A year ago, Emma Wetsel spent 169 days hiking the entire 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. Brush On Block went with her.
Emma is the daughter of Brush On Block founder Andrea Wetsel, and she and her sister were part of the reason the brand was created in the first place. On her thru-hike, the sunscreen she'd grown up with became part of her daily trail routine, including a Quick Stick SPF 40 she kept close at hand in her fanny pack.
Quick Stick SPF 40 was part of Emma’s original PCT routine and came along for 31 more miles.
Read the original story: 2,650 Miles Under the Sun on the Pacific Crest Trail →
This summer, Emma returned to the PCT in Oregon. This trip was much shorter, just 31 miles from Elk Lake to the Obsidian Falls Trailhead in Oregon's Three Sisters Wilderness, a stretch of the trail she'd been unable to complete the year before because of wildfire smoke.
This time, her dad, Jess, came with her. And tucked into Emma's fanny pack was the same Quick Stick she'd carried at the end of her original hike.
Emma and her dad at the trailhead on day one.
Back to the Miles She Missed
Emma and Jess had talked about hiking part of the PCT together during her original thru-hike, but they never got the chance. Returning to Oregon gave them another opportunity, without the mileage goals and schedule that had shaped so much of Emma's first trip.
“We talked about doing some of the trail together last year, and it didn't end up happening,” Emma says. “It was actually really nice to get to redo this little section with him, kind of on our own time, with no time pressure, no need to necessarily push miles.”
During her thru-hike, Emma typically covered around 25 miles a day. This time, she and Jess averaged about eight.
Eight Miles Instead of 25
The slower pace gave them time to swim in lakes, look at flowers, read, play cards and simply spend time together.
Emma and her dad around mile four on their first day.
It was also Jess's first true multi-day backpacking trip, which put Emma in the role of introducing her dad to a way of life she'd come to know well. She showed him the routines and trail etiquette she'd picked up during nearly six months on the PCT, right down to how she liked to make dinner at the end of the day.
“It was really great to be able to build those memories with him,” she says. “It gave him an insight into what my life was like on the trail last year, and also the type of person that I am when I'm disconnected from the outside world and in the place where I'm happiest, which is outside.”
On their second night, they reached an alpine lake early in the afternoon and stayed there for the rest of the day. They swam across the lake, read, cooked dinner, made hot chocolate and played cards before watching the sunset over the lake and Middle Sister.
“That was definitely a favorite evening,” Emma says. “Just watching the sunset over the lake and the Middle Sister and being able to share that moment with him.”
Emma and her dad at a glacial lake in the Three Sisters Wilderness.
On her original hike, covering miles was part of each day's job. This trip gave her time to experience the trail differently.
Returning to the PCT a Year Later
Being back brought up more emotion than Emma expected. As she and Jess passed the 2026 class of thru-hikers, she found herself thinking about the friends she'd hiked with and missing the unusual simplicity of life on the trail.
“I was nostalgic,” she says. “I missed that lifestyle. A lot of it was I missed my friends that I was hiking with.”
She also remembered that thru-hiking wasn't always quite as idyllic as it can seem in hindsight. Talking with current hikers who were tired, hungry and pushing through 30-mile days reminded her of some of the harder parts, too.
With a year of distance from her original hike, Emma found that returning helped her reconnect with some of what she'd valued most about herself during those months outdoors. The little worries of everyday life felt less important when she was looking at the Three Sisters, swimming in alpine lakes and spending a few uninterrupted days with her dad.
“I felt like I could reconnect with a better version of myself almost and then bring that back to the real world,” she says.
A Familiar Trail Companion
The Quick Stick SPF 40 in Emma's fanny pack had already seen quite a bit of the PCT. It was the same one she'd carried at the end of her original thru-hike, and it still had the evidence to prove it.
“It still definitely had a little bit of dirt and special trail grime from last time,” she says. “But it works just as well as ever.”
Emma kept Quick Stick close at hand while hiking and used Restore Barrier Recovery Oil afterward. Restore had been part of her original PCT routine, too. On that hike, she used it every night after weeks of exposure to sun and wind. “It became a little trail luxury we all looked forward to,” she said.
Restore Barrier Recovery Oil returned to the trail, too, for Emma’s post-hike skincare.
There's a bit of family history packed into that well-traveled sunscreen. Andrea originally created Brush On Block after looking for a sunscreen that worked for her daughters. Years later, one of those daughters carried it for thousands of miles on the PCT, then brought the same Quick Stick back for 31 more miles with her dad.
Sharing the Trail With Dad
Emma returned to Oregon to hike a section of the PCT she'd missed, but doing it with Jess gave her a very different experience of the trail.
Instead of trying to cover 25 miles before the end of the day, they had time to swim across a lake, make hot chocolate, play cards and stop when they wanted to. Emma also got to share some of the routines, places and experiences that had been difficult to explain when she came home from her thru-hike.
Her first PCT trip covered 2,650 miles and took 169 days. This one was 31 miles over four days. Both became part of Emma's story with the trail, and part of a family story that Brush On Block has been connected to from the beginning.
