The End! (part one)

Well, it's been a month and a day since I summited Katahdin- think it's about time to type up my final entry.  ;)  My excuse (and believe me, I'm sure everyone around me is getting tired of hearing this as my reasoning for not doing anything for the past month) was that I just wanted to relax.  Of course, I thought I'd just relax for a few days and then finish my blog, and then that turned into a few weeks, which has now become a month.  I guess since the blog was mainly intended for the reason of communicating with family and friends- and because I can now do that in person or through Facebook- I didn't find it as pressing as I once did.  However, I understand the need to complete the written account of my hike, plus many people were wanting to know what my final weeks, days, hours were like, so here goes:  


 I'll pick up after I left Rangely with BC.  The weather was getting noticeably colder and wetter.  Okay, let me also add windier.  Ha!  Basically, winter was creeping up on us and we knew our time on the Trail was becoming limited.  There was not only the urge to finish the hike to feel the sense of completion/accomplishment but also now the added pressure to finish while we still could, while the weather permitted.  Earlier and earlier each night we were wanting to make camp, cook dinner, go to sleep.  Humans just aren't made to be exposed to those sort of conditions day after day, and our bodies were beginning to let us know this.

BC and I left Rangely alone, without Velvet (who had a mystery-illness) and Bumblebee and Biscuit (who had hiked ahead, hitched in from a different road, and were now taking a couple days off).  It felt good to hike alone with BC for a couple days.  "Just like old times" we reflected. A hiker's mom had given us a ride from Rangely back to the Trail, and had bid adieu by bestowing us with two Coronas a piece.  A little bit of Trail magic even in Maine.  We didn't even care that we were carrying the extra weight of glass bottles.

BC and I saw our second and last moose during our couple days of hiking alone- an older cow chewing plants complacently at the edge of a still, silver pond.  Grey fur marked muzzle and shoulders.  We thought she would run as we approached but she just remained there as we quietly and slowly walked the perimeter of the water.  We were happy we got to see a second moose.  As it turns out, a porcupine is the only animal on my "must-see" list that I never saw (save for two dead ones on the side of the highway... which I ended up reluctantly "counting" after the hike).  

Our last moose sighting.

On top of Saddleback Mountain BC and I caught our first glimpse of Katahdin to the north; it was merely a shadow of a grey smudge away on the horizon seen between the valley of a closer ridge.  We didn't care- it was the end and it was finally in sight.  We celebrated on top of the frigid peak by drinking one of our remaining Coronas.  Behind us lie Mt. Washington and the Whites, still the largest and most formidable ridge in view.  What an odd and indescribable feeling it is to advance mile by mile- peak by peak- over a range of mountains spanning the length of the eastern United States- to be able to see where you've been and where you're going at the same time.  To look back at Washington was deceiving: it had the bright sun above it and looked relatively benign.  Only those who have climbed it know the truth of its summit.  But that is true for all of the Trail and all of the mountains and valleys and forests I'd visited.  To observe from afar is just a fantasy, while the truth lies in walking upwards and inwards.  Again and again in life, through myriad lessons in every scenario, I'm taught and reminded that the truth is never easily attained, but is to be attained nonetheless.  And the Trail taught me not to fear its truths, even though I sometimes glanced at the approaching masses of mountain ridges and thought "there is no way I am going to be able to do that". Ultimately, by not fearing the knowledge of whether I could do something or not, I learned my own strengths and found that most things are attainable if I approach them with the willingness to at least try.  That's not to say I was never afraid... sure.  Afraid of falling, afraid of twisting an ankle, afraid of the dark and the mysterious noises that issued from the blackness of the forest.  But not afraid of failing.  I couldn't fail, I told myself, as long as I kept moving forward.  And so I did...

The beauty of Maine's mountains cannot be captured on film.

BC and I enjoying our celebratory beer at the first sighting
of Katahdin.

Not far from Rangely BC and I passed through Stratton, where Velvet (who was feeling slightly better) hitched forward and met us to continue north.  The Bigelows (Maine's last big mountains before Katahdin) lie before us, and a two-day march led us up and over what was a mostly misty, cold, and typical jumble of Maine rock.  It was here that we passed the current 2000-mile mark (which tends to drift either north or south every year due to trail extensions/re-routings).  However, at the northern base of the Bigelows lies the iconic "2000 mile" road which has been spray-painted to mark the mother of all Trail-milage milestones.  It was here that I took my picture and actually celebrated.  I was officially a "2000-miler", which means something in the Trail community. 

2000 miles is, trust me, a lot more than just 2000 miles, both
actually and metaphorically.  Those miles changed my life.

It was at this point, right before we arrived in Carratunk, that whatever sickness had been ailing Velvet also hit me.  It started at first like a slight upset stomach... maybe just bloating or gas.  But nothing was wrong with my stomach- save for the fact that I felt I had to burp but could not.  The real problem lie in the fact that I couldn't hike uphill without sweating, hurting, moaning and generally feeling like I HAD TO STOP!  My body was screaming at me that something was wrong if I even slowly ambled up a gentle incline, let alone went the quick pace that I was accustomed to and needed to keep up if I were going to make my miles for the day.  So we took a day off at an outdoor center conveniently located a few miles off Trail to assess what was going on.  I was at such a low morale point after just a day.  I was ready to quit, to call the rest of the trip off.  I had passed the 2000 mile mark, seen Katahdin, basically walked the entire length of the Trail.  It was almost seven months since I'd started out and I'd been through a "bear attack", break-up, record setting heat wave, the flu, a hurricane which unprecedentedly closed the AT for days, multiple minor injuries and morale-smashers.  And now my body was shutting down.  Now I couldn't even walk a minor hill on what was essentially a flat part of the Trail.  But then, as things usually go on the Trail, a "miracle" happened: Velvet's doctor called and informed him that his stool sample showed that he indeed had giardia (the same parasite that had taken BC off the Trail for a few days right before the Whites).  Velvet and I had for the last couple days assumed that we had the same illness, since our symptoms were exact, so I was extremely surprised to learn that I had what was probably giardia.  Luckily, Velvet (being only 19) was still covered by his parents' insurance.  He selflessly hitched into the nearest town and back, stopping at a pharmacy to get medication, which he then split with me at no charge in what was an absolute act of generosity.  I was so humbled and appreciative.  It is really only an illness which makes you aware of how wonderful feeling healthy is.

I found I was not the only creature sitting by Flagstaff Lake. 

We left Carratunk the next day, having crossed the Kennebec ferry, which is one of the last milestones before Katahdin.  Every day I was reminded of how close we were getting.  But there were still many hard days ahead of us, and I knew that.


In fact, it started with that very next day after receiving the medication.  Due to the excessive rain brought upon by Irene and other storms, this area of Maine had a higher-than-usual number of mosquitoes for the season.  And by "higher-than-usual" I mean they were everywhere.  You could see them in the air.  You'd run ahead- on the Trail, on a road, over a river- and look behind to see a swarm following intently behind you, even as you were running into a brand-new swarm.  I kept my trekking poles in one hand so that I could continuously swat with the other.  My shoulders, forearms, behind my knees.  My forehead and stomach.  The top of my head.  Nothing deterred them.  I smeared mud on my arms and legs in a final, anthropological (!) act of desperation, trying to remember where I'd learned that the native Americans used to do this to prevent bug bites.  Maybe I hadn't.  Maybe it was elephants in Africa to prevent bug bites.  Maybe I'd just made the whole thing up... but I didn't care.  It was better than nothing.  So here I was, my body protesting due to giardia-related muscle fatigue as I ran up the Trail, being followed by thousands of mosquitoes, voluntarily covered head to toe in pine needles and mud... and then I slipped on a root and fell and hit my knee and immediately just burst into tears!  It was the last time I cried on the Trail.  I actually allotted myself five minutes to sit and cry from self-pity (for I hadn't really hurt myself in the fall).  And it worked.  I have usually found that allowing myself to cry instead of holding it back usually clears me emotionally.  So I sat there and cried and told myself I'd stop crying by the time BC showed up (he was hiking behind me), but I was done before he arrived, and found that the mosquitoes actually backed off when I sat still by the river.  How quickly things sometimes turn around!  After a 30-minute break we arose and continued hiking.  The mosquitoes and my self pity were gone- never to return for the rest of the trip.


Monson was the next Trail town- the last Trail town, and so we decided to take a zero day since all we had ahead of us was the 100-Mile Wilderness and then Katahdin.  Bumblebee and Biscuit arrived just in time to take the day off with us as well.  We decided at that point that the five of us (Bumblebee, Biscuit, Velvet, BC and I) would hike the remaining miles together and summit Katahdin as a group.  At the hostel in Monson I called my family for the last time- everyone was thrilled, as my success was pretty much guaranteed at this point.

We weren't scared.  :)

The 100-Mile Wilderness (we all just called it the 100-miles) is the longest stretch of the Trail without a town or easy hitching option.  You're supposed to carry enough food to get you through the entire thing, but we all did a food-drop 30 miles in so we didn't have to break our backs with 10 days'-worth of food (which I couldn't have fit in my pack anyways).  The first day in the 100-miles was easy and exciting.  We met many day hikers who smiled and wished us luck, one section hiker who was turning around due his unpreparedness, and a southbound flip-flopper we'd last seen in the Shenandoahs who said he hated, hated, the 100-mile wilderness.  BC and I gave a knowing look to each other across the Trail: he only hated the 100-miles because he hadn't been through the Whites yet.  The Whites were serious mountains- laughably difficult in some places.  Nothing was hard, as far as we'd seen, after you pass through the Whites.  We wished him sincere luck and said a final goodbye.

We took it a little too easy for those first couple days in the 100-miles- we'd packed too much food and so weren't in a rush due to a shortage of supplies, and plus we knew that we had it in the bag, we would finish our hikes before Baxter Park closed on October 15th so we were really in no rush.  That is, until the rains started.  A morning of fog turned into drizzle by noon, which was a soft downpour by 3pm.  By 4pm I still had about 6 miles to go to the nearest shelter, and was pressed to get there before dark as to avoid hypothermia and the dangers of night-hiking in bad weather.  Velvet was maybe a mile ahead of me, BC perhaps hours behind me, and so I walked alone.  It was such a gorgeous stretch of trail, and I could even admire it as the rain constantly hit my head and my feet soaked up every drop of every puddle through the mesh tennis shoes I wore.  I began to panic, however, as the evening grew ever-colder and I had still many miles to go.  My mind began to wander, my toes lost sensation, I couldn't move my fingers independently of one another, but most alarmingly was that it took my eyes many seconds to adjust focus from near to far.  That had never happened to me.  And so I walked as quickly as my numb little stumps of feet would carry me, feeling the whole 30 pounds of pack on my wet body, fearing I had the onset of hypothermia but knowing there was nothing I could do but keep walking.  Geez!  How many times, I wonder, on the Trail did I tell myself my only option was to keep walking!?  Just as light was fading and the night was growing intolerably colder, I passed over a stream and heard the unmistakable noise of a human ahead in the woods.  A person.  I must be close to the shelter!  I called out Velvet's name.  No response.  I called it out again and waited... but only the solid silence of a cold forest pressed against my ears.  So, great, now I had begun hallucinating, I thought.  And for the second time on the Trail (the first being in NY during the heat wave) I honestly thought I might die.  I couldn't move my fingers, which were gripped ever tightly on the trekking poles, I couldn't focus my eyes, I was soaking wet in every layer of clothing, and now it was darkness and I'd begun hallucinating.  A few steps further, and a few more.... and I saw a sign.  For a shelter!  I'd made it to the shelter, and if you've ever been a hiker on a trail in need of shelter, you'll agree that there are few things in life which inspire more joy.  Velvet was indeed there, and we threw out our gear, changed clothes, and crawled into our sleeping bags.  I was still shivering an hour later when Bumblebee and Biscuit showed up.  It was 9:30 before we saw the light of BC's headlamp bobbing up to the lean-to... we'd long since given him up for having set up his tent in the woods.  I was relieved- it was my nature on the Trail to worry about the safety of  BC whenever he was away from me.  I slept soundly that night knowing we were all okay.

My third and final pair of shoes: nothing more than laced mesh
strapped to a rubber sole.  My feet were wet for days on end.

So the rain and cold went on like this for days.  It was hard to enjoy the relative ease and apparent beauty of the 100-miles when you're cutting your days short and scurrying through the woods just to escape the inescapable.  I hadn't wanted to text my family to tell them where I was because not only was I going slower than I wanted, but I also wanted to surprise them on my summit day.  So, at a place called White House Landing (a small outpost in the 100-miles offering hot food and bunks only accessible by boat) we stopped to once again evade a rainy, cold night.  It was here that I texted my dad that I was still in the 100-miles but doing okay.  I didn't tell him, but we were maybe three or four days from Katahdin at this point.  The forecast called for clearing skies and a final warm push of air.  It looked like we were going to have a beautiful week in which to finish our hike.....

Even through the rain, autumn was exquisite.