill and my odd mood slowing me down. Andy spots a little chipmunk poking out of a hole, but we don’t see any pikas on the way back up. 

It begins to rain just as we reach the turn-off for Hopkins Lake, and it’s also suddenly frigid. We find a camp spot in a clearing by some trees not far from the lake and set up as the little splatters of rain come and go. It seems like it takes me ages to get the pitch right on my tent, but I finally do and dive into the warm shelter of my Duplex. 

“I think it might be an in-tent dinner tonight,” I call to Andy across the campsite as the rain continues to fall. 

“Yeah… maybe we could just give it, like, twenty minutes and see if it stops?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

I set about my tent tasks and queue up the Peak Refuel chicken coconut curry I’ve been saving for tonight. By the time twenty minutes has gone by, it’s still spitting rain. 

“Yeah, I think I’m calling it,” I shout as I set up my cooking accoutrements. 

But Andy won’t be daunted. “Actually, it’s not that bad. I’ll just come over and see how it is.” He emerges from his tent and comes to sit on a log under the tree near my tent. “It’s dry under the tree!”

“Do you want me to come out?” I ask, in tones that are meant to communicate that this is not in fact something I want to do. I’m already cozy. 

“Nah, it’s okay, Passport. I won’t make you get out of your tent.”

So I sit there like a bug in a stinky rug talking with my poor friend sitting out in the rain. We huddle around our respective hot meal bags until they’re ready to eat. God, this chicken coconut curry is absolutely sublime. Find me a better backpacking meal. Go on, try it. It simply can’t be done. 

I poke my head out of my tent and look at Andy as he’s finishing up. “Hey,” I say. “Thanks for walking with me to Canada.” 

He grins. “Aw, getting sentimental, are we?” 

“Duh. Have you met me?”

“It’s appropriate that we finished the hike together, isn’t it?”

I nod. “Yeah. It’s like it’s the way the trail wanted it.”

I used to believe that everything happened for a reason. I guess in some ways I still do. It makes life more meaningful if you think that way. Let’s entertain it for a minute, shall we? Maybe there was a reason I didn’t get the writing fellowship I applied for that would have prevented me from coming out for this hike. Maybe being on this trail again at this exact point in time was the medicine I didn’t know I needed. Maybe there’s a reason Andy decided not to go to the border in 2022, or that there was a fire last year that prevented his second attempt. Maybe there’s a reason he’s the very first friend I made on the PCT, and the person I ultimately finished it with in the end. Maybe the PCT gods enshrined at the termini love a full-circle ending. Maybe the wild paintbrush knew best all along.