Date: 2014-09-23
From: The Birches

To: Mt Katahdin
Miles today: 5.2
Weather: clear sky

Officially a thru hiker. Will fill in the gaps once I stop being so lazy and find some decent internet! Or after I get out of here.Cheers,Affirm update: Last night I slept in one of the lean-tos at the Birches. I had one of them all to myself with the guy Wing-It tented right outside. I slightly woke up a couple times to the sound of light rain. Didn't think much of it because if it was raining in the morning I would just postpone the final hike by a few hours. Rain wasn't in the forecast so I was confident there wouldn't be much. Nonetheless, I stayed put in my warm sleeping bag when 4:00am ticked by. With a little moisture sputtering down from the sky I wasn't even going to try for an early start. I'd rather see what happens. By 8:30am I was the only one in camp - there was only guy Wing-It, girl Wing-It, and Eyes Adjust? I think that was his trail name, he introduced himself as Mike when he popped out of a car yesterday in town. I piggybacked on his hitchhike to get a ride back to the trail with him instead of paying $$ for a shuttle. Anyways, everyone was in a rush to finish besides me which explains why The Birches were so empty last night. Hikers are waiting out for a clear sunny day to summit and the forecast for today is partly cloudy. I've been seeing a lot of Katahdin pictures everywhere along the trail and thought it would be neat if I had a foggy Katahdin summit picture. Saw plenty of the sunny summit pictures with great views in the back but the dreary gray backgrounds always had more character. The atmosphere of a hazy summit picture seems to be an appropriate tribute to what you get on the AT. So that's why I decided to go up today. Little did I know what I was in for.As you may know, I prefer to tune out when people talk about the trail ahead. I didn't want to know specific details so I could discover it all for myself when I get there. Somehow I managed to tune out all the details of the most talked about mountain. The greatest mountain so they say... Naturally when I finally got a move on around 9AM I thought that this was going to be a cake walk. It's only 5 miles. Sure there will be rocks, some hand over hand climbing, and some steep parts. I just figured we've already been there and done that so many times at this point. What does Katahdin have that I haven't seen before? In all honesty, not much. But I didn't pay my mental respects as I should have. I went into the Whites wary of the dangers and expecting the worse weather but got the best hike ever out of there. I took on Katahdin like it was a whatever hill. One of the blips on the map with a negligible elevation gain I'd be over in no time.Well I did push through the miles at a good pace without much difficulty. Especially the first 2 miles. To the point where I started thinking, "really? This is the last mountain? This is a walk in the park!" Then it got progressively harder and more brutal. Two and a half miles from the top, my thinking changed. This was like the Mahoosuc Notch but up a mountain. I started to have a lot of fun with it. Next thing I know, things just kept getting more intense the farther I went. I was also getting cold. Wind started to become a problem. Then there was a lot more wind as I broke out of the tree line. A rain jacket was a quick fix to that problem when I found a crevice I could squeeze into to take off my pack and put on the appropriate gear. I had no gloves though. But that's fine because I had to be getting real close to the top.Soon enough the hand over hand climbing and mini boulder problems presented a new face.Frost and ice.I paused and rubbed my hands and ears for warmth. This could be a problem and I was totally not suspecting this. Upon a closer inspection as I worked my way upward and forward, I realized this wasn't even rain or snow that froze over. It was just that the wind chill was so bad that the rocks were frosting over on one side.I had to stop and pull out my spare pair of darn tough socks. I needed something on my hands because I was using handholds for nearly every step of progress.A couple hundred feet higher and it was another world yet again. Rocks were starting to be more encased in ice and the frozen over wild grass served a chilly reminder that this is no place to mess around. I couldn't see more than 10 feet away and the whites blazes were covered up by frost. Finding the way was becoming increasingly more difficult and my hands getting ever more number. The wind chill ripped into any bit of exposed skin with merciless ferocity.The way was up though. So I worked my way forwards thoughtfully and tried my best to stay on "trail". The terrain changed once more in a couple hundred feet and I reached an area where cairns could actually be made to mark where the trail is. They were in terrible condition though and not nearly as good as the rock pile markers in the Whites. It was simply hard to distinguish a random pile of rocks from a fallen over cairn. The only thing that kept me on track was just happening to come across a few barely noticeable white blazes just before climbing over them. By the time I caught up to RodnReal it looked like we were climbing Mt Everest. My merino wool socks were starting to freeze over my hands. They were wet from all the iced over boulders I was climbing over earlier. Now it was just a iced over rock field at an angle. Eyes Adjust emerged out of the heavy fog looking ghostly. He had actually started at 4:30am unlike me and was on his way back down. Despite having completed his thru hike, he didn't look very ecstatic. He looked cold despite being bundled up. Whatever wasn't bundled up was frosted - his dread locks were actually frozen white and not swinging around in their normal fashion anymore. He gave me an early congrats and said I was nearing the "flat" part towards the final mile to summit.Soon enough I was there and marveling over my frozen socks on my hands clapping them together like they were made of wood. I reached the one spot on the mountain that was somehow shielded from the wind. Took the opportunity to put on warmer clothes before proceeding. Getting ever closer to the moment of glory, Girl Wing-It stumbled out of the heavy white haze on her way down looking borderline hypothermic. She didn't have a jacket or anything winter worthy. But at least she had gloves. She gave me another congratulations as she hurried past trying to get back into the tree line as quick as possible before she froze to death. I got through the "flat part" in no time and started to faintly hear hikers in the fog. I made it.I couldn't see the hikers until I was 10 feet away though. Then I saw the sign. It was marvelous with the edges frosted over with ice. We were about 8 hikers deep so we took some quick group photos. It was literally freezing cold and hard to squat for any number of time. All the theatrical picture ideas I had were out the window. It was hard enough to even stand on the sign with the wind threatening to rip you off at any moment. I managed to get my frozen socks off my hands but couldn't move my thumbs that were stuff from the cold. I had no choice put to do the thumbs up pose.And there you have it. Thru hike complete. More to come... Kinda. Have yet to fill in the gaps of this journal and I still feel compelled to consolidate/edit this whole thing.Thank you all for following and another thanks to everyone congratulating me. I'm glad you enjoyed the journey. I do have intent to thru hike the PCT next, just don't hold your breath. I've got a few things to take care of first!Cheers!