Date: 2011-09-18
From: behind the Blue Ox

To: Day 129
Miles today: 10.2

This is it. The trail's end. (Or, in my case, the halfway point.) The most exciting mountain on the entire Appalachian Trail. Today would be a day of days indeed. I started the day by waking up, packing up, and jaunting back to the AT Lodge to catch the shuttle back to Baxter. When DawaHe questioned me about where I wound up last night, I was happy to tell him in the most gloatingly smug way I could that I slept comfortably and for free behind the bar that I've been drinking at all weekend. Then, as an act of retribution I think, OleMan almost didn't let me on the shuttle because I couldn't afford the $14 for the ride (I was honest and had told him that I spent the last of my money at the bar crawl last night. Thankfully, John Wayne saved me a terrible hitch and offered to spot me for the shuttle; I later returned the favor by giving him more opium and a muscle relaxer. His lower back is actually is actually is pretty bad shape, which is why he went into Millinocket for Trails End before summiting like I did. A lesser man would have gotten off-trail and made it to a hospital by now. But not John Wayne. He very obviously pulled one of his obliques going through the Wilderness; but as soon as he got his first glimpse of Katahdin back on White Cap Moutntain, he knew what he had to do. I decided to hang with him for the climb to make sure that he din't seriously hurt himself. Plus, It was nice to have someone to celebrate and get fucked up with.   There were a surprising # of day-hikers on the mountain. It wasn't Mt. Washington bad, but it was bad. I quickly realized why as soon as we got above timberline. It is the clearest, warmest, stillest, most beautiful day I have seen on a mountain... probably ever... Our decision to go into Millinocket and party for a few days while the bad weather was blowing over was a wise one. I feel bad for all the folks I know who summited over the weekend and came back with nothing but soggy grey socked-in summit photos. But I digress, let me go back to the base of the mountain for a minute. The Katahdin Stream Campground is essentially a little village made just for thru-hikers. The campground is equipped with over a dozen lean-tos, which most of us have been sleeping in for months now. A special section just for long-distance hikers called The Birches. Fire rings. Picnic tables. A cold clear mountain stream flowing right through the campground. And a fantastic view of Mt. Katahdin looming 4,000 feet above you.    John Wayne and I get dropped off around 8:00 AM. We march straight to the ranger station and register as thru-hikers, drop off our gear, and grab our slack packs. Then we cross the stream and go post up in the picnic area to prepare ourselves. Preparing ourselves amounts to eating food, drinking coffee, smoking cigs, popping pills, and blasting hash/opium for an hour while we watch the sun rise over the mountain and bake off the early morning mist. With our heads in the right place and our bodies about as numb as we could get them, we leave the campground just after 9:00.   What a spectacularly perfect climb. The 1-mile approach is the second-nicest stretch of AT in all of Maine, just behind the section of trail that I helped build two days ago. Katahdin Stream Falls, which marks the beginning of the steep section, is easily in my top 5 most breathtaking waterfalls I've ever seen. Even the steep little above-treeline rock scramble that takes you through the Gateway and into the Tablelands isn't as bad as everyone has said it would be. Maybe it's because I'm slack-packing. Or because it's such a nice day. Or because I'm really high and feeding off the energy of the mountain. But I barely even notice the climb really. There are a handful of dangerous stretches and technical climbs, but they all turn out to be more fun and exciting than scary and challenging. John Wayne and I fly right passed all of the day-hikers who had started hiking hours before us. We don't even stop at Thoreau Spring to fill up on water because both of us have forgotten to drink water on the way up. Then, we reach the summit.   To my surprise, I'm not overcome with the torrent of emotions that I've been expecting. Instead, I get that numb feeling again. Stupefied. Unable to process anything. I have a real deer-in-headlights, shock-and-awe air about me. I feel kind of vulnerable honestly with no more white-blazes to follow for now. John Wayne and I pop open my two bottles of champagne and sit there in silence for a while watching day-hikers take their little photos with the sign on the summit. There is still plenty of ice and snow on the ground from last night. And, although the giant cairn on the summit is half-covered in windswept icicles, it's like 70 degrees in the sun. It's windless. And the few clouds that are out are still high above summit elevation. When does this ever happen above 5,000 feet? Never is the answer to that question.    Eventually some other NoBo's, whom I've never met before, show up sporting 3-piece-suits, blunts, and more champagne. Then Moses gets here with a slack-pack full of beer and even more champagne. And finally, Twoper summits wearing a bath robe and Winnie the Pooh slippers, with a blunt in his mouth and his own bottle of champagne in his hand. This is quickly turning in to a good ol' fashioned thru-hiker party. We have officially taken the summit away from all of the day-hikers at this point. Everyone but me has walked 2,200 miles to get to this summit, the day-hikers can wait their turn. This NoBo Strawberry even busts out some white sage and smudges the top of the mountain before he starts to meditate beneath the sign. This really plucks at my hippie heart strings. All of us hang out and generally act rowdy for hours. We take a series of summit photos, even rub some snow on our faces to get that coveted 'ice beard' summit photo. It's a great time.   John Wayne and I are among the last in our group to leave the summit. It's just so hard to say goodbye. We also learn a fun fact about Katahdin: Day-hikers climb down scared, while thru-hikers climb down drunk. And boy are we drunk on the way down. Again, we fly by everyone who left the summit hours before we did. Back in the campground, John Wayne is able to manifest a hitch in a heartbeat because he is now a certified 2,000-miler. We get dropped off back in Millinocket and both of decide that go back to the AT Lodge. And John Wayne got too drunk and kind of made an ass of himself. And I kind of ran out on my tab... So John Wayne instead just treats us to a cheap hotel room, pizza, and beer. I contribute by throwing in my hash and opium and we have a lazy night.