Finish Line

August 28

Miles: 10– 5 up, 5 back down (2189/2189!)

Location: Mt. Katahdin, and then Millinocket, ME

Weather: For weeks experienced hikers have been telling me that I need to do what I could to summit Katahdin in good weather– it would be worth the wait, and summiting in bad weather could be dangerous. My response was always that I was going to finish as soon as I physically could– as long as the weather was good enough that I could make it to the finish line without significance medical risks I was going to do it. It turns out that I didn’t have to worry. The weather was absolutely perfect. I could not think of anyway that it could have been better. 

Complaint of the… Nope. Not today. Won’t do it.

Done. Finished. Completed.

The hike up the mountain was not easy at all. There was a bunch of rock scrambles and legit bouldering on the way up, but it almost didn’t matter. I was too pumped with adrenaline to really care. 

I could not have asked for a better way to end my hike. As I walked up to the summit, up to that iconic sign, many other hikers were there offering hand shakes, fist bump, back slaps, and hugs. I walked over to the sign and got my absolutely mandatory photo with it. And then I was just there. Enjoying the moment. Enjoying the day. Appreciating all that I had accomplished. I generally prefer to experience my wilderness areas in solitude, but this time I was so happy to have so many other hikers around. There must have been 15-20 other thru-hikers up there I at the summit. People like Planner, Brown Sugar, Wood Pile, Alex, Scout, Switchback, Nails, Calves, Rex, the Swiss guys, and many others. Some were hikers that I have known for months, others only a few days, others I hadn’t met until we got to the summit together. But all of them played a role in my hike and I was thrilled to share the experience with all of them. 

I sat up there, enjoying the view, enjoying the sun, and simply enjoying the moment for over an hour. It was all I could ask for. 

…………

Coming down off the mountain was quite difficult, both physically and mentally. It is such a weird experience working so long to “finish” my hike only to have to follow it up with a grueling 5 mile hike down an extremely steep mountain. By the time I got back to the campsite I was completely exhausted. I was able to get a hitch into the town of Millinocket pretty quickly and got a bunk at the hiker hostel in town. 

After a good night’s sleep in a bed, it still hasn’t totally set in yet. I haven’t quite mentally processed all that I have accomplished. I haven’t figured out that I am finished. I hiked the trail. All of it. I imagine that I will have more deep, meaningful thoughts about my hike in the days and weeks to come as life slowly returns to normal. I might even put some of those thoughts here in this blog. But now I mostly just want to nap. 

Today I am sitting around the hostel in Millinocket before taking the shuttle to Bangor tomorrow and heading home to Anchorage, back to the adventure that is my normal life.

Last Little Bit

August 27

Miles: 21 (2184/2189)

Location: The Birches Campsite, Baxter State Park

Weather: Perfect, again (Northern Maine has spoiled me. I am okay with that)

Complaint of the Day: The Birches Campsite is a campsite that Baxter SP sets aside especially for thru-hikers. For some strange reason they put this campsite almost half a mile down the road from the trail and no where near any water source. And we still have to pay $10 to camp here. 

Last stop before the end of the trail. One more day. 

Katahdin, the final goal.

Today was a long day. I did 21 miles to get here. It was 21 pretty easy and flat miles, but it is still 21 miles. The smart and logical part of my brain has tried to tell me to take the day off tomorrow so that I am rested when I head up to the summit, but I won’t be listening to that part of my brain. I am this close, I am not going to take a break now. I can rest after I finish. 

Getting Close

August 26

Miles: 19

Location: Rainbow Lake tentsite

Weather: Pretty much perfect again. I’m hoping it stays this nice for just a few more days…

Complaint of the Day: Why couldn’t the trail be as nice and easy as it was yesterday? It wasn’t hard today, but yesterday spoiled me. 

Getting so close…

Almost there.

Today I had a great breakfast at the hostel and then took the boat shuttle back across the lake to the trail and away I went. The trail today was again quite nice, but still more work than yesterday. 

Katahdin is getting closer. I have seen it from several different viewpoints over the last two days. It is the biggest mountain in the area so it sticks out a bit. 

The closer it gets the more motivated I am to get there. Which is a shame, in a weird way. The Hundred Mile Wilderness is so nice that hikers should want to take their time to go through it. It would be so nice to take a couple of extra days and camp along some of these streams, swim in more of these lakes, listen to more loons, and just enjoy the last few miles. But nope. Even if I didn’t have a deadline to finish, I would still feel the magnetic pull of that mountain drawing me in to the finish line, forcing me to race past all this other beautiful stuff.

Tomorrow, I need to do the last 21 miles to get to the base of the mountain and then hopefully reach the summit the following day. Almost there…

Hemlocks and Dreams

August 25

Miles: 16

Location: White House Landing hostel

Weather: A little breezy, but otherwise perfect for hiking; a little too chilly for swimming though– not that that stopped me from jumping in the lake.

Complaint of the Day: Why can’t every day on the trail like this? Life on the trail would be so much better if they had designed the whole thing to be this flat and easy, but nope, they had to toss all those mountains in along the way for some reason. Jerks. 

It took the trail almost 2100 miles, but it has finally got things right. Today is the type of day I was dreaming of when I decided to hike this trail. The trail was flat and easy and it followed by a number of small babbling brooks and scenic ponds while going through a mixed hard wood forest of beech and maple and birch and pine and… hemlock. Oh, man, hemlock. I love hemlock. Tsuga canadiensis. I have seen pockets of hemlocks here and there along the entire trail, but today was the first time I really remember seeing large groves of big, old growth hemlocks. If you have been around trees like this, then you probably already understand. But for those of you who haven’t been so lucky, I am not sure I can totally explain. Being in a grove of trees like this is like… being in a church. But no, that is not enough. I don’t think that there is any church or grand cathedral anywhere that can match the feeling of silence, of solemnity, of quiet power and knowledge that these trees seem to have.

I came across the first of these big groves this morning. I was excited to see them– I hadn’t seen a place like this since the last time I was in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It was still early, I had barely been on the trail for two hours, so I didn’t really need to take a break. But then trees insisted, so I obliged them. I took my pack off and sat down against one of them. And I just sat. I listened. I smelled the scent of the air and of the ground around me. I allowed myself to be present. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that particular moment. Virtually everything I done over the last few weeks ( or even months) has been done with an eye towards Katahdin, my finish line. I have pushed myself to go farther and faster, just trying to get there before my largely self imposed deadline. I hadn’t really taken them time to just sit and enjoy my surroundings, to appreciate fully where I am. These trees did that for me. 

………

I am spending the night at a cool hostel/fish camp that is located in the middle of the Hundred Mile Wilderness. It is a neat set up at an old logging camp right on the lake. I called them from the boat dock next to the trail and they came over their boat to pick me up and shuttle me to the lodge. It is a tad pricey, but it is a very convenient place to have the last of my trail food sent to. Tomorrow I will take off and push hard down the trail. I need to do the next 40 miles in two days if I am to summit Katahdin on schedule.

Pushing Hard

August 23 & 24

Miles: 18 & 20 (2127/2189)

Location: Stealth camping near Crawford Pond

Weather: A bit too warm yesterday, but pretty much perfect today

Complaint of the Day: My feet are sore. They are really looking forward to the end of this hike

Back in North Carolina they all told us that the trail would be way easier once we hit Virginia. It wasn’t. In Virginia they said that the trail would be easier once we hit Pennsylvania. It wasn’t. In Pennsylvania they told us that things would be a lot easier once we got up into New Jersey and New York. It wasn’t. Again and again people kept promising things would be getting easier once we hit a certain point, but the trail is never easy. I have learned that again and again and again. So why is it that I totally believed people when they told me that the trail would be so much easier once I got to the Hundred Mile Wilderness? Things have not been easy. Thankfully they haven’t been super tough, but they certainly have not been easy. 

And this matters quite a bit. I have a deadline that is fast approaching. I have airline tickets booked for August 30, which means that I have to finish the trail by August 29 at the absolute latest; finishing by the 28th would make my logistics much simpler. Getting to the summit by the 28th, though, means I have to average at least 18 miles a day through the Hundred Mile Wilderness. That goal didn’t seem too tough back when everyone was telling me how easy the trail would be. But now things are a little rough. I had to hike a full 12 hours to get 18 miles yesterday. Today was a little easier so it “only” took 11 hours to go 20 miles. I am tired. 

From here though, things really should be a lot easier. The trail between here and the base of Katahdin is almost totally flat. I am sure that there will still be lots of rocks and roots and mud around to slow me down and prevent me from having things too easy, but I think I can deal with that. 

Tomorrow will be a little shorter day. U only have to go 16 miles to get to the backcountry hostel where I had my last box of food mailed. I should be able to rest and relax a little bit there before pushing on the last couple of days to the summit. 

Into the Wilderness

August 21 & 22

Miles: 13 & 15 (2089/2189)

Location: Stealth camping along Long Pond Stream

Weather: Very nice, a bit too warm; looking like it is going to rain this evening

Complaint of the Day: Slow start to the day. I was awake at 6:00 like I normally am, but the hostel I was staying at in Monson last night doesn’t start breakfast until 7:00 and the first shuttle to the trail wasn’t until after 8:00. It took awhile to get moving on a day that I was hoping to get a lot of miles done.

Yesterday was simple enough. I got up and I cruised into town. The trail was easy and flat and I was looking forward to a real lunch so I made quick time into Monson, the last town on the A.T. before reaching Katahdin. The hostel there, Shaw’s was pretty nice, but I didn’t really care. All I needed was a shower, laundry, and a bed to nap in. The fact that it had a quality breakfast this morning was just a bonus. 

Since Monson is the last town on the trail, all the hikers stop there. And that means that there were a lot of hikers starting up again at the same spot at roughly the same time this morning. There were at least 3 vans full of people who got dropped off this morning just from Shaw’s. The trail was crowded this morning. I haven’t seen that many thru-hikers in one area of trail since at least Virginia. It took awhile for the traffic to spread itself out enough to feel normal. 

I am now in the Hundred Mile Wilderness, the most isolated section of the entire trail. The next true sign of human civilization will be Baxter State Park, home of Mt. Katahdin in about 80 miles from here. With all the rest I had gotten yesterday and the the good breakfast I got this morning, I had hoped to get a solid 19 miles in today. But the hostel shuttle didn’t drop me off until almost 8:30 so that made it tough. I suppose I could have pushed it, but there was no place to camp between mile 15 and 19 today. If I had gone past this camp spot along the stream, I would have had to hike to at least 7:00 to get to the next shelter spot with water. And I knew that most of the other hikers I started with this morning were also trying to get to that spot, meaning that even if I had wanted to hike that long, the shelter would have been crowded and possibly full by the time I got there. So I finished a little early today after starting late. I will do what I can to make it up tomorrow. I will get up early and try again to push towards 20 miles.

The Good and the Bad

August 18

Miles: 18

Location: Stealth camping along shore of East Carry Pond

Weather: Cold and windy, followed by a long stretch of cold, windy and rainy; Cloudy and dreary all day long

Complaint of the Day: The trail eventually got easier, but most of the morning was spent crawling up and over Avery peak. It wasn’t any harder than all the other peaks I’ve climbed over the last few weeks, but my knees were not liking it at all. It looks like I won’t have to climb any significant hills until Katahdin, which is good. My knees need a break and I don’t have time to take a bunch of zero days.

On one hand, today was cold, cloudy, windy, and rainy. But on the other hand, I did get to hear loons call on three separate occasions, and I was able to pick a few blueberries in a grove of large red cedar trees, so I think it all evens out. The trail this morning was pretty rough and it took me a while to get anywhere, but after this morning things flattened out considerably and I was able to cruise. It felt great. It was the first time in what seems like forever that I was able to just hike without having to constantly struggle uphill or downhill or carefully watching where I put each and every step to make sure I don’t fall and seriously injure myself. It was relaxing, like hiking should be. 

Tomorrow I will be walking into (and then out of) the small town of Caratunk, ME. I have a package of food waiting for me that my brother James sent, and maybe even get a decent lunch at a diner. In order to get there though, I will have to cross a large river that has a strong current. Thankfully, there is a ferry service that shuttles hikers back and forth across the river. Unfortunately, the service only runs between 9 and 2 every day. I hiked late again tonight so that I should be able to hike the ten miles to the river and get across before they close for the day. If I am late, it would be a bad day for me. 

On a different note, I looked forward in my guide book and made a rough plan for the next ten days. The way things look right now, I should be able to summit Katahdin by August 28 without having any sort of crazy long days. The 28th has been my goal for since practically the beginning, so it is both crazy and reassuring  to realize that it is likely going to come together just fine despite all the challenges and stress I have put myself through.

Unbothered

August 20

Miles: 19 (2063/2189)

Location: Stealth campsite along Piscataquis River, south of Monson

Weather: Very nice, other than some threatening clouds and light drizzle this morning

Complaint of the Day: My brand new water filter, the one I picked up less than two weeks ago in Gorham already has a significant leak to it. I had had my old one for over three months and it still worked pretty decent, but I wanted to replace it before it got bad in a place where I couldn’t do anything about it. But now this one is already leaking. I’ve started adding bleach drops to my filtered water just to be safe. I’ll be happy when I won’t have to worry about this sort of thing anymore.

Today was another pretty easy day for the most part, though my legs and feet are still complaining as if I had done a much tougher day. I started the day climbing up one peak, Pleasant Pond Peak, that was arguably the easiest climb I’ve had in a month. Then after a few miles of fairly easy hiking, I came to another small mountain– Moxie Bald. This mountain was a little different in that it the trail split right before the mountain offering hikers like me a chance to short cut the climb up to the top and save a half mile of hiking by going on the side trail. I should feel guilty about choosing the short cut, but I really don’t. I’ve hiked up so many freaking peaks on this trip that skipping one and shaving off a half mile off the overall total doesn’t bother me at all. The only peak I care about at this point is Katahdin. 

Tomorrow I am going to hike into the town of Monson, ME and have my last chance at real civilization before I get to the end of the trail. I will enjoy a chance at laundry and a shower as well as sitting around for an entire afternoon doing nothing. 

Easy

August 19

Miles: 16 (2044/2188)

Location: Pleasant Pond Lean-to

Weather: Cloudy and slightly drizzly this morning, but clearing and warming up by the afternoon

Complaint of the Day: Just downhill from this shelter, maybe 100 yards away through the woods, is some sort of construction site. We can’t see it at all through the trees, but we can definitely hear them. Sounds like they are replacing a roof or something on someone’s cabin. They have been at it all afternoon. The constant racket they are making is destroying the wilderness feel this place would have otherwise. I just hope they are finished for the day before I go to bed at 8:00.

Today was the simplest and easiest day I have had in a while that didn’t involve staying at a hostel. I got up a little early and hiked in the 10 easy miles into the town of Caratunk, taking the free canoe shuttle across the big river to get to the town. Once there I picked up my package at the hostel and proceeded to spend about two hours just sitting there eating food and charging my phone. I left there a little after 1:00 and hiked another 6 miles to the next shelter. The trail was super easy so I could have kept going I suppose, but there was no other place to stop for at least 5 miles, and besides, I was really happy to be able to finish early for once. I took a bit of a nap this afternoon after setting up in the shelter and it was quite nice. I have been pushing myself a little too hard lately. 

The other big news of the day is that I finally committed to an end date– I bought tickets for my flight back home to Alaska for August 30th. That means I have to summit Katahdin by the 28th, or the 29th at the absolute latest. It shouldn’t be too tough to pull off, but it does feel a little different having this firm commitment over my head. 

The Good and the Bad

August 18

Miles: 18

Location: Stealth camping along shore of East Carry Pond

Weather: Cold and windy, followed by a long stretch of cold, windy and rainy; Cloudy and dreary all day long

Complaint of the Day: The trail eventually got easier, but most of the morning was spent crawling up and over Avery peak. It wasn’t any harder than all the other peaks I’ve climbed over the last few weeks, but my knees were not liking it at all. It looks like I won’t have to climb any significant hills until Katahdin, which is good. My knees need a break and I don’t have time to take a bunch of zero days.

On one hand, today was cold, cloudy, windy, and rainy. But on the other hand, I did get to hear loons call on three separate occasions, and I was able to pick a few blueberries in a grove of large red cedar trees, so I think it all evens out. The trail this morning was pretty rough and it took me a while to get anywhere, but after this morning things flattened out considerably and I was able to cruise. It felt great. It was the first time in what seems like forever that I was able to just hike without having to constantly struggle uphill or downhill or carefully watching where I put each and every step to make sure I don’t fall and seriously injure myself. It was relaxing, like hiking should be. 

Tomorrow I will be walking into (and then out of) the small town of Caratunk, ME. I have a package of food waiting for me that my brother James sent, and maybe even get a decent lunch at a diner. In order to get there though, I will have to cross a large river that has a strong current. Thankfully, there is a ferry service that shuttles hikers back and forth across the river. Unfortunately, the service only runs between 9 and 2 every day. I hiked late again tonight so that I should be able to hike the ten miles to the river and get across before they close for the day. If I am late, it would be a bad day for me. 

On a different note, I looked forward in my guide book and made a rough plan for the next ten days. The way things look right now, I should be able to summit Katahdin by August 28 without having any sort of crazy long days. The 28th has been my goal for since practically the beginning, so it is both crazy and reassuring  to realize that it is likely going to come together just fine despite all the challenges and stress I have put myself through.