An end and a beginning
10.7 hiked today, 2174 miles N, 0 miles left
Travelodge in Bangor, ME
Today I woke up today at 6 A.M. and couldn't get back to sleep. The temperature was 44 and I wasn't ready to face that. I read my book some more and just relaxed and thought of how much I had seen, experienced, and what great things I can see for my future. Surprisingly I slept well last night which was a nice change as myself and other NoBo thru-hikers I have been talking to have generally complained of restless dreams and nightmares for the last few days. It is a lot like the anxious dreams I had just before I started.
After sitting in bag for a little while I finally got up and started packing up for the last time. After months of practice I was packed up in a matter of a few minutes and starting on my breakfast. Yesterday when Dent and I hit the Abol Campground we agreed to purchase a shared breakfast. I bought chocolate chip cookies and he doughnuts which we spilt. I hit the trail before anyone else at the shelter site. I became focused and all my efforts were directed towards climbing Katahdin. I walked back to where we had turned off yesterday to get to the shelter and started up the trail; a road leading through the Katahdin Stream car camp ground. It felt very odd because it was obvious most of the people had no idea I was thru-hiker. They were just out enjoying a couple days camping and there was this person with a big day pack strolling by. I signed in the trail registry and at about 8AM started up the mountain. I made very good time and passed many other hikers. The climb feels like it was effortless but I know that it was the most demanding climb of the whole trail. Some of it is very technical with very challenging scrambling. At places it felt like I had to place my foot next to my ear for the next foot hold. The trail was rather poorly built over large segments of it's length where it is composed of deep eroded ruts trails, poor grading (though there were switchbacks at some points), and inattention to avoiding natural features (we walked through a large amount of the flow run of Throu Spring). Still I marched up it.
I had spent months wondering what would go through my mind, how would I feel, what would I do. All that time I couldn't hazard a guess. I realized I would have to finish to find out. While I hiked I tried to mentally document my climb but now that I am done I think can see myself more clearly. I was expecting a welling of emotions and what I have found was almost perfectly opposite. What I found was focus. My mind never strayed for long from looking at the path ahead. When it did I thought of the people I had met, the scene around me and below, and how much I looked forward to being "Home".
The climb happened in four major stages. The first followed the path of Katahdin Stream as it flowed down the lower reaches of the mountain. It was in the trees. A deeply rutted trail with boulders that in some cases were bigger than cars and took serious consideration to get around. Next I arrived above tree-line to a near cliff of rock. The rock has eroded into giant imposing blocks with hard edges and angles. Due to the strong-willed rock the trail is not so much built as it navigates where the rock permits it. Even with this submission to the mountain the trail still comes across occasional obstacles which require more that I have. In these places a helpful piece of re-bar has been cemented into the rock, always it seems about 6 inches higher than I usually like to put my foot. It was here I ran into Green Hornet. I had seen a register entry that he had started at 6:45AM. I assumed I would see him up top but he was summiting with a friend and her pace had slowed them down. We enjoyed the view and took a rest together. Then I continued up. After the rocks I arrive at Tableland. Here there is a grand shoulder of the mountain. A large hardy and mostly flat pasture of rough grasses with small wildflowers extended ahead of me. Still over a mile from the summit I could see the sign just a short distance above. It was easy going through here with the most trying obstacle being the flow of water through the trail from Throu Spring, the highest spring of Katahdin. Finally the last few feet were rocky short climb to the summit.
I walked up to the finally blaze, the sign, and the summit. These I had seen thousands of photos of. When seeing the sign it was as I had always seen it, battered by weather, defaced by thoughtless humans, and simple in it's design. I just stood there for a moment before reaching out and touching it. Then I bent over I placed a finger on the weathered final white blaze painted on a rock holding up a leg of the sign. I was now done.
I turned around a found a spot nearby to place my pack and sat down. I got up a few minutes latter to capture a photo of the sign and blaze and then sat down again. My thoughts came more slowly and I found myself looking out into the horizon musing over what had just happened. I have plenty left to do before I would sleep but I was not interested or concerned with that. I mused over the transition I am going through. When I started at O'Hare Airport in Chicago I had grown. I had started as a simple backpacker only know to those whom hands I had shaken. As I hiked that swelled as people meet me. First it was answering questions of people stopped at a sign in Georgia. Then was chance encounters with day hikers who were stunned to realize just how much trail they had left to explore. After that I made friends on the trail and in town. I had grown to a celebrity often being know by people before I had met them. I was a thru-hiker. People were excited and interested. They occasionally asked to take my picture. Many expressed and interest in doing the same some day though most also expressed the doubt that they would ever get the chance.
It sounds like I am bragging and perhaps I am but I am also speaking the truth. I have proclaimed to anyone who cares to listen that I am not special, exceptional, or unique. I have just managed to keep focused.
As I have approached the end my fame has diminished. I have met more poeple face to face now. The populations are smaller and people less frequent. In the hundred mile Wilderness the people I met all knew of my journey and many were on it themselves. As I hiked through the campground my small hiking pack probably caused most people to assume I was a day hiker. Finally at the summit I was sitting alone amongst the 20-30 other people milling about.
Do not misread me. I am not expressing loss, regret, or lonelyness. It is just an observation. I had become a hiker again. At the the hotel I am a tourist. In a couple days my flight will reduce me to a passenger, one of hundreds. Finally I will arrive at home where I will be a friend and lover. The thru-hiker will be drained and after haircut and clean clothes I will be indistinguisable from anyone else. I joked with fellow hikers that like a secret extraterrestrial invasion force well will "Walk amongst them.". Our differences and journey will only be visible with-in. I will take my lessons and experiences and apply it to an ordinary life.
A while after I summited Dent arrived and later Green Hornet and his friend. Where sat around in a circle sharing food (well mostly I ate others food since I was down to a couple snacks). We held the camera for each other and captured pictures of next to the sign. It was easy and relaxing hanging out on the summit. The weather was nice with a light breeze and temperatures around 60. Finally I had to get moving though. The others were heading back down the way we came up because that was were their car/ride was parked.
For me coming down from the summit is no easy task. Most people stash their packs at the ranger station at the trailhead and have to go back the way they came to get them back. Since I had hauled all of my gear up with me I had the flexibility of descending whatever route I wanted. I choose to take the Knife Edge trail. It was a 5 mile jaunt along a sharp rocky ridge. The rocks dropped off precipitously to either side of me putting nothing between me and the majestic view of the rest of the Katahdin range, lakes below, and the wide forest that surrounded me. The ridge was rocky a jagged forceing the trail to perform many steep ascents and descents. Given my months of practice I bounced along the top of these rocks though my knee did do some complaining. The views were awesome with the land dropping off quickly to the north and south. The ridge-line looks whole from the distance but up close I could see that it was made of shattered stone. Looking into the distance the stones went farther than seemed possible giving me a sense that I was looking at something with some sort of hyper/high definition vision.
I got into a rhythm for the last 5 miles. I didn't hike fast but I was faster than the day-hikers (I realize I am now a day-hiker myself). I would silently catchup with them startling them. I started kicking a couple rocks so they could hear me coming. The traverse of the ridge line ended at the Chimney which had the most precipitous drop I had seen thus far on the trail. In about 10 feet horizontal I think I descended about 60 feet lowering myself down one ledge at a time. The trail down was easier going but only because I didn't have to pull myself over obstacles. The trail was still steep at spots and deeply rutted leaving only boulders behind to climb over.
As I hiked down I started to yogi. I needed a ride out and about a mile shy of the road I ran into a friendly college age couple who agreed to get me to Millnocket, the first town out of Baxter State Park. The ride was nice though they dropped me off a little early. I had asked them to drop me off at a trucker stop next to the highway I-95 which they were heading to too but they left me about 2 miles away at a closed (looked open at first glance) gas station. Fortunately it had just moved up the street and I got some grub, bought a black marker for sign making, and called home from there.
Then started an evening of thumbing my way home. I had planned my flight to be a couple days after I finished the trail to give me some slip time so I didn't need to be anywhere. Still the quicker I got to Bar Harbor the more time I would have there to relax. It took me about half an hour to get a ride to the highway. That person was only going one exit down but they kindly left me at a rest stop. That was a great place to be because it always easier to get a ride of you have a chance to talk to someone before you ask. In the end the rest stop was not very heavily used but what it lacked in volume it made up in quality. I got to sit and relax while waiting for cars and the third driver picked me up. We recognized each other as he was one of the hikers who I had hiked with and passed earlier. He was heading farther on I-95 than I was but dropped me off next to a hotel in Bangor.
Here I tried to hitch onward but it was getting was getting dark fast. I needed a sign as the highway junction here has more than one option and needed to not only stop a car but get one going the right way. Getting a sign turned out to be tough to do at first. Normally I would lift some cardboard out of the trash but everyone had the trash bins locked under lock and key! I asked at the gas station for some discarded cardboard and the manager said, "Sorry, we can't give you any because we are not insured if you hurt yourself with it.". Finally I found a tall stack of Gatorade that was stacked in cardboard flats and just took the last remaining bottles in the top flat and put them on top of the bottles below keeping the flat for myself. This turned out to be a great sign which a nice bright white background. However I had lost to much time doing this and in the end I got no rides after trying for an hour. It was dusk out and just too dim for people to see me let alone read my sign.
I walked around to the surprising number of hotels in the area and found that most were full up. The one that weren't were not the cheap ones. In the end I paid $80 for a smoker's room at travel lodge.
