Date: 2008-09-04
From: The Birches Shelter, ME

To: Mt. Katahdin, ME
Miles today: 10.4
Weather: light rain

DAY 98.LAST NIGHT. I had a case of what another guy this morning called Christmas Eve-itis! This was our last night before heading home!COULD YOU YELL THAT AGAIN? Other people had their own ways of expressing their anxiety. One guy (who shall remain nameless) had hung his hammock between two trees right outside the lean-to I was in. Around 10:30pm, one of the guys in the shelter emitted a digestive sound (to put it delicately), to which the sleeping hammocker immediately responded, "no, no, No, NO, NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NOT ON TOP!" I thought to myself, "This is going to be a long, noisy night." When asked this morning, the hammocker revealed that he had a nightmare in which a bunch of thru-hikers jumped him and were beating him up to steal his money! I wondered later just how much money he really was carrying? I bet we could have taken him; especially with him all zipped up in that hammock....THE END. We were all on the trail before 7:00am this morning. Beautiful weather again! The trail started out easy enough, then got increasingly difficult. By the three-mile point, I was having to throw my trekking poles to rocks above me, and then haul myself up to the next boulder, at times just doing pull-ups on the rock above to get there; at other times, I had to use for handles and foot stirrups the steel rebar pounded into the rock above. Yikes!HOW APPROPRIATE. A cold wind blew from my left, sweeping clouds over the mountaintop above. The sun shone at times on my right side. What an appropriate capsule of much of our trek's weather: hot and cold. My left side was cold, and my right side was sweating! the top of the mountain was covered with rocks to pick a path through, making for slow go. THE TOP! And then I was there! Pictures. Smiles. Handshakes & high fives. Deep emotion expressed by some. I felt mostly relief. Plus a LOT of anxiety about having to clamber BACK DOWN the same trail with that bloomin' steep boulder field (the trail stops at the very TOP of the mountain - you either stay there and die, or hike back down). It turns out that the descent (like sitting in the doctor's office waiting for a shot) was not as bad as I had anticipated: a lot of throwing my poles to an area below, then sliding or crab-walking down steep rock faces.GOOD-BYES. At the ranger station, today's trail beginning/end, I got to say good-bye to Popeye & Lil MAK (I had gotten a day ahead of them with my two 20-milers). They have both promised/threatened to just show up one Sunday at my church in Sumter, SC! That would be a hoot - they could give THEIR versions of my tales, which surely would be almost identical to mine! Besides, I have already warned my folks that these two Trail Trash beings are chronic liars. Heh, heh, heh.GET-OUTTA-TOWN! After getting a hitch to Millinocket, "Hot Wheels" and his girlfriend "Shutterbug" got picked up by a trail-friend who had room for me, taking me straight to a motel near the airport in Bangor! I was able to buy a ticket over the phone from there to Boston to Atlanta to Lynchburg, VA (where my parents live). Magda will pick me up there by car so we can drive home Saturday - I do have to resume work Sunday morning.WHAT DO I DO NOW? the shower and hot meal felt good this evening. But it feels odd not to be making plans for hiking out somewhere tomorrow. But that 6:00am flight will come plenty early. I'm so tired and stiff I am moving like a 100-years-old. I guess I won't sell all my camping equipment on eBay. Yet. What an adventure! Now I get to sit back and be a cheer-leader for others headed for the finish-line!