Dream. Struggle. Victory? I hope!

Update: I’m back on the trail as of Sunday, 7/10.

The coveted picture at the sign officially marking Baxter Peak.

Day 1

Katahdin. Wow.

If all I did was climb that mountain and go home it still would have been a worthwhile accomplishment. It’s likely the hardest thing I’ve ever done, when you combine the physical and mental aspects. The only other event that comes close was my first Tough Mudder,  a 10 mile run at a ski resort, with obstacles, in November, at 6:30am in 34 degree weather.

The few pictures that I took of the terrain at Katahdin don’t even come close to showing you just how big the mountain is and feels. When you’re close enough to see people all around the peak, they look like ants scurrying around on a large pile of dirt. It’s a phenomenal example of Mother Nature showing us just how small and insignificant we are, and how harsh, raw, and unrelenting She can be. I’d read a blog post from a lady who made the climb earlier this year and she wrote of feeling like it was so steep that you could fall off the side of the mountain and land on the tree tops below you. I hoped this was just her perception and not how it really was. Kristin and I both find heights to be challenging. I don’t mind being on tall things but I’m not the guy that walks to the edge of a skyscraper. My whole body tightens up when exposed to those kinds of drop offs.

The first mile and a half up Katahdin is an easy, steady climb. Then you get a mile of very steep trail and this brings you to the tree line. As soon as you get above the tree line you enter a mile long boulder field on one of the mountain’s ridges where it’s all scrambling, using your hands and feet. At the top of the ridge you hit the tablelands, an area that reminds me of the highlands of New Zealand. I could have been looking at a landscape from Lord of the Rings, with Orcs charging across the open ground. A mile and a half in the tablelands brings you to Baxter Peak, the summit of Katahdin. If you happen to be lucky enough to summit on a windy day you feel the full force of the wind as soon as you get above the tree line and it only gets worse as you near the peak.

The tablelands.

Kristin and I made it to Baxter Peak but it was not without a struggle. For one, it was very windy. Above the tree line we experienced sustained winds of 25-30 mph and as we climbed over some of the steepest, most dangerous sections of the boulder field gusts of 40-45 mph were constant. The wind was strong enough to push you off balance, forcing you to take a step you weren’t planning to. Later, I learned from another hiker that just four days after we summited the conditions above the tree line included hail and 60 mph wind gusts.

My shorts look like an inflatable about to pop in the high winds.

There are three places on Katahdin where metal hand- or foot-holds have been cemented into boulders because they are so large it would be extremely difficult, or impossible, for an inexperienced climber to get past that particular section. There was more than one place where a trip or uncontrolled fall would either mean serious injury or death. The first such “bar-assisted” location almost did us in, me in particular. We had just cleared the tree line and the wind was pounding us mercilessly. To move forward you had to walk out onto a narrow ledge (3 feet-ish) and hoist yourself up over a rock that is taller than I am using a bar and a peg that had been installed. The narrow ledge was terrifying enough, but the notion that you could slip off the bar and fall off the ledge only compounded my fear. Plus, the rock was so tall you couldn’t see what was on the other side. Was it another narrow ledge just like this side? Would I hoist myself up only to peer into a deep crevice or a drop into the trees below me? I was frozen for a solid minute, sitting on that ledge filled with terror, keeping a white knuckle grip on Kristin’s hand. She was equally scared of going over. I knew that if I couldn’t do this that there would be no thru-hike. You have to climb Katahdin to finish the Appalachian Trail; 99.76% is not acceptable.

I said I was going to face my fears on this journey, didn’t I?

Two things got me over that bar. First, a group of three young men passed us and we saw them go over. I could tell from their body positioning once they went over that there was no drop off on the other side.The second was the question, “What if this the worst part?” What was so scary was the idea that we were just beginning the boulder field and if we were encountering this first thing, what else lay ahead of us? But what if I turned around and this really was the worst of it? I could absolutely muster the courage to climb over that rock. I just couldn’t guarantee that I would have the courage to keep going if there were even more scary climbs ahead.

The closest trees are at least 100 feet below you!

It turns out that that bar was indeed the worst spot, and by the time we reached the same rung on the way back down we had spent hours adjusting to the elevated view that the boulder field surrounded you with. It wasn’t nearly as scary anymore. I felt vindicated. I had faced my fear and taken that one step. In the end it turned out to be the biggest one and everything would be okay.

As we made our way through the boulder field we’d occasionally find a well positioned rock that would block out most of the wind, allowing us to take sporadic breaks. The views from the tablelands were absolutely breathtaking. The wind and a sunny day meant a 360 degree view. There must have been hundreds of ponds and lakes below us on the valley floor. There was as much water as there was land. It was easy to see why black flies and mosquitoes are so abundant in Maine.  I’d never climbed a mountain of this caliber before, not even close, and it was scary, but thrilling.

Almost there! You can see people standing around the sign at the peak.

We made our way down the mountain a little faster than our ascent but about 2 miles from the campground I twisted my right ankle pretty good. For a split second I was in shock because an ankle sprain would mean the end of my hike. As the initial pain of the injury wore off it became apparent that it wasn’t sprained, and as long as I didn’t hurt it further I would be fine. My legs were wrecked by the time we reached our campsite. It might have hurt less to just fall over rather than actively try to sit down. We ate some dinner and quickly turned in for the night.

Day 2

I woke up feeling pretty good. I thought I might wake up and not half be able to walk but beyond some residual soreness in my quads you wouldn’t have known I’d climbed Katahdin the day before. We had a contingency plan in place to stay another day if I was too sore to start hiking south but after an hour I felt confident in my abilities. I said goodbye to everyone and started walking south about 9:30 am. As I reached the edge of Baxter State Park (BSP) I came to the Abol Bridge store, the first place a Sounthbound (SOBO) hiker can buy restaurant food. I didn’t need any since I was carrying 16 pounds of food for the 100 mile wilderness but I ran into Josh (trail name: Durham), whom I’d met the day before near the top of Katahdin. He was there picking up his dog, Ridge. Ridge was going to be hiking the AT with Josh, but BSP doesn’t allow pets so a SOBO hiker has to arrange to get his dog after he’s left the Park. I also met Endless, a Northbound (NOBO) thru-hiker who had done the Pacific Crest Trail last summer. Endless was going to summit Katahdin tomorrow, and he was completing the AT in 80 days. That’s an absolutely insane speed, averaging over 27 miles a day!

As I put my pack back on to leave the Abol Bridge store, Durham (Josh) was packing up too so we started walking south together. We hiked the remaining 3+ miles of the day and stayed in our first shelter that night. We met one NOBO thru-hiker, and two SOBO thru-hikers at the lean-to. Two others were there completing just the Maine portion of the AT. On my very first night, I had the opportunity to experience “shelter mice” first hand when I forgot to remove a bag of M&M’s from my pack. Something had drawn the mice out because we could hear them rustling around the shelter but I was certain I had put all my food in my bear bag, which was now hanging from a tree limb a hundred feet away. Well let me tell you, you make fast friends with everyone in the shelter when you bolt upright at 2:00 am, throwing your quilt off of you while yelling “F#@K! F#@K!” at the top of your lungs and clawing at your leg because a mouse is crawling up your thigh under your shorts. Yeah, I’m just winning all the “cool experiences” awards these days. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well after that, and it wasn’t until later, when I was still hearing mice scurrying around, that I bothered to shine a light on my pack only to find a mouse hanging upside down on it nibbling on an M&M that he had obtained by chewing through my pack to get. Awesome.

Day 3

Durham and I left the shelter together this morning, wanting to go at least the same number of miles, 13, as we had the previous day. If we wanted to stay at a shelter our choices were 11 miles, or 19 miles. We reached the first lean-to at 2:00 pm, and my legs were starting to hurt. We took an hour break and figured we’d decide what to do after that, either to go a couple more miles or press on to the next shelter. A beautiful stream ran right in front of this lean-to, literally 30 feet from it. We soaked our feet, ate, and rested.

Durham and Ridge at Rainbow Stream lean-to.

By 3:00 pm we were feeling pretty good so we decided to hike the 8 miles to the next shelter. HUGE mistake. The last of those 8 miles also included a pretty strenuous climb. Durham was reaching exhaustion toward the end, so our pace slowed. By the time we reached the lean-to it was practically dark, and I was pissed. My legs hurt so bad it might have been worse than the climb up Katahdin. This also meant doing all my evening tasks in the dark. I like to fill my collapsible bucket with water and rinse my body off at night. It refreshes me, makes me feel better, and helps my pores breathe better so I don’t sweat my tent into a pool over night. I’ve mentioned I’m a furnace at night, right? I generate some serious BTUs of body heat; always have. Without the proper measures I get overheated pretty quickly.

I also had to hang a bear bag. When we left Maryland I didn’t plan to hang a bear bag at all; I was going to sleep with my food. Numerous veteran hikers have said they’ve never had a problem with this in years and years of hiking (while using common sense. eg. Don’t sleep with your food in the Smokey Mountains*), and no bear hang meant less weight. However, all the other hikers at shelters were hanging bear bags, and they didn’t particularly want to be near anyone sleeping with their food, so I felt pressured to hang my food as well. Unfortunately, I somehow thought a piece of nylon string would be acceptable to hang my food. Also a huge mistake! By the second night of bear bag hanging the braids were beginning to come undone and the threads were catching on EVERYTHING, exacerbating the braid problem. It was now full dark out so I had to use my headlamp to wander through the forest looking for an acceptable branch to hang a bag on. My headlamp was attracting major bugs so I had to break out my floppy hat and bug net just to keep my sanity. In my anger I misplaced the sack for my bug net. Small rocks were sparse in this area, and you needed weight to get your string over the tree branch. I finally found one and my first attempt to hang the string resulted in losing the rock. It’s dark remember? I didn’t see where the rock went so it’s history. Try number two, same result. Then I lost an s-beener on the forest floor somewhere. Now I’m steaming, escalating the situation to the point where I want to be anywhere but here. I end up tangling the nylon cord so badly that I simply can’t get it untangled in my state of rage. I say screw it and decide to sleep with my food. I barely get any sleep that night because everyone had gotten to me with their bear bag hanging and I’m now paranoid I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to something munching on my leg. I’m also in an incredible amount of pain, where no sleeping position is comfortable, and pain killers aren’t even putting a dent in it. Worst of all, I think Durham can tell I’m pissed and I get the vibe that he thinks I might be pissed at him. It’s not his fault though. I was the one who brought a crappy nylon string as a bear hang, and I knew pushing those last 8 miles was risky. It was a total bonehead move for Day 3 of a 100+ day journey and I only did it because I thought Durham wanted to go farther. I let someone else influence my plan, and it wrecked havoc on me. To borrow a golf term, I should have laid up short of the green, setting myself up for a solid next shot, instead of going for the long shot.

*Note: Bears in the Smokey Mountains have become particularly troublesome in recent years because so many people visit the national park that bears are losing their fear of people. Combine that with folks doing ignorant things like actually feeding the bears and you have a very bad, unnatural situation.

Day 4

Despite my terrible night’s sleep I’m chipper in the morning , just in case my vibe was right, so Durham knows that I wasn’t mad at him, only myself. I’ve enjoyed hiking with him so far and didn’t want to break up the pack just yet. We met Solar Wolf last night; he had stayed in the shelter as well. Solar Wolf is 69 years old, and he has run his own solar contracting company for the past 40 years, going all over the world to install systems for people in remote locations who are off the grid. Solar Wolf has ADHD and it shows. Boy, does he like to talk! I found it entertaining though because he seems to know a lot about a lot and decent conversation with someone who has knowledge in a broad range of categories is hard to come by these days. He reminds me of my Dad a little bit in that respect.

Solar Wolf was headed to White House Landing (WHL), a hostel in the middle of the 100 mile wilderness. It was only an 8 mile walk from our shelter and my knees were still screaming. Pain killers still weren’t doing a damn thing so I was all for a night in an actual bed. I think Durham was hurting too, from our high mileage day yesterday. Also, he had just realized that the battery in his Steri-pen (water purifying device) wasn’t going to make it to Monson, and that was going to be trouble for him. So Durham and I decided to join Solar Wolf at WHL that night, if they had room.

On the boat to White House Landing (WHL).

WHL is on the opposite side of a lake from where the trail is. In previous years you would blow an air horn from the dock on the trail side and they would come get you in a boat. But, the owners were getting older and trying to wind down some of their services so now the dock is farther away, not in line of sight from the camp, and you have to call ahead (or text) for them to come get you. The owner, Bill, told me that during the air horn days he and his wife would serve lunch to 900 hikers. Then there were still the overnight duties of prepping beds, laundry, etc. and they had a winter season with snowmobilers too.

Dinner at WHL was wonderful, a half pound burger, and for the first night on the trail I got more than 3-4 hours of sleep. Though, when I woke the next morning (day 5) my knees were still killing me. Not good.

Day 5

I decided to take a zero day. The trail had been mostly flat since Katahdin but that would come to an end in a day or two and I was in no condition to tackle a mountain. Unfortunately, Durham was going to keep on trucking so we said goodbye after breakfast. As I watched Bill motor Durham and Ridge back to the AT I hoped that I would see them again some day, on down the trail. Solar Wolf was staying at WHL another day and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Thankfully I brought my kindle so I started reading this book, “Ready Player One”, that my sister, Holly,  had told me about. I read pretty much the whole day and it turned out to be a great day for a zero. It rained. And it rained. ALL. DAMN. DAY. It would have been miserable hiking, and slow going. I hoped Durham and Ridge made out okay in the rain. I slept terribly my second night at WHL, possibly the least sleep of all my nights on the trail so far. I think I got two hours. My knees hurt terribly again. Tylenol and Ibuprofen still weren’t helping. Eventually I got up and read some more in the wee hours of the morning.

The lake view from White House Landing.

Day 6 (Friday, 7/8)

This morning I made the decision to go home (hopefully temporarily). I was in a tough spot. Every night I stayed at WHL was going to cost me about $50 in food and lodging. I could stay more days, hoping the pain would lessen but what if it didn’t, or took a week to do so? Hiking to the nearest shelter and waiting it out wasn’t an option because that would burn through my food supply and I was going to need what I had left to hike the remaining miles to Monson. Also, WHL is near the end of the flat part of the 100 mile wilderness (for a SOBO). Within two days I would be moving over steeper terrain and I had 6, maybe 7, more days of hiking before I would reach Monson. My knees still hurt, and I feared the possibility of getting two days into the mountains and finding the pain so debilitating that it created a serious problem for me. The hardest part was having no communication with anyone, and having no experience to guide my decision.

I asked Bill if he knew anyone who could shuttle me to Millinocket or Medway. It turns out he could, and he did, for a fee. Bill had me in Medway for the 9:30 am bus to Bangor. From there I took a Greyhound to Boston, New York, Baltimore, then Frederick. I arrived in Frederick this morning, exhausted from yet another night of only a couple hours sleep. I had hiked 45.7 miles of the AT in Maine, not including the 5.2 miles up Katahdin that don’t count (since the AT starts at the top only the decent counts for a thru-hike). Going by total distance my days looked like this. Day 1: 10.4 miles. Day 2: 13.4 miles. Day 3: 19.6 miles. Day 4: 7.5 miles. I would venture to guess that I’ve had little more than 20 hours of sleep in the last 4 days, with almost half of that coming in one night.

……

I’m sitting at home as I type this and there’s a new game plan now. As soon as I’m comfortable with how my knees feel I plan to leave again, heading north from Cascade, MD. That’s where I left off from my last preparation hike, so I’ve technically already walked those miles. A thru-hike, by definition, is completing the AT in a calendar year. It doesn’t have to be one completely unbroken event in one direction. For instance, all the early NOBOs this year had to skip 12 miles in the Shenandoahs because of the wildfire. They’ll have to go back and complete that section once they finish in Maine, but it’ll still be a thru-hike.  The AT in the southern half of Pennsylvania is fairly flat, certainly much flatter than Maine. Since I’ll be headed north, I’ll pass Durham and Solar Wolf as they head south. When I reach WHL I’ll flip back to Cascade and start walking south again. How cool would it be if we all end up in the same area when I flip back south to complete Virginia through Georgia? That would be a serendipity for sure. I can also take advantage of my home time by addressing my nylon string deficiency and changing a couple other small things that could be improved upon, based on my first few days of the thru-hike.

So already my hike doesn’t look like I thought it would. I’m technically not a Southbounder anymore, I’m a Flip-flopper. Yet, it’s still my plan to keep going.