Date: 2008-08-08
From: Katahdin Stream Campground/Millanocket

To: Home
Miles today: 10.4
Weather: few clouds

DONE!!!!!!!!We did it. We climbed Katahdin, and survived to tell the tale.I am writing this on the 10th of August, at home, sitting in my office. I am wearing all cotton clothes (which smell good, because they are clean), and I have had 2 nice, long luxurious showers since I got home. The sun is shining, and the sky is blue. Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......Our last day on the trail started at the AT Lodge in Millanocket. I unfortunately woke up at 2am, and couldn't fall back asleep. I guess I was excited about coming home, and nervous about the climb up. It was raining outside, so I knew the rocks on Katahdin would be slippery. It wasn't for lack of trying that I couldn't sleep though. I tried everything I could think of. Anyway, all the alarms started going off at 4am, so we all got up, packed up our stuff, ate, and we were in the car and heading to Baxter Park by 5am. We got in and drove to the trailhead, picked up some daypacks from the ranger office, signed in the book, and we were on the trail by 5:50am. It had cleared up some... it wasn't raining on us as we started, so that was good.What to say about the climb? Hmmm... starts off really nice and level and then starts to climb. You get your roots and mud out of the way in this section. Then you get to katahdin stream falls, and you really start your climb. The trail goes straight up the mountain. After the falls, you still have steep trail for about another mile, with exposed rock face climbs, and steep stacks of rocks to get over. Then you get to treeline, and you get the hand-over-hand rock climbs. we all put our poles away, and for the next mile we were climbing rocks, squeezing between rocks, jumping from rock to rock and spending a lot of time scratching our heads trying to figure out how to get to the next white blaze. The trail was well marked, thank goodness, because it got foggy on the way up, and visibility was down to about 100 feet. We got through the climbs and up to the plateau, and then had about another 1.5 mile walk up there with a little more elevation gain until we got to the actual top. Thud was the first up. he went ahead on the climbs, and we could hear him screaming when he made it to the sign. Trust me was next up... then Gobbles and I came up last. What a great feeling. i was so happy to be there.we didn't get any views. it was completely fogged in. i think we could see maybe 100 feet in any direction. I have seen pictures from the top on a clear day, and I am sad we didn't get those views. But not sad enough to want to stay up there for very long. All my northern miles were complete. I had survived Maine. I was done... almost.Now I just had to make it back down....The climb down was much slower than the climb up. It had started to rain, and it was really cold up there, so my hands were a bit stiff. I spent a lot of time on my butt sliding down rocks. My hands were also a bit raw from all the hand use in climbing down. It took us about an hour longer to go down than to climb up. But we were down to the rental car by about 12:00. we got changed into dry stuff, and threw all our wet packs, clothes, boots and gear into the trunk, and took off for home. All of us were sick and tired of Maine, and couldn't wait to get out of there.Gobbles had the first section of driving. He drove from Baxter park down to Foxboro, Mass. He was determined to get us out of Maine as fast as he safely could. It was raining for most of the drive. Figures... it was Maine. We got some bad thunderstorms around Boston, and that slowed us down, but not too bad.On the way down, we stopped in Millanocket one last time - Thud was looking for souveniers, and i sent out my emails, and we got snacks to hold us until we could get to a McDonalds in Bangor.Trust me took the second leg of driving. He got us from Foxboro down to CT - kinda near Norwalk, I think. I don't know where we were exactly, but once i started driving i saw the signs for that town. So, how did I get the last shift??? Am I crazy? I had been up since 2am. My driving shift started at 11pm. We made one last stop for food, and switched drivers then. I drove through NYC, and then down to MD.   We got here about 3am on the 9th.My wife set everyone up with an air mattress, or futon bed, and blankets. we got here, threw our stinky stuff out on the deck and went to sleep.I had been up for 25 hours by the time I got home. I drank a lot of caffeine on the way to stay awake, so I felt really bizarre as I climbed into bed. Glad that stuff wears off. I think i might have been cross-eyed.So let me tell you about the stink in that trunk... whoa!!!! gobbles was the first to open it up, and he had to back away about 3 feet. Unbelievable....I knew I smelled bad, but when you combine my funk with that of 3 other wet people, you get some powerful odors. Holy cow.... if I hadn't been cross-eyed already, that would have done it.We slept for about 3 hours and then everyone started getting up. Gobbles left first, to get the rental car returned, and to see his friend in the area.   Trust me was next, when his father drove up from NC to get him. Thud was the last to go home, and I drove him to the greyhound terminal downtown mid afternoon. Trust me and gobbles are going to try to keep hiking together. So they will meet up in Harper's Ferry tonight - the 10th of August. Thud should be arriving home right about now... noon on the 10th, after a hellacious 19 hour bus ride from DC. I hope he is awake enough to face all his friends and family that are gathering to see him. I spent yesterday resting and slowly trying to clean up my stuff. I threw out a lot of stinky things... like my socks. Nobody seemed to want them for their science project. Too bad. You could have gotten something good from that. My pack stinks still. I need to figure out how to clean that. I am still cleaning gear and packing stuff away. It's going to take some more time.I also need to get more sleep. I am exhausted. I do not recommend hiking 55 miles in 2 days, then climbing a 4000 foot mountain and driving 16 hours the very next day. My adventure/journey is now complete for this year. I still have 600 miles of the trail left to do (I'll figure out the exact number later), but i will get to hike those miles on my terms. I haven't really had time to come up with any deep thoughts or determine how I feel about being done at the moment. I'm glad I am done, glad that the self-inflicted pain from hiking can stop. I am glad to be home with my wife. I will try to write one more post on here to kind of wrap things up and close this thing down. I most likely won't try to keep a journal of my adventures as I finish up Virginia, so this is it.Check back in a week or so, and I will probably have the last of my pictures posted - Hannover to Katahdin, and I will have one last entry to wrap up this journal.Thanks everyone for following along. Time to go eat....