Done. 5 nights and 6 days, ~11,000 feet vertical gain (and back down and doesn’t count the standard ups and downs), ~60 miles with the Surprise Creek Trail “shortcut”, average speed uphill was 1.25 mph and not much faster downhill, 7% grade with a lot of switch backs on the PCT, and more I’m forgetting.
Used the Sawyer filter with 2 gravity bags. Worked well. My old Katadyn pump is kinda broken and certainly don’t want to mess with water. 1 pound fuel canister lasted 2 of us 5 days with a LOT of cooking. I don’t just boil and pour. We had hash browns swimming in butter and an egg for breakfast, did Chinese hot pot one night, made veggie burgers, etc. I learned butter is awesome during my Tibet treks, and we had no problem finishing 3 sticks over 6 days.
Hiking poles are the BOMB. I couldn’t have done it with out the poles. Trail is well designed but by no means easy. It’s designed for pack horses and a maximum 7% grade, but it isn’t a nice soft dirt trail You cross a lot of tailings (I would have called this scree aka boulder fields where you pick your way across rock chunks) including a hellish 4 mile tailings traverse of Chikamin Peak. Joints never hurt. I did wake up on day 3 with a bad hip, took 2 advil, and about 2 hours into the day the pain went away. The escape route that day meant crossing the horse ford on the Waptus River, which would have sucked. I’m tired and dehydrated but not sore. Don’t even need Advil 
I had assumed we would be doing more like 1.5 - 3 mph depending on up or down hill, but the trail didn’t support that for me.
We had to ford in 2 places. Not horrible. One had 4 dodgy poles parachorded together that one could inch across. One just meant getting wet to the knees (and I didn’t take my boots off so got quite water logged).
My son was a trooper. Took a little food weight off of me partway thru. He got blisters but other hikers had tape and it wasn’t horrible. When we were 9 hours into a pretty harsh hike on day 5, and there was no water for 3 more hours, he bucked up and said “real men power thru” and we did. Felt like a thru hiker that day as we did 12+ hours and rolled into Gravel Lake about 8:30 pm.
Not a ton of people. We leap frogged most days with maybe 10 others going south. Saw around 20 people going north per day. Talked to a few of the thru hikers like Mocha Joe. They were doing 30-40 miles per day. I was like “so, how many more weeks to Canada?” They were “Steven’s Pass today (about 35 miles away that morning) and should touch back in Canada in 9 days.” 
Started with too much weight. After all, it’s been almost 30 years since I’ve last trekked (and somehow I’ve managed to get out of shape and acquire a beer gut during those decades). My North Face tent comes from a 1990 museum. We prolly brought 2-3 weeks worth of meals, 2 weeks of fuel, and too few Cliff Bars. Figured out that we didn’t want to cook lunch but just take a 30 minute rest and some Cliff Bars. The old school tube of PB was old school but we did choke it down. Should have brought a lot more peanut m&ms and such for quick sugar/protein fixes. My can of mead for the halfway point was consumed the first night. The parachord belt I thought was a good idea is sitting on the trail for anyone that needs parachord.
The fuel canisters are nice. I need to compare versus my old coleman multifuel. Crazy, I haven’t used the coleman for 20+ years, it still had some gas in it from Japan (and moved with me to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seattle). I pumped it and it lit right away. My gut feel is if one cooks a lot, the coleman and a large fuel bottle is probably less space, weight, and more boiling power than a jet boil. Those jet boil canisters are certainly convenient but take a lot of space. And a ton more expensive than unleaded.
Did not see much wildlife. Most folks didn’t carry bear spray but I got a 2 pack at Costco and we did. Didn’t need it. No one on the trail mentioned seeing a bear (although the north cascades may be a different story). One campsite had a kinda hidden bear can and a 1# fuel canister. Opened the bear can to a nice note that said “help yourself”. My son found a vegan chocolate chip cookie and was mightly chuffed with himself. We didn’t use a bear can. Only some nights hung our food and never had a problem. Saw one deer near the trail. Quite a few Pika’s, a few birds, some frogs, a pond full of polliwogs, chipmunks, marmonts (I think). On our really crappy death march day, after the Chikamin traverse, when we had limited water and 3 hours to camp at 5:30pm, we ran into a mountain goat on the trail. He was just kinda chilling. Maybe 10 feet away. 6 inch horns. Had a tracking collar. Seemed like a fellow traveller, and after checking us out, then slowly walked down hill past us and that was that. It was very cool. Almost made the death march worth it.
Kendall Katwalk is a big milestone maybe six miles up the trailhead from Snoqualmie Pass (which is only about an hours drive from Seattle). It was dynamited out of granite to build the trail. There were trail runners that zipped up there for a workout with their dogs. Anyhoo, we walked right thru it without noticing. Asked some folks coming up the trail where it was, and LOL, they said you just passed it. Most of the trail was 12 - 18 inches wide. Most, like the Chikamin traverse, was almost a cliff and would have really been bad if you slipped off the trail. Kendall Katwalk was 4-5 feet wide and took about 30 seconds to cross. There are youtube videos out there that make it seem heroic and dangerous, and we were WTF hiked 6 days for this let down?
Disheavel - you gave a lot of great feedback above. I really watched my back and didn’t have a problem. Next time I’ll pick one interior lake off the PCT and do a 2-3 night trip with a pick up off of one of the escape routes. In other words, start on the PCT since it is a good trail with a 7% grade, a side trip, and then out to an alternative trailhead.
What we noticed and also noticed about the thru hikers: We ended up just wanting to get from point a to point B. Most days were 14 miles at less than average 2mph. The earliest we hit camp was around 5pm and the latest 8:30pm. You look at the scenery as you walk thru. Half of the trail had nasty mosquitos, so even if you did stop you wanted to get going again. Also, my son and I wanted to finish in 6 days. And there are not a lot of campsites, and a lot don’t have water. And very few non designated camp sites had enough flat ground to actually pitch a tent.
Cathedral Pass was probably our favorite area. No mosquitos. The actual “pass” took maybe an hour to traverse once you got up there. Beautiful (and fragile) high country.
If you started at the Tucquala Meadows picnic area. One could go to Deception Pass, then PCT to Cathedral Pass, camp at Peggy’s Pond, and then back to Tucquala. That would be a really nice and non brutal 2-3 nighter.
I am sure there is more but wanted to share that we did it.
