Mt Hood – Mexico to Canada 2023 (and beyond)

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

10 miles – PCT mile 2117.3 to 2110 + 3.5 mile hike out

Well, sometimes shit happens. I woke up on day 3 and the IT band on my left hip was super sore. This is the other first I was talking about earlier. I’ve never had that pain whilst hiking before. Pain is of course inevitable, but this seemed different. Here’s the video I made when I got back to Portland. Afterwards will be photos from Day 3 of my hike.

The day began with a big climb and my first Mt Hood view!

Trail – look at the edges of the trail and you can see the holes from all the hiking poles that most hikers walk with

I descended down another 1000 feet to Muddy Creek and crossed on a log. Right after this was when I started to realize my hip was getting worse.

The trail to Ramona Falls was slightly uphill, but my hip made it feel much steeper. It started to become apparent that I may need to bail out. Ramona Falls was beautiful though.

There were plenty of day hikers around. I scoped out who I thought might be a good mark to “yogi” a ride from (thru hiker term) and found Mike and his dog Rogue. He was with another couple as well and I could tell they were good people. The art of yogi-ing a ride is subtle. I started by asking how far it was back to the parking lot and if there was any cell signal there for me to call an Uber. I then explained my predicament and Mike volunteered to take me back to Portland, as his drive brought him near the airport anyway. Success!

Sadly, parking lot would be my destination

I was about 11 miles short of my intended stopping point of Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, but I’ll come back another year. I think I may have undertrained a bit for this trip, compared to my hikes in the previous years and perhaps I also went too fast out of the gate. Regardless, it was a great hike and I got to check some more miles off my ultimate goal of finishing the entire PCT over the coming decades.

Monday, August 18, 2025

16 miles – PCT mile 2133.4 to 2117.3

I woke up in the fog and cold. I had expected lows in the 50s, but it was certainly in the 40s at least. I’ve got my sleep system down though, so I was nice and toasty in my tent and got a bit of a later start, around 9:30am.

I got to the spot where I was originally going to camp (before deciding to pivot to Wahtum Lake) and there were some beautiful views.

Most of today would be overcast and foggy. No mountain views, but pretty hiking and some amazing trail magic, both human and nature-made.

The trail provides is a phrase you often hear out there. It is amazingly true.

One thing I learned was that Pikas actually live down at this altitude. I thought they were always over 10,000 feet, but I saw and heard several among the rocks down here around 6,000 feet.