Date: 2023-09-25
From: Birches

To: Katahdin
Miles today: 5.3

Mood: °We woke up early (5:30) to tear down camp for the last time. I was super excited to see my parents! Stogie, Moose Jaw, and I walked past the rangers station to the picnic tables right off trail. We waited 30 minutes for my parents arrive. And when I saw them, I was ecstatic!!! I was so flipping happy to see them!! They greeted me with a big box of munchkins, and boy was I excited! I smashed and handful of them right away! Then I offered some to a couple of other hikers. Apparently, there will be over 30 thru-hikers hiking to summit Katahdin today. That¢s amazing! We found out that numbers are low this year. Moose Jaw and I are hikers 909 and 910. My parents also brought me my day pack, so I wouldn¢t have to carry my entire big pack. I¢m happy about that!!After snapping some photos, we started our climb! 5.2 miles up, and then 5.2 miles back down! I chatted a lot with my mom and dad. We were catching up on a lot of things. We started off with a beautiful waterfall. Another hiker took our picture, so that was nice to have a family photo. There were a lot of rocky stairs in the beginning first two miles. Then, after that, it was bouldering and rock scrambling. My parents CRUSHED the rock scrambles! My mom was flying through the rocks like a spider monkey! It was such a blast! Once we made it above the tree line, we had some incredible views!! It was breathtaking, and my parents were so excited! Which, in turn, made me even more excited! I was like, ¢Isn¢t this just awesome!? Look how high up we are! Aren¢t the views great!?¢ I¢m so happy that they got a taste of trail and just how miraculous the mountains are. We eventually got to a point where we could see the summit sign off in the distance. We were all excited! My parents really crushed the hike going up. I was so proud of them!! It¢s a very strenuous hike, and I was asking a lot of them to hike it with me. They absolutely crushed it! Finally, we made it to the top and touched the sign. It was awesome! Of course, Stogie, Moose Jaw and I had a mini photo shoot. Clouds covered the peak of the mountain about an hour before we made it to the top, so we didn¢t have many views at the top. But I didn¢t care! We made it, and a cloudy mountain peak was just true to the AT. All five of us sat down and ate bologna sandwiches at the top with chips. We also had some apples. Then, it was getting really cold, so we took photos of my parents at the top along with photos of all four of us together. I was surprised I didn¢t cry at all. Maybe it because the hike didn¢t feel over since we had to hike back down the mountain, but I was just overjoyed! I was so happy that I could summit with my husband, my parents, and my friend, Stogie. What a great feat we just accomplished!!Temperatures started dropping that the top, so we decided to hike back down after about a 40 minute lunch. On our way down we ran into Firewalker, Captain Fantastic, and Captain Fantastic¢s daughter! We were over the moon to see them! I was so happy they got to meet my parents, as well! It was great to have one more final goodbye with them. We took one last photo of all of us together. I loved it!!My parents crushed the hike down. The large boulder scrambling sections were a cake walk for them!! They were basically sprinting along! It was a lot of fun to watch them. They loved the entire hike including the effort put into it and the views. I¢m so happy I could share this with them, and they were happy to be part of our journey! It was AWESOME!! I have to words to describe how happy and proud I am of ourselves and everyone else! I was worried about hiking this mountain, but it was actually super relaxing. I didn¢t breathe heavy nor break a sweat the entire time. It was the best hike to end this trail! I had time to enjoy every second of it today!My parents gave a ride to Stogie, since he was going back to the same hotel as us. We left the park and finally got phone service. We rarely had service since we left for the 100 mile wilderness, so we mostly used our Garmjn to send messages to my parents. Once I got service, so many messages arrived on my phone congratulating Moose Jaw and I on finishing the trail. Many people were following our live location via our Garmin. We arrived to Millinocket (where our hotel was) and all restaurants were closed. So, we celebrated the end of our hike at none other than McDonald¢s!! HAHA! It tasted pretty good, actually. We gave Stogie a hug as we walked to our respective hotel rooms. We showered and crawled into bed. Unfortunately, Moose Jaw¢s hiking bag was smelling up the room, so we threw it in a giant trash bag. That helped a lot!!I couldn¢t have asked for a better day and end to this thru-hike. We hiked over 2,200 miles including the approach trail and hike back down from the peak of Katahdin. I can¢t believe it, but I am so ABSOLUTELY HAPPY AND PROUD OF THIS MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT!!! Congrats to all of the AT 2023 Thru-hikers!!! °¤©Fun Fact: Even though we started trail on March 24th, the miles we completed that day didn¢t count. The trail officially starts on Springer Mountain. We didn¢t summit Springer until March 25th. It took us exactly 6 months to complete the entire trail.