Date: 2012-10-15
To: Our Trail Journal Entry #290
Miles today: 0.0

¢Baxter Park Rangers and Staff Want to Thank Our SummerCampers and Visitors for a Great Season!!We Hope To See You Next Summer!!¢-Baxter State Park website, October 15, 2012With the closing of the campgrounds and campsites at the foot of Mighty Katahdin, the 2012 northbound thru hiker season officially comes to an end today. As such, this date has been looming large on our horizon since well before the start of the year. It has always been the ¢drop dead date.¢ When we started, we had six months and four days to complete our task. Could we do it by then? Could we do it at all? Well, here it is, the 15th, and we could and we did, and it has been the adventure of a lifetime (and, when we checked weather conditions in Millinocket yesterday, and saw 33° and light snow, wow, did we feel extremely fortunate not to be still pressing toward a shaky finish at the last blow of the horn¢¦). For others, like our friend Seeks It (pictured here with us at Harpers Ferry), the hiking season is not over quite yet. But as he approaches the successful conclusion of his unique VA>GA, PA>ME, VA>PA "Yo-yo" by day hikes (4368.4 miles via daily out-and-back segments, never spending a night on the trail), for us, it is time to bring this journal to an end. Back in January, my #1 fear was posting a handful of entries and then have our attempt very publicly come to a ignominious end 2183 miles or so short of our goal. Now, 290 entries and 150,000 words later (conservative estimate), I guess I¢m not worried about that any more¢¦And as for my prediction that by its end, ¢all potential readers will have long since lost interest and fled this journal,¢ instead, you all have made it one of the five most popular 2012 blogs on this site. We¢ve said it before, but we¢ll say it again, this interest and support has been a big boost to us all along the way. On our tough days, it was always a very positive force to encourage us to keep going, and we were truly overwhelmed by the number of personal notes we received at the end. Thanks so much. You all are the best!As for help we received while out on the trail, it ranged from the large number of folks who took us into their homes for 32 (that¢s right, 32!) nights along the way, to those who gave us rides, to supportive local business folks, to folks who anonymously left a cold soda or a snack at just the right spot as trail magic. Talk about us owing a large debt of gratitude! We can¢t begin to thank everyone we need to. But we do want to thank two folks, chilly willy & just ray, for a very special gift of unexpected post-hike ¢Mail Magic,¢ which we received last week. We¢re posting a picture of this special cross-stitch embroidery as our final photograph to show what a treasure it is for us! We also must thank everyone who supported the ¢Trovert Challenge¢ for the Association of Nature Center Administrators. With donations still coming in, the Challenge has already raised over $8,000 for ANCA¢s work! Words fail us in saying how much we appreciate your help.On our guest book, Flash ¢02 made the following request: ¢I wonder if you would write an additional entry on how you or your view of your hike changed throughout your experience out there?¢ but at the end (like many other TJ thru hikers have noted), it is still hard wrapping our minds around what it is we¢ve just done. I guess I can say this, at the start, my reason for doing this hike was very Mallory-esque: ¢Because it¢s there.¢ Now at the end, I¢m reminded of another quote from George H. L. Mallory: ¢but, above all, for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the human soul.¢ For us, the AT was epic, and on top of Katahdin, we both felt very much alive¢¦[Somewhere in here I have to mention several amazing feats: Although we did eat oatmeal on occasion in towns, as well as some cold, burnt oatmeal in White Mountain huts, we never once fixed instant oatmeal on the trail. And we successfully went through the entire 2,184 miles without ever once tasting Ramen Noodles. Now those are two unique AT accomplishments¢¦]We hope to come back with a few future posts concerning:Christening our new hot tub with a bottle of Gatorade, if we ever get around to having one installed;N rejoining the membership of the "Seen 'em all"/ AT Thru Club, when he visits his 398th National Park unit; andReturning to a spot on the trail to provide some Trovert first anniversary trail magic in 2013.But for now, we won¢t say ¢Goodbye,¢ just ¢See you up the Trail!¢It¢s been a blast¢¦-N. Trovert