Mahoney had a heckuva summer. Photo: Wild Brush
Five thousand dollars isn’t what it used to be. In 2025, that’ll cover a few months’ rent or a car older than a Gen Zer.
But if you’re thrifty, it’ll float you through two months on a thru-hike. That’s exactly how Julianne Mahoney used her $5,000 reward for completing a newly minted trail detour that connects Carson City, Nevada to the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).
Last year, the marketing arm of Nevada’s capital, Visit Carson City, announced that it would be awarding $5,000 to two hikers who took an alternate PCT route and used their new “Capital to Tahoe” trail – 16 miles of singletrack that connects Carson City with Lake Tahoe.
Carson City selected Mahoney and Audrey Payne – two Coloradan outdoorswomen with healthy social media followings. Mahoney, who started the hike in Carson City and headed northbound to the Canadian border, finished her 58-day journey on August 22.
Mahoney says that through frugal planning, the entire trip cost her about $3,000, including dog sitting, food, flights, and gas. She estimates it’s half as much as the average hiker spends on a two-month trip. In a call with The Inertia back home in Durango, Colorado, she said she’s going to put the remaining $2,000 in a high-yield savings account to save for a future hike of the Continental Divide Trail.
While her counterpart, Payne, set out to hike the entire PCT from the Mexican border, Mahoney said the time and cost made that unrealistic.
“I would have loved to do the whole trail, but I would have needed an extra five weeks,” she said. “I’m self-employed, so two months felt like a reasonable amount of time to leave my dog and step away from work.”
Mahoney runs a small business making ultralight backpacks and gear bags by hand – including the pack she carried on her journey.
Even with a cash reward waiting at the end, she still endured the full spectrum of thru-hiking’s highs and lows. A 120-degree heat wave across Northern California’s burn scars made hiking grueling, while heavy downpours in Washington further tested her resolve. The mix of physical strain and solitude proved her greatest challenge.
“I missed my friends and specifically my dog – I’ve never been away from him longer than a week,” she said.
There were moments of elation, too. Mahoney recalled a highlight in Washington’s Goat Rocks Wilderness, where she reunited with trail friends amid clear views of Mount Rainier and fields of wildflowers. She also noted the Spooner Lake area near Tahoe as another stunning landscape.
Mahoney and Payne have still never met, but they plan to meet up in their home state of Colorado when Payne finishes her hike in a few weeks.
While Mahoney strives to hike the Continental Divide in the future, she doesn’t rule out returning to Carson City, where her longest hike to date started.
“It could be kind of funny to do Carson City to Mexico, right?” Mahoney chuckled. “But that wouldn’t be for another year or two.”
