Date: 2007-09-04
From: Rainbow Spring Campsite

To: Katahdin Stream Campground
Miles today: 21.1
Weather: broken clouds

(Willie) Wow, can you believe that today is the 5 month anniversary of the day that we started heading north from Springer Mountain down in Georgia. Even after doing it, it¢s hard to comprehend walking for 5 straight months, passing through 14 states, going over countless mountains, putting up with all kinds of weather, not knowing exactly where we¢ll be in a week or when the next shower will come, and sometimes dragging ourselves over the 2,147.7 miles we¢ve walked to get to were we are today. Despite how awesome that sounds, when our alarm went off before the sun came up, neither one of us sat around reminiscing how far we had come. Instead are eyes were glued forward to the finish line that was only 26.3 miles a head of us.We started picking our way around Rainbow Lake just a hair after sunrise. It was another cool and windy morning, but we were hiking under clear blue skies, so once we gave the sun a chance, things warmed up pretty quickly. The first 2.5 miles were along the shore of the lake so we kept our eyes peeled for some moose sightings. The moose must have heard us coming, because once again we came up empty. Good thing Mt. Katahdin isn¢t as elusive as the moose. Before long we were standing on top of the Rainbow Ledges looking at the summit of the big K. It was hard to believe that tomorrow we¢ll be standing 4000¢ higher at the top of Maine looking back down at the 100 mile wilderness.After polishing off most of the rest of our snacks we continued our drive forward. Before we knew it we had covered another 6 miles and popped out on to Golden Road. It¢s been 5 days and 4 hours since we left Monson, but we finally hit the next paved road. This road thankfully took us past some really nice people who gave us soda and let us use their phone on its way to the Abol Bridge. We took a bunch of pictures on the bridge before we moved on to the camp store on the other side. Up until then, things had been going great, heck we were even ahead of schedule! All of that came to a crashing halt when we saw the closed sign on the store. Thankfully the store was due to reopen at 1:00 and it was about 10 of. Seeing how we had eaten pretty much all of our food, we had no choice to wait. Besides it was only 10 minutes, we could handle that right? Sure we could¢ve, but 1:00 came and went. As did 1:15, 1:30, and 1:45! The lady didn¢t come back to open the store back up until close to 2:00.I knew that being ahead of schedule was too good to be true. By the time we bought food for the next day and a half and had lunch it was about 2:30. That meant that we had to cover the next 10 miles in about 4 hours to beat our parents and the dark to the Katahdin Streams campground. The race was on! I¢m not sure if it was the prospect of almost being done with the trail, of seeing our parents, or of seeing the food that they said they were bring for dinner, but our feet managed to move faster then they have in a while. The only major road block was at the Nesowadnehunk Stream, where the footbridge had been washed away. The water was pretty high and flowing fast so we opted to take the sketchy log with two support ropes instead. That probably wasn¢t the best idea, because it wasn¢t that safe and it didn¢t really save us any time, but hey, we managed to stay dry. We pulled ourselves into the campground at about 6:40 just as our parents were rolling into the parking lot. We set up camp in site 21 (the only one with a view of Katahdin) while our dads made a fire and our moms sorted out the bags of subs that they brought us for dinner. What a fest for our last night on the trail. To bad we couldn¢t find any other hikers to share it with. I can¢t say enough about how much our parents have helped us out over the past 5 months. Each set was there whenever we needed them. Could we have finished without their help? Probably, but there is no question however, that it wouldn¢t have been as enjoyable and it would have been much more difficult emotionally, physically, and logistically without them. I am so glad that they were all able to be with us at the end of our journey. Their company (and their food) was more then I could have wished for on our last night on the AT. It was little tempting to go back to the hotel with them for the night, but we both decided it would be more fitting to end the trip in a tent instead. So we said good bye, enjoyed the fire a bit longer, and tried to see if we could get some sleep before the big day.