Date: 2016-09-18
To: I finished the trail - less than 365 days after I 
Miles today: 0.0

Well. This year, I decided I was ready to finish my thru-hike of the AT. When I summitted Kathadin last year, I never thought I would return to hike the sections I missed. Amazing what time off the trail does for ones body and spirit. As many of you know, I was totally physically and emotionally drained last year when I left the trail for a bit. I always wondered if I had made the correct decision when I took time off.   When I returned this year, I was emotionally and physically ready for hiking. As I hiked - especially coming down from Mount Avery, I would not have been able to hike this part of the trail last year. I realized I had made the wisest decision - leaving the trail for a bit. So as my son would say "I am smarter than the average bear".Count joined me on our hike. We hiked differently this year as we had driven to ME for me to complete the trail. Meaning, we had transportation!! What a wonderful feeling when we finished a section of the trail. We had a vehicle. No hitching. In fact, we were transportation for a fair number of thru-hikers. Trail angels as we hiked. This put us in the midst of the AT trail community. Something we certainly miss. (Side note - we live about 45 minutes from the trail. So, we did provide trail magic about 6 times in the roller coaster section of VA. In fact, if you read our journal last year, you will remember we received a ride from a trail angel in VT. He said his dad, who would be 75 this year, was going to hike the trail. On the anniversary of the day we passed through the roller coaster of VA, we did trail magic. And SoJo, our trail angel's dad, hiked into our trail magic. The trail is an amazing experience!)We continued to hike north as I wanted to be a NoBo but not from where I exited from. We started in Carratunk, hiked north to Monsoon, then we moved south to Stratton. Then, we moved 60 some miles south to Rangley and hiked to Stratton. We continued this hiking north but moving south until Pinkham Notch. Hiking like this, we passed many SoBo's or flip floppers several times. It was crazy as the start of our second section, we passed three flip floppers who we had passed a few days previously. They had this confused look on their face. We explained what we were doing. From then on, we saw them every section of our six sections except for the last section. We looked forward to seeing them and that kept me hiking on.. (Side note - we hope to see them in Harper's Ferry when they finish the AT!)As I wanted to have a dramatic finish of the AT, we decided Mount Washington would be my summit point. The night before summitting, we camped where I had left the trail. My nerves were on end in anticipation of summit day. The climb out of Crawford Notch was my end last year. People had gotten into my head last year and scared me as they had said Crawford Notch was very, very difficult. Could I do this? Of course, my emotions were distraught when I started my last morning hike. We climbed to Webster Cliffs. Well, that seemed easy enough. Then, Mt. Webster. Again, that was easy. Next was Mt. Franklin. Wow. Maybe I could really do this. The weather was good. We took a break at Lake of the Clouds - my last AT trail lunch. Good ole peanut butter on tortillas with granola. Then we trudged on. The wind howled, it was foggy, it was cold. We couldn't even see the summit. Then there was a brief break in the clouds. We were close. Oh so close. Then, we saw the crowd of people. We were at the top!! Next was hiking to the sign. And there it was. I waited in the queue to finish my thru-hike!! I had done it. There were other 2016 thru-hikers. Of course, they celebrated with me as they continued north. But, I really had done it. I had overcome my fear of Crawford Notch and finished the AT. The emotions were surreal. Laughing and crying. I had done it. Now, I was an official AT thru-hiker. As we left the Mt Washington sign, we went to the visitor center, the temperature on Mt Washington with wind chill was 35, wind speed was 43 mph with gusts of 53 mph. But, I had conquered the AT. I had finished.