Date: 2004-10-21
From: Appalachian Trail Lodge, Millinocket, Maine

To: Katahdin
Miles today: 18.4
Weather: overcast clouds

So we¢re done. We finished. I swore come hell or high water I¢d stand on top of Katahdin, at that beloved sign, and I have. I finished. It¢s still impossible to contemplate.It was a long and torturous ordeal, though. Long and torturous, indeed. We took three zeroes waiting for the mountain to open, three nights total at the AT Lodge and much town food, which we could ill afford. There are several obstacles to climbing Katahdin for the late-arriving thru-hiker. The first is the weather. The mountain was closed when we arrived in town, or so was the rumor. We couldn¢t actually get to Baxter to confirm this diagnosis, but we befriended a Baxter State Park ranger and former thru-hiker in town, watching the Red Sox game, who gave us the lowdown. The thing I didn¢t understand is that the weather since we¢ve been in town has been absolutely exquisite, perfect blue skies, perfect sun, not a cloud in the sky. If these are Class IV days, then what the heck is a Class I? But according to our ranger friend, the mountain remains closed because there is residual ice from the storm before we got here. I don¢t understand how the mountain could be treacherous to climb in these conditions. I really don¢t. Determining when and where the mountain will be open seems like such Baxter Park voodoo. I can just imagine the rangers out in front of Abol Bridge, casting their bones. But I digress.So we had burgers one night, pizza the next, a couple of breakfasts at the diner, a couple of half-gallons of ice cream from the convenience store. County was convinced we could stealth in town, but I was not excited about camping in such a populated area. So we kept forking over money for a hotel room. Every day we kept debating leaving, heading out for the mountain, but this is the second obstacle to climbing Katahdin for late-arriving thru-hikers¢the ride. We had thought for a while that one of County¢s friends from Boston was going to drive up to climb with us (which was another reason to hitch out to Millinocket), but he had been unavoidably delayed and couldn¢t make it until Friday. We got into Millinocket on Sunday. So that left us with considerable time, and money, to kill. So we kept debating other options for getting into the park. You see, no one¢s allowed to spend a night inside the park after October 15. Otherwise, we could have just been camped at Katahdin Stream like normal people, waiting for the mountain to open. Instead, we had to wait for the stars to be aligned, for the exact right moment when we could get a ride in on the morning when the mountain would open.That is Obstacle Numero Tres: The day¢s class rating isn¢t announced until eight. The park¢s gate lets the last people into climb the mountain at nine. Get there after nine, and you¢re screwed. But before eight, you don¢t know if you¢ll even be able to climb. Without a car, one is left with the option of hitching in at seven every morning, with the prospect of a hitch tenuous at best, it being thirty miles to the park entrance on dirt roads that are going no-place else. County¢s thought was that we could hitch in one day, stealth at the entrance or inside the park, and find out the mountain¢s status the next morning. I was terrified of the draconian staff of Baxter State Park, having heard tales of their fury all down the trail. The rumors of punishments for being found illegally inside the park ranged from stiff fines (which we didn¢t have) to being banned for life from the park (meaning I could never climb Katahdin). Even meeting a kindly ranger from the park didn¢t stem my tide of terror. So we were between the proverbial rock and hard place, as I predicted we would be if we arrived after the fifteenth.The solution to this problem eventually arrived in the Lovestrands, old family friends of my parents. They had been missionaries in Irian Jaya and Tahiti, and he was now a pastor of a church, coincidentally, in East Millinocket. My dad had been saying for days that we could stay with them when we got up here, but County continued to be hesitant about staying with weird friends of my parents. Their granddaughter is one of my best friends in the world, so I was well acquainted with the family, but hadn¢t seen them in years and also hated to impose. But it was between that and stealthing either in town or in the park, so I went with the family friends. It worked out relatively well, at first¢they came and picked us up, and we spent the day there, checking our email, using the phone. They were very hospitable, telling us about Harold¢s imprisonment in Irian Jaya, when the government arrested him for being an American spy for the CIA. Which he wasn¢t, but he was still in jail for a full year. Quite exciting. He¢s even written a book about it, now out of print. They quite generously fed us, which was wonderful, even if it wasn¢t in quite generous enough portions for thru-hikers. And, most importantly, they offered us a ride into the mountain when it was open.So we spent yesterday with them, hoping against hope that the ice on top of the mountain would melt. We woke up this morning to a thermometer reading twenty degrees and frost on the ground. County and I both agreed that there was no way the mountain would be open today if it was closed yesterday. So we sat and ate cereal for breakfast, dejected. Eight o¢clock rolled around and I said, ¢Should I call, just in case?¢ We decided we might as well. I got through to the lady at the ranger¢s office, asking if the mountain was open, and she said, ¢Yes, all trails are open except the Knife¢s Edge.¢ We were in shock. And we had less than fifty minutes to make it to the trailhead, which was forty-five minutes away. Muriel gave us some bananas and raisins, we threw a couple of bars in our jacket pockets, grabbed a Nalgene, and were off, without even a slackpack. We remembered the camera, thankfully. And County had a book of matches in his pants pocket. But that¢s about all. We were not prepared for anything except bagging the summit.We made it to the park entrance gate exactly at nine, with Harold risking our lives in his Buick the whole way there. The girl at the entrance gate looked at us skeptically: ¢I¢m not supposed to let anyone in after 8:30.¢ How they expect anyone to get there in time is anyone¢s guess. We convinced her, with much effort, that we were thru-hikers, that we had to summit, and we could get up and down with plenty of time to spare. It was only ten miles, after all. I was still a little paranoid about the time factor, though. Everyone goes on and on about how hard Katahdin is, how it¢s the hardest climb on the entire trail, how it¢s 5000 feet of elevation in five miles, how the rocks are worse than the Whites, etc., etc. And I was paranoid because of all the stories before I started. I think, though, that it¢s another one of those mountains that more people from the general public try to climb, so it¢s given a higher degree of difficulty than it really possesses. It was far easier than the Mahoosucs, easier even, than the Whites, in my opinion. I remember a descent in Connecticut that was tougher. But fewer people do those, so fewer people know about them, so Katahdin gets this horrible reputation.The first mile was basically flat and I was more or less flat-out running, because I wanted to get up and down as soon as possible. We passed Katahdin Stream, when the trail became tougher, although still not that difficult. It was a beautiful day¢the sky was a perfect eggshell blue. We were still a little worried about ice on the trail, and there was some, a thin layer on some shadowed rocks, but for the most part it was completely clear. It wasn¢t until the third mile that the real rock-climbing started. We had to haul ourselves up boulders with iron bars pounded into the rock. It still wasn¢t even in the top five of difficult mountains, in my opinion. On the way through this section we ran into Underhill on the way down. He had gotten to the gate at seven and had summitted by nine. It was great to see him. For the first time since we had known him, he seemed truly relaxed, and we all perched on rocks in the sun for a while and chatted.He knew the whole story about why the mountain had been closed and open¢evidently the mountain was closed even yesterday because of snow and ice, but Flyin¢ Brian, Mad Scientist, Silver Girl, and Yoda had all befriended a park ranger who had given them a ride to the park every single morning at seven, every day since the sixteenth. So finally yesterday, the headquarters relented, realizing that Flyin¢ Brian was he of the calendar year Triple Crown, had hiked in far worse conditions than this. To top it off, all four of them were thru-hikers, and had all seen worse. So he gave them a winter permit, which are granted only to groups of four or more, told them to stick together, and let them up the mountain. On the way down they told the rangers that there was no ice on the mountain and that it was perfectly safe to climb, which was why it was open today. Underhill had been going with them to the gate but had left yesterday after the ranger told them it was closed, before he gave them the winter permit. So he summitted today alone. I guess we have them to thank for our summit, which is great. And it¢s also fun to be doing it just the two of us instead of with a big group. When most people summit there are hordes of people up here. But Underhill was the first person we saw.We got through the rocks, up through the Gateway, into the Tableland, and I could see the summit. I couldn¢t believe that we were that close, that we were through the difficult stuff. I couldn¢t believe that it had been that easy. But there was Baxter Peak, only a mile away. The whole climb I had been wondering if it was really worth it¢hitching to Monson, hitching out of the 100-Mile Wilderness, spending three freaking zeroes in Millinocket, staying with the Lovestrands. Katahdin seemed just another mountain, just one more in the whole litany of mountains we had already climbed. Why should I pin all my hopes, all my satisfaction, the entire meaning of my hike on this one stupid mountain? Why did it matter so very much? I almost wished that we had done what County had been suggesting all along¢to just get to the base of Katahdin and quit. Say, ¢Nah, I don¢t have to do it.¢ And as I inched my way across the Tableland, through the snow that was a foot deep in places (but still not dangerous), I still thought he might have been right.It wasn¢t until we got within sight of the sign, perched on top of the mountain, between two rocks, just a simple pyramid of wood, and County stopped and waited for me and pointed at it silently, until I saw it¢it wasn¢t until then that I realized how wrong I was. This mountain was it; this mountain was everything. This mountain was what I had been waiting for all along¢a symbol of everything that I had accomplished. I was suffused with joy. I couldn¢t help myself. It was the most amazing feeling of my life, hiking that last half-mile. It was everything I could have ever dreamed of, and more. Words can¢t describe, which is why I¢m doing such a bad job of describing it. It was truly indescribable. But hitting that summit, walking in the sun across the snow, the sign growing bigger and bigger¢it was as if the heavens opened and angels sang. County stopped a hundred feet from the summit and waited for me. We walked to the top hand in hand. We touched the sign together. I thought I would have cried, but I didn¢t. I couldn¢t stop smiling. I couldn¢t stop literally jumping up and down. It was a perfect moment in time.There was only one other guy up there, a man from Michigan who had run a marathon in Bar Harbor a couple of days before and had come up just to hike Katahdin, which was perfect because we had someone there to take our picture. It was that crowning moment that solidified our experience, the picture that proved we had done it, the picture that echoed all those that we had seen our whole journey. Another guy showed up after a while, up the easier trail, in jeans, of course. No wonder people die on this mountain¢they let idiots climb it. But nothing could bring me down. We took tons of pictures and just hung out on the summit for about a half-hour. We left after the other two, but I wished we could have stayed longer. I would have liked to just move in up there. But even though it was relatively warm and there was no wind, we started getting chilled after a little while, and we had to get to the base in time for Mr. Lovestrand to pick us up.I walked down the mountain like I was floating on air. County virtually ran the last two miles ahead of me. At one point he made reference to us no longer being thru-hikers and I cried out in horror. I wanted to still be a thru-hiker! I wanted us to just keep going all the way to Georgia! But wiser heads prevailed¢the Lovestrands were supposed to pick us up at around dusk, which was about six¢we had thought that would be when we would make it down the mountain, but we hadn¢t been sure. He had left his Baxter pass in the window of his car so he could get in easily, and had tried to make us carry his cell phone, because he thought it would get better reception than ours from Baxter. But we had assured him that ours would work just fine. We hadn¢t had time to make really firm plans, because we were in such a hurry, but the ranger at the gate had warned him repeatedly that the gate closed for good at seven, so we knew for sure that he would be there by then. Since we were significantly early, County figured he could catch up with our friend from Michigan, get a ride from him, and we could catch the Lovestrands in time to tell them we didn¢t need a ride. Unfortunately he didn¢t have room in his car.Another car was in the parking lot when we got down, a trail maintainer we had seen doing work on the first mile of trail, but he pealed out of the parking lot without giving us a chance to ask for a ride. Leaving us alone.Then the nightmare began. We called the Lovestrands several times from the campground, leaving messages¢we had one very piddly bar on the phone, meaning that the battery was drained much more quickly too. Since they weren¢t there, I assumed happily that they were already on their way to get us. But it was getting cold. Dark was falling, and while it had been a beautiful day and kept being clear, it was getting colder and colder. I remembered that the night before it had gotten down to 20, and we hadn¢t brought any extra clothes. We hadn¢t brought any extra anything¢we had ran out of the house with five minutes to spare. The full gravity of our situation hadn¢t yet hit us, though. One last car passed, coming from a trailhead further down the road, and we didn¢t even hitch to it, because I was afraid the Lovestrands were already on their way and would be worried if they didn¢t find us. That was the last car of the three we saw. We waited by the road for a while, getting colder and colder, and eventually decided to start walking, just to stay warm. It was about 5:30, and dusk was settling in. We figured if we started walking towards the gate, we¢d still see the Lovestrands driving in to get us, but we could stay warmer and shorten the distance too.It wasn¢t until we hit the next campground, which we knew was three miles down the road, that we started to get worried. We turned on the cell phone¢no messages. Our signal was weak at best. It was dark, and as we watched, the clock on the cell phone ticked past seven. Meaning the gate was locked. I started to panic. The thing that was scariest about the situation was that we didn¢t have any of our gear. None of it. We were completely equipped for this kind of situation, after seven months of living in the woods, but only with our gear that had been pared down the barest of essentials. But now, here we were, stranded in the woods, with none of it. The campground was full of buildings, all of which were empty for the season, and padlocked shut. One of them even had a whole wall covered in stacks of firewood and a wood stove we could have used to stay warm all night. I was sure there were beds with blankets inside the buildings for the caretakers that stayed there in the summer. We seriously contemplated breaking off one of the padlocks¢County even made a few tentative tries. But he was more worried about the fine if we broke in, and he knew we would survive the night if we kept walking.Park pick-ups were parked there, too, and we contemplated breaking into one of those to drive out, or to sleep, but the fine issue still loomed large. Finally, I resorted to the only thing I knew to do¢I called my parents. They were the ones who had gotten us into this mess, I figured, they were the ones who had told us to stay with the Lovestrands, to trust them, I figured, they could get us out of it. I called their cell phone with our last remaining battery power. They were, of all things, at a party. The connection was very bad, I kept breaking up, and they couldn¢t really understand what I was saying. I figured they would know if something had happened to the Lovestrands, because that was the only thing I could understand¢had they gotten into a car accident? Had he had a heart attack? Had someone in the family died? That was the only way I could figure that they had forgotten about us, when they were so concerned about our safety and warmth before we left. I was genuinely worried about them. I was more worried about us, of course, but I thought something must have happened. My parents hadn¢t heard a thing, of course. And they still couldn¢t figure out what was really going on.I thought that if worse came to worse they could call the ranger office, who could send someone to pick us up and drive us to Millinocket, where we could stay at the hostel again, but they couldn¢t really grasp that either. Our connection kept going. I had looked for the number to the ranger office at the campground and in the literature we had gotten at the gate, but couldn¢t find it. Eventually the battery died, and I still didn¢t think I had clearly communicated with my parents. We were left alone.County thought the only thing to do was to keep walking. I was panicked. I didn¢t want to walk¢I was exhausted and starving and abandoned¢the only thing we had had to head all day was some cereal, a banana, and some raisins, and we had already walked 13.4 miles, over what was called the roughest terrain on the AT. It was at least the most elevation gain on the entire AT. He had been opposed to my idea of calling my parents from the beginning, thinking that we would only upset them and that they wouldn¢t be able to do anything anyway. He eventually convinced me to start walking, and tried to lift my spirits, but I was furious. I couldn¢t understand it! Here we were, perfectly equipped for this kind of situation, but without any of our gear.I was furious at Baxter for putting us into this situation, for refusing to allow us to stay overnight¢if we had been allowed to stay overnight, we would have had all of our gear with us and could have stayed at the completely deserted shelters at the base of the mountain. I was furious at Baxter for their ridiculous restrictions on climbing the mountain¢if we had been allowed to climb earlier we wouldn¢t be in this situation. I was furious at Baxter for not enforcing their ridiculous restrictions¢where were the draconian rangers who descended, breathing fire, with fines in their hands, as soon as anyone did anything outside of the rules? People were forbidden to stay in the park without a permit, but no one even did the least, cursory examination of the campsites to find out if anyone was stranded there? A ranger didn¢t even drive through the park? Here we were forced to give every detail about ourselves at the gate, including emergency names and numbers, but no one even checked to see if we had made it down the mountain? What kind of ridiculous system was this!But mostly I was furious at God, fate, whatever. It seemed that no matter how successful I thought I had been at something, that success was taken away. Here I had spent eight months steeling myself against exactly this eventuality, and when I had reached the crucial moment, the tools that I needed to protect myself were taken away. It was God¢s way of telling me, ¢Look, you can¢t do this by yourself. No matter how protected you think you are, I can take that protection away. No matter how powerful you think you are, I can take that power away. You are nothing¢I Am Everything.¢ I realized I couldn¢t protect myself, that I was powerless, that I was nothing. I was truly humbled. Laid low, laid open, to my barest essentials. This was it, this was me, walking in the dark, hungry, with nothing except the clothes on my back, with no hope of salvation except walking, walking, walking. With no idea how far.It was eight miles to the gate from Katahdin Stream Campground, and another twenty miles to Millinocket. Ten of those miles were on dirt road, that led nowhere except the park. There were few houses on that road where we could call for a taxi or for help, and who knew how far the next house was. We had no idea if anyone was even staying in the park anymore. We had no headlamps to explore campgrounds to look for people. We couldn¢t guarantee that there would be any traffic at least for another eighteen miles, and we had no certainty that there would even be any then, especially how late it would be by the time we got to the paved road. We had no guarantee that we wouldn¢t have to walk all 28 miles, all night. And it felt like forever, walking miles and miles, after dark, wrestling with myself, with the demons in my head. Eventually, about a half-mile from the gate, we saw what we thought was a light. It came nearer and nearer, like an angel, and we finally realized they were headlights, going the wrong direction. We waved it down and it stopped, realizing that there was something strange about two people walking out of the park, without backpacks, after dark, at nine at night.They were three young trail maintainers, interns, who had spent the whole day bushwhacking through overgrown trails at the north end of the park. They had just stopped in Millinocket to get groceries, and were on their way home to their cabins in the park to food and bed. I¢m sure they were just as exhausted as we were, and confused by our appearance in the park. But they offered us a ride out anyway. The driver said he would drop two of the maintainers off at their cabin and then come back to pick us up. I was skeptical¢I wanted to get in the truck bed right then. The truck was our salvation, and I didn¢t want it disappearing into the dark. But County convinced me that they would come back to pick us up, and the driver told us that it was only a half-mile to the gate. So we walked that last half-mile, hope springing to life in our throats, and waited by the gate, figuring if they didn¢t show, we could at least break into the staff cabins around the gate to sleep. But the guy did show, the truck looming out of the dark, and he drove us all the twenty miles to Millinocket, an extra hour of driving for him, even stopping to let us buy chips and then dropping us off at the restaurant in town, where we had exactly five minutes left to order our Katahdin celebratory dinner before the kitchen closed at ten.We chowed down, although our celebratory dinner was a little anticlimactic. We told the guys sitting at the bar that we had just climbed Katahdin, that we had just finished our thru-hike, but they didn¢t really grasp the magnitude of the accomplishment. It seemed just another day, just another night, and the dark night of the soul in the park was forgotten and gone.My parents eventually got through to Harold and he came and picked us up across the street from the restaurant, huddling for warmth on the stoop of the Laundromat. He said it had all been a misunderstanding, that they had had a pro-life dinner to go to with their daughter. I don¢t know what they thought we were going to do. Evidently my parents had gotten in touch with Buzz, head of Baxter State Park, who had called all the rangers in the park, including the cabin where the trail maintainers had been dropped off, and found out that we had already been rescued. I was more impressed with the park staff then. The police of Millinocket and East Millinocket had even been put on alert, and had stopped by the Lovestrands¢ house to see if they were alive. My one big mistake was not calling my parents as soon as we got to Millinocket¢County was right, I had upset them with my phone call, and they had gone to work to get me saved. I hadn¢t even realized that I had communicated with them enough to worry them. I called them when we got to the Lovestrands¢ house and let them know we were okay. The Lovestrands had about twenty messages on their machine, about three from me in the park, still hopeful, my parents, Buzz, the police, me in Millinocket. I can hear them playing them and talking in the next room.I still don¢t think they really grasp what happened, just how serious it could have been. And we would have survived, no matter what. We would have been okay. Even after walking all night, we would have been okay.I guess the moral of the story is: don¢t trust very old people with your life. But we had no other choice. That¢s the nature of the trail¢you have to put your fate in the hands of other people, again and again and again. It breeds self-sufficiency, yes, but it also teaches you how completely dependent you are on the good graces of the universe. That¢s what I¢ve learned. And how small I am. I hope, if nothing else, I come out of this experience humbled. I am what I am, life is what it is, and nothing else.Tomorrow, first thing, we hitch to Bridgewater, a hundred miles north. The Lovestrands have offered to drive us, but we said no, and thank you. We had debated walking up until the last minute¢County lives three miles from where the International Appalachian Trail crosses the road¢but discovered at the Millinocket library earlier this week that it¢s virtually all road walk. So we¢ll hitch, throw our fate in the hands of other people yet again, and hopefully, tomorrow night, be sleeping someplace we can call home. If only for a little while.