Date: 2005-08-16
From: Katahdin Stream Campground

To: Mt. Katahdin Summit
Miles today: 5.2
Weather: overcast clouds

We got up this morning at 4:30am, ate breakfast in the room and hit the road to Baxter State Park by 5:15am. We entered at Togue Gate at 5:45am. The written information on the park gate hours states that the gate opens at 6am. However, we asked the rangers last night as we were leaving the park and they said the gate opens at 5am.The weather was heavy fog early this morning, but on our drive to Baxter State Park, it burned off and was looking to be a beautiful day. On our way to Katahdin Stream Campground, we all got to see a bear cub and a bull moose. Crampy was excited.We got to Katahdin Streams Campground and got ready to hike. We signed in on the trail register/sign-in board at 6:30am. The five of us all started out hiking together. We all said good-bye to Crampy at Katahdin Falls. As we headed further up, Boston's brother and girlfriend slowly fell behind.The two of us had a nice hike up to the summit. It wasn't too difficult, we just had to take our time and find the best way over and around rock faces and boulders. It took us 3 hours to reach the summit. At the summit, we were greated by fellow thru-hikers: Fatty, Geronimo, Red, and Houdini. They had all stayed at the Birches last night. They all were well into their personal celebrations, and helped us in our celebration. We brought a small bottle of champagne with us. Boston shook it up and let the bubbley fly! Geronimo took pictures for us as we celebrated the completion of our thru-hike. August and Wood arrived about 30 minutes later and the celebration continued. The weather was perfect with some clouds in the sky, warm and breezy.We took numerous pictures of ourselves and the group at the summit sign. Geronimo had brought a really nice American Flag with him. He let us use it in some of our pictures. Really cool. We could not have asked for a better group of guys to summit with. We had hiked with and around these guys for the last month. We celebrated on the summit for 2 hours, no one wanting to be the first to leave.Boston called her mom from the summit. Mom said, "Congratulations." She was so happy to hear we had finished.We finally headed down. We congratulated Rattle on our way down, he was still headed up to the summit.Hiking down was different than hiking up. The hike up was to complete a long journey but the hike down was just to get down.We hiked down with Boston's brother and his girlfriend. We stopped at Katahdin Falls where they went for a swim in the stream. Not us, water too cold!We signed out on the register/sign-in board at 2:07pm. We then met Crampy at Katahdin Stream Campground where he congratulated us with big hugs.We saw Flip, and Homeboy at the campground. They will be summiting tomorrow. We wished them the best of luck.We all piled into the car and headed to back to Millinocket for an early dinner. On the road just outside the gate to the park, we saw Geronimo still hitching. We picked him up and brought him to meet his parents at Abol Bridge Campground.We enjoyed another meal at Angelo's Pizza before heading back to Boston.Arrived home at 10:20pm and in bed at 11pm.