Date: 2007-09-19
From: Wadleigh Stream Lean-to

To: Hurd Brook Lean-to
Miles today: 19.6
Weather: clear sky

Today offered many spectacular views of Katahdin, each a bit closer and more invigorating than the last. Bam, I look to my left and there it is again. Geez, there in the near distance is why we set out on this journey over six months ago. Wow, I can¢t believe we are going to be there in a few days. I would have taken a boatload of pictures of the revered peak, portraying it in all its glory from every vantage point possible. These were sights I wanted to remember forever, not only etched in the recesses of my mind, which they surely will be, but also printed out on high quality, glossy paper to display in a tangible album for all the world to see. At this point, I have worked hard for the accompanying bragging rights.Too bad my camera was dropped off a cliff today and no longer works, not by yours truly, but by the hands of my former best hiking pals Larry and Brue. Erase all those nice things I wrote about them a few days back. Today, it took every bit of my fiber not to strangle the living daylights out of them.I have to give them credit for taking some nice shots of me staring off at Katahdin in the distance, perched on a rocky outcropping, the sky clear and blue, the esteemed peak beckoning hikers from more than 30 miles away. While a rocky outcropping sets a fantastic scene for a photograph, it is likely, and I now know this through experience, not the best place to allow friends to look at all the pictures you have taken of your journey over the past six months, one of the benefits of digital technology, the entire trip there at your fingertips. Until the viewer looses his grip.My entire journey flashed, in slow motion, before my very eyes, as I saw my camera and all the memories it held therein, bounce off the rocky outcropping and land about 100 feet below. No, that didn¢t just happen. This cannot be real. There is no way that my camera was just dropped off a cliff three days before summitting. I looked at Larry and Brue. ¢Oops¢¦¢I wanted to kill them. I wanted to push them off that same cliff. I wanted to cry. All my pictures, gone. All my tangible evidence, gone. All my thoughts of the wonderful hiking buddies who had become my closest friends in the whole wide world, gone.Suddenly we hear a voice calling to us from down below, Shanty on the trail that skirted around and now passed under the rocky outcropping. ¢Hey Shanty, do you see a camera down there?¢ ¢Hell, you won¢t find a thing down here in this Mahoosuc Notch wannabe terrain.¢ ¢Please, look, and don¢t stop until you find my camera.¢ ¢What¢s it look like?¢ ¢A camera, dumbass.¢¢Is it a silver Canon Powershot A560?¢¢Why, are there other options?¢Although the camera no longer works, another benefit of digital technology is that the memory card, and all its memories, was protected from the deadly fall. I guess that is what matters. Cameras are objects and can be replaced. Memories remain forever. So too do the friendships solidified along the trail. Accidents happen, but these human encounters were meant to be, during a journey of heart and soul that can¢t be undermined when something goes wrong. And I still have the pictures to prove it.miles remaining 18.6