Maine Part...Katahdin
The 100 Mile Wilderness had everyone freaked out a little bit. While most of us had done many four to five day stretches between towns we hadn't done it in quite awhile and generally avoided a full seven day stretch whenever possible. This meant carrying a really heavy food bag, which was made more unpleasant by the mountains that greeted hikers as they left Monson.
Other than the massive amounts of food I was carrying the 100 Mile Wilderness would be much like the rest of Maine, lakes, rivers and a bunch of tough climbs. While its promised to be a wilderness, it really did not feel much more wild than the rest of Maine, it simply lacked a major town to hitch into. Thankfully, to ease hikers into the "wilderness" there was a trail magic at a hunting camp fourteen miles north of Monson. The owner of the camp, Scout, hangs out at his cabin cooking burgers for all that pass by, this was a great treat for the first night out of Monson.
Leaving the trail magic it was only about another mile to camp, there was a small bubble of hikers at this point and we enjoyed a campfire realizing that the next morning the bubble would split up and we might not see each other again. From this point the trail entered a stretch of two days of hilly terrain with a fair amount of climbing. The first major landmark was Barren Ledges on the shoulder of the Barren Mountain offering stunning views of the surrounding area. The rest of the peaks would pass in somewhat of a blur as the trail rapidly marched through a series of bigger and bigger peaks culimnating in White Cap Mountain. If I'm to be honest, at this point I was pretty much done with the hiking part of this trip so these climbs were challenging and felt somewhat unnecessary.
After White Cap the trail enters a flat region dominated by lakes and rivers, at this point it was a nearly flat run to the base of Katahdin with only one or two minuscule peaks in between. The day after Whitecap I was able to hike a full twenty-two mile day in good time enjoying some of the flattest and smoothest trails I had seen in hundreds of miles. Both the miles and the smooth trail were a huge mental boost. But this wasn't the real highlight of the day, that was my first clear view of Katahdin. After months of imagining the finish line, suddenly there it was in real life just thirty trail miles away. The excitement from this carried me through the last three miles to camp with ease.
The final thirty miles to Abol Bridge passed pretty quickly, after one more long day I was set up to do several short days to finish out my hike. Just miles from Abol I had one of the strangest experiences of my hike, I had just taken off my headphones and heard a bleating noise which was quite out of place in the woods. After a brief moment of thinking I was losing my mind two goats with backpacks came around a corner joined by a southbound hiker. The goats were quite friendly and photogenic and the other hiker was happy to let me grab a few pictures.
Abol Bridge is a historic spot on the AT which is funny because its really just a bridge on a dirt logging road but the views of Katahdin are amazing. That night myself and three other hikers were given the prime campsite at the Abol Bridge Campground which provided us a full view of Katahdin. That night was spent enjoying beers and most of our small resupply from the camp store while staring at Katahdin. As it got dark, storms moved in providing a lightening show around the mountain before a big storm moved in and sent us scurrying to our tents.
The next day was an easy ten mile stroll to Katahdin Stream Campground where we would start the climb to Katahdin the next day. With only ten easy miles to go no one was in a rush and we stopped to enjoy every waterfall along the way. Once in camp we built a big fire to take the edge off a chilly night and tried to wrap our heads around being so close to the end.
The next morning was like any other, we woke up broke camp and got to hiking except we kept reminding each other we were climbing the last mountain. Its still hard to describe all the different emotions but on the way up it was mostly adrenaline. We flew through the first easy mile of trail and only slowed as the trail grew steeper and more challenging. As always there was a good long stretch of some pretty wild rock scrambling, made crazier by strong winds blowing us back into the mountain. Even if it wasn't the terminus and memorable in that sense, Katahdin was one of the most beautiful mountains we had the opportunity to climb. Once above treeline the views were endless, and the tablelands below the summit were otherworldly.
The climb to the summit flew by and before I knew it I was making the final push to the famous sign and the end of my hike. Once there on Baxter Peak I felt an amazing sense of relief knowing I finally had made it. Then as I had some time to lounge around the top of the peak the surreal feeling of being done really settled in. Even now two weeks after finishing, the full scope of what I accomplished is still hard to grasp. While at many points it was incredibly challenging I never saw quitting as an option. Instead, during tough times I focused on the next day or the next town rather than the whole trail. In this way the trail seems compartmentalized in my brain, rather than thinking of it as a whole I remember it more as a series unique phases and events. And thinking back on the trail, the worst times were never that bad. Even on a rough day I could always stop, look around, take a deep breath and be pretty happy to be where I was doing what I was doing. Overall, being on the trail was such a rewarding and positive experiance that allowed me to see a whole lot of new places and truly see people at their best.
