Date: 2019-08-04
To: Katahdin
Miles today: 5.2
Weather: few clouds

Up at the usual time before 5:30. Dreamer's already gone. UNICEF and I head off at 6 with full packs. Unlike last time I can't leave anything at the ranger station since we intend to descend the other side of Katahdin. I forgot to dump trash yesterday, so I get to carry up a huge bag of junk as well.It's cool and deserted as we climb the Hunt trail. We pass the San Francisco couple, Spider and Energizer Turtle, then Adventure Boy, a sixty-year-old retired environmental engineer from Florida who hiked from New York. The bridge at Katahdin Stream is out but the crossing is easy enough to rock hop. Still, there's a long re-route for the less intrepid hikers.No other hikers are out this early. Dayhikers can't even drive into the park until six. As we reach treeline and the trail turns to huge boulders and opens up to a panoramic view, Fargo and Hobbit catch us. Both are slackpacking, having left most of their stuff at the ranger station. The climb is rigorous and fantastic, as great as I remember. UNICEF smacks his head on a rock at one point. "Coasting in on fumes!" he calls. We reach the Tableland before I expect, where Dreamer is waiting. The last mile passes slowly over Alpine tundra as UNICEF and I continue bantering. The Kieve camp boys pass us going back down. They've finished their three-week trek! Finally the peak is in sight. T, the Georgia flip-flopper, is already coming down. I make way for UNICEF to reach the peak first, he's earned it. Photos galore follow. I pose slumped over the sign, seated Namaste yoga-style on top, using my poles as a bow and arrow, and more silliness. The others follow suit.Dreamer, Fargo, Hobbit, Adventure Boy, Silent Bob, Fresh Prints, and Two Blade all join us eventually. We celebrate and congratulate each other and get a group photo. After an hour we go our separate ways to catch rides, retrieve bags, or, in our case, add a little extra adventure.UNICEF and I hike over the Knife Edge, a ridge of jumbled rocks less than ten yards wide in most places and sometimes as narrow as a few feet. It winds up and down over East Peak and over to Pamola Peak, with a very steep notch called the Chimney near the end. We stop to let some dayhikers pass as they struggle to get down a dicey section. UNICEF suggests popcorn. It takes us over an hour and a half to go 1.1 miles. Tortuously slow, but fun!The descent off the ridge to Roaring Brook Campground and our exit is simply tortuous. The Helen Taylor trail, apparently named after Percival Baxter's least favorite wife, is a monstrously steep trail that almost never relents from the rocky and bouldery descent. Far better to climb this beast than descend it. The 3.2 miles seem to go on forever. Two and a half hours for that distance seems like forever at least.Down at the campground at last around 2:30 we struggle to find any hikers returning to their cars who can drive us to Millinocket. Eventually elderly siblings Shirley and Keith agree to take us out. They are initially suspicious of UNICEF'S story, saying he looks too clean to be a thruhiker! Keith is from Hawaii, and back in Maine due to their father's death. He hiked much of the Katahdin area and other parts of Maine and New Hampshire decades ago and is well-versed in hiker lingo like LASH. Our enjoyable conversation ends when Shirley kindly drops us at the Appalachian Trail Lodge in Millinocket.We both get bunks and I buy into the shuttle to Monson tomorrow morning. OleMan is still presiding there with the same gleam in his eye. He even recognizes me from two years ago! Quite the host.We grab dinner at the Scootic Inn with Adventure Boy and T, then ice cream down the street. I'm stuffed from eating so much at once. UNICEF finds Fireball at the hostel, a flip-flopper he'd been hiking with for awhile. There are a smattering of other flip-floppers, southbounders, and section hikers including at least one former thruhiker from 2017 named Cowboy. There is a father and son pair staying for a few days. The father messed up his knee fourteen miles into the Wilderness and hiked out in great pain.It's luxurious to lie on a mattress after six nights in the woods. This has been my longest stretch of hiking between towns, my longest stretch between showers, between town food of any kind, and without cell service. I think I held up pretty well, but good company helped a lot. I still prefer the El Camino / English / Swiss hiking method of inn-to-inn, but the occasional stretch lost in the wilderness helps calm the soul.