Date: 2004-06-16
From: Katahdin Stream Campground

To: The Big K
Miles today: 0.0

B.S. A.T. Lesson Number One*: When hiking above treeline, it is possible to be too well hydrated.4:30am in Baxter State Park and it was DAYLIGHT. Not just dawn, but so bright that it could have been noon. I'm not sure if it was my pre-trip excitement, an inadequate sleeping pad, or the inspiration of my new travelling companions... Laura and her father Richard Judy... but I was (mostly) wide awake and ready to go at almost 5am. Baxter's convenient system of loaning day packs to thru-hikers for tackling the summit had me sorting out my water bladder, first aid kit, warm clothes, and snack food for the hike ahead (well, at least today's part!), and Laura and I were on our way and signed in by 5:30 in the morning. Up, up, and away!Starting so early in the morning, I was ready for lunch by around 8:30, so Laura and I took a break, gloves on and jackets zipped against the wind, part way up the mountain. Funny thing about a mountain this big is that it's impossible to look up and tell how far you may still have to go. You can't see the top from the side, so I had no idea really where we might be, although my sense from my map was that we were somewhere shy of treeline, near something described as a "cave". Thinking that above treeline meant open, exposed faces, and seeing the amount of water drained from my Platypus bag, I took the opportunity to scramble into the brush for a quick break before continuing the hike.Good thinking, for sure... because not only did above treeline mean exposure, it mean sheer piles of boulders over which we had to climb, scramble, or otherwise heave ourselves on the way to the top. For those of you in VA, it reminded me of Old Rag, to an extreme. And this was only the beginning! Further up, the mountain opened up into a broad meadow, almost, of dry, fragile, crunchy mosses and other alpine plants. The wind was whipping around us the whole way up and across the mountain, I was panting from the climb, and that handy little bite valve on the Platypus bag was keeping me well hydrated. Here, in this alpine meadow, was where I really needed to step off the trail for a bit... but where?! Leave No Trace ethics, so far as I had read, never really address the dilemma of how to weigh the need to pee off the trail against the fragility of vegetation off the sides of the trail. Not to mention nothing AT ALL to step behind for as far as one could see. What to do?! To be discreet, what to do was to remember to ration myself on water for occasions like this in the future... so much so that I stopped drinking and didn't even need to visit Thoreau's Spring (which is good, because somehow I managed to walk right past without seeing the sign). The rest of the trip to the top was fairly uneventful, if you can call fantastic views of mysteriously zebra-striped mountains, energetic winds, thrilling vistas, and the excitement of seeing THE SIGN at all uneventful. Met fantastic people at the top, too... including a couple celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary by completing a climb they had attempted, unsuccessfully due to weather, on their honeymoon. Magical. All in all, a fantastic introduction to what I hope will prove to be an equally inspiring hike.*officially "Bean Sprout's Appalachian Trail Lesson", although reader disgression may choose a more appropriate translation if necessary.