Date: 2005-09-28
From: The Birches campsite

To: The big K
Miles today: 5.0

I (Touk) figured out at an age amazingly young that staring into the pitch blackness wide awake wasn't sleeping.. Yes..I know that I was remarkably intellegent as a child and wonder along with my parents whatever happened,.. oh the potential lost//..   Ahem.. As it so happened I was awake almost all night thinking about Katahdin and our journey and especially that I was cold with both Mouth and Gypsy on either side of me who are two very un cuddly people, However I knew that in 24 hours that would be the very LEAST of my concern.. As this was the LAST cold morning I'd have to put up with on this 6.5 month journey, and that was an echoing thought..7:00 came rather soon and it had us all wandering through Katahdin stream campground.. I had kind of hoped I would have butterflies in my stomach and that my knees would be distracted and wobbly with excitement thus distract themselves from bugging me for hopefully one last climb...A climb I also hoped would somehow never end.. and also be a cinch to my 2k miler status legs..huh.. Unfortunately I was starving like usual and couldn't tell if I had butterflies or not with the little tazmanian devil not content with just strawberry poptarts for breakfast.. And the knees were all to aware of my 4k climbing intentions and decided to make all sorts of percussion and feel not unlike how a rusty gate hinge sounds... So I realized that some high hopes need to be forgotten and one needs to just forge ahead and make as good a day as one could with what one has... Even at 7 am. the blue sky was dark and clear and the air was warming up and I was beginning to get the magnetic draw to the mountain.. a good day was undoubtedly in store.. High hopes??... No it was HERE! Finally there was no more HOPING to be DONE!!! We had HOPED for long enough and we were THERE! So far the expectation had been met already.  We scribbled our names at the sign-in and I happened to remember that my thru hiker number was 324 for the year....sweet! Go class '05!!   Climbing up Katahdin was somewhat of a fun challenge with our full packs and we stopped for the normal ammount of breaks..like - whenever any member of team group squad was in any way out of breath... After a couple thousand feet elevation we started our whoops of w00t! we would communicate mainly through yahoo and hooplah... loud and lusty.. (Personally I believe we all knew we were ruining some day hikers wilderness experience somewhere.. in my heart I was extremely content about it in an evil little way..).. I did have to supress my odd urge to leave a rather large trace of now unwanted gear in a path behind me up to the summit as a vent for emotion..   However that was logically put out of my head after a few hundred more feet of elevation gain and yeehaww..Yes.. so .. There is a false summit to Katahdin complete with a cute weather worn sign curiously set at a perfect degree probably just to drive a K crazed thru hiker into the loony bin. I started a rare rock hopping lope towards what appeared to be the summit and had an odd lurch in my stomach even despite Taz and an emotional misty tear in my eye... which had me hike 4 feet away only to make out the "delicate alpine vegitation please stay on trail..." written on the weather worn sign...Once the rosy mist cleared and the actual tears were added to the 2,000 miles worth of sweat on my leki pole straps... The urge was BACK and I promptly wanted to go stomp on alpine plants.. not seeing any because lichen is as glorious as alpine plants get on top Katahdins table land.... I calmed myself by rock hopping on lichen splotched rocks for at least 20 ft... I admit.. that might have been a small trace.. Mouth was behind me and thaught I was merely enthusiastic and rushing ahead to rush ahead.. He reminded me that I had a sister (yeah..uh.. I nearly forgot) who was .1 mile behind me having a very emotional climb and I should take it EaSy!! Little did he know I was actually having a emotional climb myself in its own way and was leaving an environmental trace in an emotional vent using trail frustration as an excuse... We all regrouped, had a long drink at Thoreau spring.. with 1 mile to go.. we pressed on. Funny when you joke about not worrying about injury since we were within crawling distance of the summit.. I kid you not.. 100 ft. from the summit Mouth decided to roll a boulder over his foot.. It was really hard not to laugh at him clutching his gnarly foot trying to regulate his breathing and his ratio of swear words per nano second.... I'm sure we were all thinking of how cool it would be to drag him up to his victorious summit and share in the moment.. thankfully it was only a couple bruised toes and he notified us that he would live...(I guess we were wondering) Since you really don't NEED toes 100 ft from the summit. He knew that and was up hiking towards the top in no time... I should write a book on the grit of Team Group Squad.. Speaking of whom,Team Group Squad at 11:00 reached the top of Katahdin and was able to see the sign so many of us had imagined.. sideways to the trail but obviously from 50 ft. away the amazing sign that marked the terminus of the AT.. It was astounding.It was very touching to see each others reactions and we all had our moment with the sign.         I had seen this sign in the summit photos of so many which I had studied so carefully in sort of amazed awe, In a way sort I had this feeling of meeting an old friend when I saw the sign, I seemed to recognize the scratches and in which letters the paint was too faded to read..   Gypsy and I had made it together and we high fived and hugged. wow.. I truly give her my respect..I had no tears up there but all the wonder in the world.Tink said it best in her quote that also captivated Cuppa's mind and I thought was appropriate.."To understand you would have to swallow the world"We were there..   I hauled out my raggedy ziplock that had my raggedy journal in it and dug out from the raggedy corner my little 1 oz. stone that had made it all the way from Springer Mt. Georgia and set it up top of a cairn several feet behind the sign..Yelling screaming shouting thru hikers arived and it was all so cool! All SO COOL! I hauled out the hops beverage that was handed to me the previous night to take to the top and everyone else hauled out theirs, gave celebratory cheers and chugged away..   GA - MEGeorgia was thousands of miles and 6.5 months of really hard work away and I still felt like I was there, deep down inside never thinking that we would make it. Yet here we were..  "When I was young I flew over the mountains never knowing why;And when I am old and the winds no longer carry I'll never regret not making the journey" Jeffrey Scott GA - ME '91To understand you would have to swallow the world.