Date: 2005-09-02
From: Katahdin Stream Campground

To: KATAHDIN !!
Miles today: 5.2
Weather: scattered clouds

Yesterday was my birthday. As a gift, one day late, I summitted Katahdin today. I celebrated. Let's go back to last night. At 8:00 pm, to my great annoyance, Toby came by to the Birches to collect his $9.00 for me staying there. In the process, I found out that 2 hikers had started up the Trail at 6:30 yesterday morning in the rain, before he was able to catch them or put up a sign that no one was allowed to go up the mountain. As of 8:00 pm, they still had not come down. They are probably in trouble up there. Since I was the only person in the park, and being a through hiker, I was most likely going to be the first to encounter them in the morning. He said if I did run into them, and they were in big trouble, he wanted me to come back down again from the point they were at and report to him so he could get Search and Rescue up to them. That kind of threw me for a loop, because now, not only was I responsible for finishing my hike, I was now also responsible for helping someone out in a situation that could prove detrimental to my goals. I understood what he wanted from me and in response to that, I told him I would be getting up VERY early and hiking up. I think he understood what I meant. What he told me was, if I do not see him in the morning, to look for the red car. The people's last name was Scaggs. He said he would be seeing me early back down the hill if I ran into them. So, he understood that I was going to be going up the mountain without his OK. This morning, I got up at 4:30. It was still fully dark, I turned on my flashlight and packed up. I got ready to summit.I dropped my pack off at 5:00 am on the porch at the ranger's station. I took my day pack and headed up to the woods to begin the hike up. Humpty Dumpty, his real name is Hank, was in the very last shelter, # 10, before the Trail head. He stopped me as I was going up and offered me a drink and some grapes. I sat there and talked to him for a few minutes. It was very fortunate that I had run into him. He is an awesome person. He was really here to see Gravity and DangerPee summit, but he was a Trail Angel in every sense of the word. He had been following Gravity and DangerPee through their journals since 2001 and had a chance encounter with them at an airport in Boston of all places, because they are from Colorado. He actually hiked with them this year for a bit at the beginning of the Trail before he got hurt and had to get off. He travelled several hundred miles last night to be here when they summitted and to congratulate them. I can't express what he has done for me at this point. I got to the Trail head, signed in and registered at 5:30 am, the first person going up the hill. I started a very leisurely walk uphill. I expected the walk up to the summit of Katahdin to be the hardest hike of my life, surely the hardest of the Appalachian Trail. I started at a very casual, leisurely pace, one designed of course to make sure that I saved my energy. I was very surprised that it really was not a hard hike. There was a section, somewhere in the middle, for about a mile, at about 4,000 feet, where you hit alot of rocks, it's a rock scramble where you have to have both hands to get up. You have to think about where your feet and hands are going and try to avoid falling. They have metal bars embedded in the rocks to help you get up. Nothing I hadn't seen before. The degree of difficulty from 1-5 on the Trail, I would say, was a high 3 maybe a 4. In my mind, it was going to be the most difficult hike of my life and it wasn't. It was a pleasure.There was water running down the Trail in a couple of places. At 2,100 feet elevation, I hit water running down the Trail. At 2,500 feet I hit water again. Then it stopped and I hit more rock scrambles. It was very similar to Palmerton, Pa. but with bigger rocks, harder handholds, and more scrambling.You are at tree line at that point. The clouds kept blowing over, turning from a perfectly clear day, to being in a dead fog where you could hardly see your hand in front of you. That changed from second to second and minute to minute.I was pretty sure that I got up early, hiked early and that I was going to be the first one on the mountain, but that was not the case. Roz and Ten Bears caught up to me at about 4,000 feet. I had my radio on full blast and I happened to turn around to catch sight of them coming up to me, practically running. They were on a serious tear. They had gotten started about a half hour after me and were running up the hill. They were full of adrenaline, full of excitement to be finished with the hike. Two days ago, they were going to run 30 miles to get it over with because they had had enough of the Trail. Today it was a different story. They passed me at the rock scramble. I tried to stay with them for a while, but then I said, "What's the point? I don't have to be the first one." They went ahead and passed me up. I stopped a couple of times to smoke a cigar and to put more clothes on because it started getting cold pretty rapidly. After the rock scramble, you go through the Tablelands of Katahdin, a really cool section. It seems like it's almost flat, but you actually climb about 700 feet in a couple of miles. It's just rocks, big rocks. Thoreau Spring, which is usually just a big, cicular mud puddle at the top, was running like a river. The actual Trail itself was a creek. It was interesting because, on Katahdin, you are very strictly asked to stay on the Trail. If you step 2 feet off the Trail you step on a plant that has been alive for 2,000 years. It's a very special mountain. All the vegitation up there is extremely hearty and long lived. The life span of a fern on the side of a rock or, the little plants that look like blueberries, have been alive since the time of Christ. So, it's really a sin to walk on them and you make every attempt to stay on the Trail. Anyway, Tablelands is a really cool place, high desert, it's really hard to explain it. If you're walking along, and the sky is clear like it was today, you can look over the side and see clouds passing you hundreds of feet below. When the clouds pass, thousands of feet below are lakes and rivers. Off in the distance, 100 miles away, you can see ranges of mountains, and beyond that, even more that are semi-hidden in the mist. Like I said before, everything has a reason, and there was a reason I was delayed for 2 days. I was meant to summit on September 2, 2005. It was one of the clearest days of the year and the views were boyond belief.I got up to the summit at 8:20, probably 5 minutes after Roz and TenBears. I saw them climbing up to the sign as I was on the Tablelands. I was close enough to see them. Within a few minutes, there were 3 of us up there. We were whooping and hollering, screaming and high fiving, throwing our hands up. We took pictures of each other around the sign. Within 15-20 minutes after that, Matt and Trip came up behind us. They were also hauling ass. They are not known to be fast hikers, but man, did they haul ass up to the summit. So, there were 5 of us, all through hikers, for about 45 minutes, just sitting there together. We opened our beers and our teas, took pictures, exchanged e-mail addresses, and just hung out. It was pretty special. To be up that early, to be on the summit, to be all through hikers. By 9:15, that was gone also. People, alot of them, started showing up, alot of section hikers and day hikers. Within a short time, the 5 of us turned into almost 20. Between that, and the fact that the wind was blowing through there at about 40 miles an hour, my thermometer read 50 degrees, and my hands were now numb, at 9:30, I decided to start heading back down. I said goodbye to everybody and started downhill. I got downhill and there was Humpty Dumpty at the bottom. I walked over and talked to him. He invited me over for a beer. He once again offered me a ride to Bangor. The best I was hoping for was a ride into Millinocket, then a bus to Medway, then another bus to Bangor, then a ride after spending a day or 2 there. But he offered me a ride all the way to Bangor as soon as we saw Gravity and DangerPee.We sat there, I drank my beer, Roz showed up about 10 minutes after I came down, then Ten Bears did. We sat around together. Swifty showed up to pick up Roz. Swifty got off the Trail last week, he got Strep throat. They all live in Maine, so they are a tight group.         I asked Humpty if he would mind giving Ten Bears a ride to Bangor, or close to it, Exit 199. He said OK.We hung around and waited for Gravity and DangerPee to show up. They were hiking from Abol Bridge to Katahdin Stream and summitting tomorrow. They were going into town first to meet their parents. They finally showed up and you could tell that Humpty was very excited to see them. He gave them big hugs.We got into Humpty's car. It was Humpty, Ten Bears, Gravity, DangerPee and I. Gravity and DangerPee got off in Millinocket. Ten Bears got driven to within 10 miles of Bangor, he got off on the highway and started hiking north toward a cabin that he said his parents were building. He was expecting his friends to come by the highway and pick him up.Humpty Dumpty took me all the way into Bangor. First, he took me to the Salvation Army so I could get a pair of jeans to go home in. He took me to another store to buy a duffle bag, which I couldn't find, I ended up buying a suitcase for $45 to stuff my pack into. Then he took me to the bus station to buy a ticket, and find reservations and schedules. He also took me to the EconoLodge in Bangor.All I can say is that this man is truly a Trail Angel. He did so much for me in a few short hours that would have taken me days to do. I will be eternally grateful to him. I expect that someday, I will find a way to pay him back, as I'd like to do for so many other people on the Trail.   I got into the EconoLodge. I did my laundry, did some shopping at the gas station, and I went to the Ground Round down the street that's connected with one of the hotels. I had a rib eye steak and a Long Island Iced Tea.I ran into some gal there that was very talkative. Her name was Monique. She was born in Canada but lives in Savannah, Georgia. She insisted that I go with her to some club. I tried that for a while, but by that time, I was on 'Sensory Overload.' I couldn't handle the club. There were just too many people, too loud. I ended up going back and going to bed. At some point, to end this journal, I will add some things about my emotions and insights I have had along my journey.That's it for now.