PCT Day 26-36

Jun 22, 2025

Welcome back everyone! In case you were wondering why it took so long for last week’s post to be released, the honest answer is that I was tired. When I made it to Wrightwood I was having too much fun as a social butterfly that I put off writing my post. Some of you might also be curious about the writing process considering that my main priority every day is walking. I have a Google Doc saved for offline editing that I write in at breaks or the end of the day. The only issue with this is that I’m exhausted at the end of the day and whenever I’m on a break, I pretty much just want to zone out in the shade. I’m not entirely sure how this comes together each week, but I sure hope you enjoy!

This week’s post was mostly written on a computer!! The joys of writing on a proper keyboard are unparalleled to those of typing on my phone. I started writing from the luxury of the Beverly Hills Waldorf Astoria hotel with fluffy pillows propping me up and a Nespresso in hand. Now I am frantically typing away in the hopes that I can finish this before we make it back onto the trail (spoiler - I don’t and this post gets released almost a week after I started it).

I was warned by Substack that this post may be trunkated in Gmail, so don’t forget to click on “view entire message” if you are reading this in your email!

Happy reading :)

Backcountry Brooke’s Trail Dictionary (cont.)

banana blaze (n): The opposite of pink blazing where a female chases a male love interest.

blue blaze (n): taking an alternate route from the PCT. We blue blazed Mount San Jacinto because we disconnected from the PCT to summit the mountain, and skipped a few miles of the official PCT trail in the process.

hiker midnight (n): Basically 9 pm or whenever the sun sets. Since hikers begin their day between 4:30-6 am, staying awake until 9 pm begins to feel like you’ve been partying up a storm.

NOBO (n): A hiker heading northbound on the trail. PCT NOBO hikers begins in Campo at the Southern terminus and ends in the Pasayten wilderness in Washington. NOBO hikers begin the trail anywhere from late March to May.

yellow blaze (n): A yellow blaze is when you skip a section of a trail by car. The term originated from following the double yellow line on a road. We yellow blazed around a burnt section of the trail in Wrightwood, skipping to the town of Acton.

pink blaze (n): Pink blazing is when a hiker, typically a male, chases a female hiker down the trail.

PUDS (n): Pointless ups and downs. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, yet the PCT likes to follow ridges and zig zag all day.

SOBO (n): A hiker heading southbound on the trail. PCT SOBO hikers begin at the Northern Terminus on the Washington/Canada boarder and hike southbound to Mexico. SOBO hikers begin in July to avoid snowmelt in Washington and hike through the pleasant fall temperatures in the desert.

water cache (n): A stash of water on trail provided by trail angels. Typically located in an area of the trail where water is scarce.

Backcountry Brooke’s Dictionary of Trail Names

Free lunch: Also known as Theo, earned his name by eating any available scraps that other hikers didn’t want.

Blueballs: This isn’t actually one person’s trail name, but a combination of the hikers Blueberry and Ballsack who were hiking together. I’m not sure how they were named, but when combined they become blueballs.

Wish-wash: Named for being extremely indecisive and wishy-washy when trying to decide on a hiking plan.

Day 26: 6/5/2025, mile 444 - 453.6

Today Dennis and I had the challenge of deciding if we wanted to do the road walk for the next section, or skip ahead. After Wrightwood there is a burned section of the trail that is closed by the Angeles National Forest. There is lots of construction cutting down burned trees along the higheay, and the local sheriff doesn’t like people doing the road walk. So, we had to decide if a $5,000 fine was worth it to walk the road or if we should skip ahead to the next section. The burned part of the trail isn’t that long, but to drive all the way around the trail is about 2 hours one way, and even a kind trail angel isn’t likely to drive people that far. Dennis and I consulted our map and decided to skip to the town of Acton, about a 90 mile skip. Since we are from California we decided we would come hike the burned section when the trail reopens in future years.

After we decided to skip to Acton we needed to find a ride. We took a picture of some trail angels’ phone numbers in the resource book at the hardware store and walked back to our lodging. On our walk back we stopped to chat to a grandpa who was sitting in his backyard. His yard faced the street we were on and we had commented on his cool pond. We got to talking and he offered to give us a ride to the town of Acton. The generosity from complete strangers along the PCT is magical. We spent the next few hours cleaning up after ourselves, grocery shopping, and eating the remainder of our veggie pizza before our trail angel, Jerry, took us to Acton.

Once we arrived in Acton we finished organizing our things at the Acton KOA, and began our 10 mile walk for the day to Vasquez Rocks State Park.

You might recognize these rocks, creatively named “Famous Rocks” from various movies and tv shows such as Star Trek and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. We set up our tent right after the sun went down and were the only ones camping there. I even made direct eye contact with a beautiful red coyote.

Day 27: 6/6/2025, mile 453.6 - 478.3

This morning Dennis wanted to peek into the Vasquez Rocks visiter center at 8 am, so we took a stroll around our campsite to see the famous formation called the Witches Hat. We honestly couldn’t imagine how it was a hat until we turned the corner and the rocks aligned perfectly. See for yourself!

We had a long ways to go hiking in the heat today, but that didn’t stop us from getting breakfast in the town of Agua Dulce. We got coffee, coffee cake, and split another watermelon. Boy was I hydrated!

I recently found a sunbrella in a hiker box and I am loving it! It makes the desert heat much more bearable when I am hiking in my own shady area all day.

Today proved to be an extremely long day of hiking. I waited for Dennis to catch up at a water source, and two miles later we found a water cache with chairs to rest in! Oh what a luxury.

After our rest I listened to a podcast until we came upon a nice bench. While we were resting a boy named Eli strolled along and convinced us to night hike our last 6 miles with him. He recently got back on trail after taking the day off to complete his zoom interview for Harvard Law School. We hiked through a beautiful sunset and I was booking it to keep up with his and Dennis’s long legs. I was practically jogging to keep up! I mean, look how short I am in this photo ⬇️

We ended up camping next to a fire station with a water spigot. Dennis tried to dump a toad on me, I wasn’t having it and just wanted to filter water.

Day 28: 6/7/2025, mile 478.3 - 503

Today was going to be a hot one. I left at 6:30 am and was able to crush the first couple of uphill miles while the day was cool. I rested at the first creek crossing about 7 miles in, and continued on in the dry heat. Today’s heat was rough, especially on the uphills. It was the kind of heat that made you need to lock in and take one step after another to make it to the top of a hill. I began listening to Gossip Girl the Netflix show as a way to cope with the heat. I’ve watched it before and there’s nothing like petty television high school drama to keep me entertained in the sweltering heat. There’s always ample water (NOT) in the desert (pictured below).

Today I walked through yet another previously burned section of the trail. This section had a poisonous plant called poodles dog bush that gives people a skin reaction like poison oak. The flowers were beautiful, but I made sure not to touch any of them.

Dennis caught up with me at the end of the day because he ended up having such a late start that he left at 9:30 am, about 3 hours after me. We struggled to finish the last steep mile (me struggling depicted below) and celebrated with a delicious cup of tea and a sunset dinner.

Day 29: 6/8/2025, mile 503 - 517.6

This morning Dennis and I left by 6:30am and enjoyed the change in scenery from desert terrain to an oak meadow. Eight miles in we stopped to filter water at a small stream. Dennis was feeling a bit rough from the heat, so I made him a cold compress before he decided to leave about 5 minutes before me.

We planned to hike with 1.5L each to cover our next 7 miles to hiker town. I decided to filter an extra half liter, and unfortunately due to a chivalrous attempt to make my pack lighter Dennis left with both his 1.5L bottle and mine. I didn’t comprehend what this meant until about 2 miles later. With 5 miles to the road I was feeling very hot. I was wearing my sunbrella, but a burst of wind turned it inside out and left me cursing at the wind. On top of that I realized that Dennis had all of my water and I had less than 0.5L. As you can imagine I started to freak out. I texted him to wait for me, but he didn’t see my text until he was about 1.5 miles from the road. He started back tracking with my water, thank goodness, and he found me in a serious state of panic. I guzzled the water he brought me, and wordlessly hiked towards hikertown. When we got to the road we learned that hikertown is the name for an extremely deserted ghost town trailer park that holds packages for PCT hikers. It was 92 degrees as we walked into the compound and we tried and barely succeeded to organize a hitch to the grocery store.

We ended up eating burritos and relaxing at the general store down the street with dozens of other hikers until we no longer felt heat exhausted.

Day 29.5: 6/8/2025, mile 517.6 - 534.9

The moment you have all been waiting for … the LA Aqueduct section is here!! After relaxing for about 8 hours in Hikertown/Neenach general store Dennis and I set off to hike another 17 miles.

Hiking on the aqueduct pipe actually hurts your feet because there are so many metal bolts!

To be honest by 4 miles in I was ready to be done. We had been awake for a full day and had to hike through the night to avoid the heat. At least the hike was flat, but Dennis and I basically were two delirious hikers just trying to survive. We both listened to movies and podcasts just to stimulate our brains. Finally around 6 am we made it to a bridge that had a water spigot and about 10 hikers crashing under to avoid the sun.

Day 30: 6/9/2025, mile

Today was more of a haze than a true day of hiking. Since we arrived at the bridge at sunrise we pretty much inflated up our sleeping pads and slept from 6 am until noon or so.

By then the temperature was 96 degree F, so we stayed in the shade, ate lots of cold ramen, and waited for nightfall before attempting our second night hike. Unfortunately we walked through an extremely windy wind farm and only went about 6 miles until we decided we were better off sleeping at night and hiking early in the morning.

Day 31: 6/10/2025, mile 541.5 - 558.5

Since this blog episode is already so long, all you need to know from today is that we hiked out to Tehachapi Willow Springs Road, hitchhiked into town, and spent hours waiting for busses that did not want to take us to Bakersfield apparently. According to the transit coordinator I spoke with over the phone, there was some incident involving a watermelon truck crashing on the highway that made it take forever to get picked up. A kind Bakersfield resident offered us lodging while we were eating at a Panda Express and we graciously accepted and crashed for the night. He also gave us each a $20 bill, score!

Day 32: 6/11/2025 Bakersfield to Union Station

This morning we walked from our room to an Arabic food store for breakfast. We got these flatbreads that were better than pizza. I also had the best coffee of my life and that’s saying a lot considering I studied abroad in Costa Rica. I vas a Garden latte with a ton of cardamom, and it was heavenly. We took the Amtrak bus to Union Station, grabbed boba tea in little Tokyo, held Pepe the parrot, and took the metro and another bus back to UCLA.

I’ll spare you all the exact details but we took one bus, then another bus, then the metro, and then another bus and bam! We made it back to UCLA. Dennis and I stopped at Trader Joe’s to buy flowers for our graduating friends. Then we set off to deliver them before grabbing açaí bowls on campus (thanks to a free meal swipe).

I then stopped by the Challenge Course where I used to work and saw all of my old coworkers!

Since I have my location shared with a few friends, Jmckay spotted that I was back in LA and came to walk with me and her dog Maisie. We got to catch up and talk about my progress on the trail so far.

Day 33: 6/12/2025 Universal Studios

Today was my official rest day from the trail, but come on, what do I know about proper rest! I wanted to spend the day with my old roommate Kaitlyn and my good friend Libby at Universal Studios. When in LA am I right? Kaitlyn and I Ubered together to Universal and I told her all about the trail. We met up with Libby and her sister and went on pretty much all of the rides in 5 hours. Thanks to Libby we made an excellent game plan and didn’t have to wait more than a half hour for rides.

By 1:30 I was in desperate need of food, so we took a break to have taco bowls. I also found a bunch of hot sauce packets to bring in trail!

I didn’t realize how tired I was, (tired, why would I be tired after a month of hiking?!) and so Kaitlyn and I decided to call it a day. I fell asleep immediately on the drive home and was able to enjoy a nice restful evening for the remainder of the day. I rested at Hudson’s apartment with Dennis before we got coop dinner. Then I stopped by my other old apartment to visit my old roommates, crushed it at some Just Dance, and headed back to Beatrice’s to watch a movie.

Day 34: 6/13/2025 Graduation Day 1

Today Dennis finally graduates from college! We celebrated by taking my friend Beatrice to her first ever coop breakfast where Finlay was serving some delicious fruit smoothies.

Dennis and I played one last game of pool where he absolutely destroyed me. We finished our laundry and got ready for Dennis’s parents to pick us up. His family spent the day at UCLA walking around, I grabbed my last Rendevous tacos (thank you Annabel!!), and we headed to our hotel for a nice dip at the pool before the 7 pm graduation ceremony.

We had a celebratory Panda Express dinner before graduation and made it into the gym just in time for the ceremony to begin. We watched the 7 pm College of Letters and Sciences graduation for Dennis and Libby. This year’s guest speaker was Sara Bareilles, a famous singer who went to UCLA.

Day 35: 6/14/2025 Graduation Day 2

Today’s graduation ceremony was at 5:30 pm, so we had a slow restful morning. We got bagel sandwiches at Nosh Bagel down the street from us. Dennis got a lox bagel and I got a veggie egg bagel, yum!! I finally took a luxury bath that I had been dreaming about before heading to the pool. At 1:45 pm, we left for a grand celebratory lunch at Meat Love, Dennis’s favorite Korean BBQ in Ktown.

Day 36: 6/15/2025 Back on trail

This morning I enjoyed my last nespresso, some cherries from Dennis’s house, and started this blog. I finished packing up my bag and walked to get one more delicious lox bagel from down the street. We headed out of the hotel by 11:30 am and will be back on trail by 2 pm. Our goal is to hike about 10 miles today and then push 25 mile days until Kennedy Meadows where our resupply box will be waiting for us.