PCT Day 122 & 123 – Unscheduled Zero in Portland to PCT Mile 2109.5

August 5&6, 2026

Total PCT miles: 9.4

Non PCT miles: 0.3

Total: 9.7 miles / 15.6 km

Total elevation gain: 1368 ft

Total elevation loss: 3865 ft

Steps: 25616

Remaining Distance: 545.5 miles

August 5 – Unscheduled Zero in Portland

I woke up this morning grateful for a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed and, more importantly, grateful that I didn’t have to hike through the thick smoke that has blanketed much of the Pacific Northwest.

I shared the room with Van Gogh, who decided to head home to Washington for a few days to wait out the smoke and see how the wildfire situation develops. We grabbed breakfast at a little dive diner and then made the obligatory stop at Voodoo Doughnuts, apparently something you’re required to do while visiting Portland, before saying our goodbyes and going our separate ways.

I then found a cheaper hotel for tonight, which left me with a few hours to kill between checkout and check-in. After I checked out I visited some local gear stores and replaced some equipment. A new sun hoodie as the one I wear while hiking had multiple holes in the back, a trekking pole too that was destroyed by the lava fields and a new water collection bag as my current one had an annoying hole in it.

Walking around Portland was certainly an experience. The scale of homelessness and drug use here is quite saddening. During a relatively short walk, I witnessed several things that I’m fairly certain would have resulted in emergency services being called in Ottawa.

One thing I will give Portland, though: it might have the best public transit system I’ve ever used. It’s cheap, easy to navigate, and seems capable of getting you almost anywhere.

Eventually I checked into my hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon doing absolutely as little as possible. Since I’ve been sending myself resupply boxes throughout Oregon, there wasn’t even much town planning or shopping to worry about.

For an unexpected zero day, that was exactly what I needed.

August 6 – Back on Trail

I’m amazed by how easy, and cheap, it is to get from downtown Portland back to Timberline Lodge, almost 100 kilometers away. A bus, a train, two more buses and about $6 later, I was back at the trail.

Along the way I made a quick Walmart stop to stock up on more 4C Energy Rush. This is basically powdered Red Bull and is what has kept me going since I discovered it back in the desert. I then stopped at Krispy Kreme for a few donuts. I’m not sure whether the cashier was being nice because the guy ahead of me took forever or whether I genuinely looked like I needed the charity, but she didn’t charge me for my donuts.

I’m beginning to suspect I look considerably more homeless than I realize.

While waiting for my final transfer at the Sandy Transit Center, a homeless man approached me and after I stared I wasn’t from here, very kindly started explaining how to get to the nearest soup kitchen.

Four months on the PCT have apparently done wonders for my appearance.

I finally arrived back at Timberline Lodge around 2:30 in the afternoon, and I couldn’t believe the difference from just two days earlier.

When I left, the smoke was so thick I could barely see Mount Hood despite standing on its slopes. The AQI was above 500, ash had been falling from the sky, and staff at Timberline were setting up hoses and sprinklers around the lodge in case the fire moved closer.

Today, Mount Hood stood clearly in front of me beneath a blue sky.

With the smoke gone, I could also see just how close some of the spot fires associated with the Grasshopper Fire are currently burning. It was a little unsettling seeing them from this perspective, but fortunately my route was taking me away from the fire.

The trail around Mount Hood alternated between exposed sandy slopes and beautiful forest, with frequent openings providing views back toward the mountain. At one of those viewpoints I found the perfect place to take a photo of myself with Hood in the background. I reached into my pack for my tripod and discovered it was gone.

That one hurt.

I’ve owned that little UltraPod since the first time I hiked the West Coast Trail, and I’ve carried it on almost every hiking trip I’ve done since. Somewhere along the way it must have fallen out of my pack. Gear gets lost and gear can be replaced, but after carrying that tripod for so many years and so many miles, it felt like losing a tiny piece of my hiking history.

My progress for the afternoon was slower than I’d hoped, and I didn’t get anywhere near the mileage I had envisioned. My body just wasn’t cooperating. My ankles and legs were aching again, my back and sciatica were bothering me, and even after a day off in Portland I still felt physically exhausted.

More concerning was that I wasn’t particularly enjoying myself.

For months I’ve joked about embracing the suck. There have been plenty of miserable climbs, painful days and moments when I’ve questioned what I was doing out here, but there was almost always something that made it worthwhile. A spectacular view, another milestone, the people I met, or simply the satisfaction of knowing I’d pushed through another difficult day.

Lately, I’m having a harder time finding that something.

Eventually I found a campsite with flat ground and excellent water and decided there wasn’t much point in forcing more miles tonight.

I’m still heading north tomorrow. There are only 545 miles of the PCT left, only 2 days left of Oregon, and part of me desperately wants to keep pushing toward Canada. I’ve invested four months of my life into getting this far, and walking away now is incredibly difficult to even contemplate.

But tonight, lying in my tent sore and tired yet again, I’m starting to wonder whether the question is really how much farther I can go.

Maybe it’s how much farther I want to go.