Date: 2016-06-02
From: Katahdin Stream Campground

To: Katahdin Summit
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: light rain

Day 1. I don't even want to write about it. At the moment, thinking about today's events makes me feel nauseous, seriously. Today was wonderful, today was breathtaking, it was challenging but most of all it was scary. When I say 'scary' I mean true fright. When I was a boy of about 10 years old, my family moved to a bad neighborhood. My brothers and I were told not to leave our neighborhood to venture off into the nearby worse neighborhood. Well we did. As we were walking on the sidewalk we approached two younger kids with mean looks on their faces. They approached us and then one of them pulled out a gun and held it to my forehead. Today, Katahdin was ten times scarier than that boy with the gun.In my opinion Holly and I were very close to becoming part of the mountain flora and fauna, if you know what I mean. So, the story. Holly and I and Lynn and her dog Shadow began hiking the AT up to Katahdin at about 9am, after finally getting checked in at the ranger station. The first three miles were became gradually steeper with large rocks to climb over and around. Skipping ahead, rising above the tree line offered the most amazing views I have ever seen and sent more than a few fellow hikers back down with anxiety attacks, without even reaching the summit. It took hours to reach this point at which the boulder field began. To begin this point you had to reach a rebar on the boulder and pull yourself up. This is the point where Lynn and Shadow had to stop and where Holly and I should have as well. Everyone we met coming down off of the mountain said it was just over an hour to the summit from this point, and no doubt for them it was. But down is faster than up. So we told Lynn we would summit and then come back and watch Shadow for her while she went to summit. Little did we know that we wouldn't reach the top for many more hours. Just as a side note to all you who enjoy reading trail books and journals, no one writes about Katahdin in its true experience. Yeah, its officially part of the Appalachian trail but it is NOT A TRAIL!! We had to climb boulders hand over hand as big as your house at a forty five degree angle for like a quarter mile. And guess what, these rocks are sharp. And to tell the truth, this would have been okay. I enjoyed this unique challenge and testing my body past anything I've ever done. But the last mile and a half was what nearly killed us...literally. The weather took a turn for the worst, but it wasn't obvious. To us it just looked like fog and everyone we passed said we were almost there and were encouraging us to not give up. So we pressed on. We donned our down jackets from our day pack and that's when the wind picked up. Actually it was there all along, blowing and gusting without notice of us being there. With the wind was the cooling moisture and we quickly became soaked. We were SO close and wanted to make it all the way but I was so miserable at this point that it was difficult to think about making it 5 miles back down. So, we trudged on, from one rock to another. The fog was so dense that our visibility became difficult at only 40 feet. I glanced up towards the top and saw the silhouette of the ever popular sign of Katahdin. I yelled to Holly that I could see it! In a couple of minutes we were there, our visibility now down to ten feet. We couldn't see anything but the sign and a few large rocks in the immediate vicinity. I had the camera and phone camera ready, snapped Holly's pictures, she snapped mine, and then we took refuge down below the sign out of the wind.At this point we had to eat and drink because we were starving. Secretly in my head, without telling Holly, I didn't see the possibility of getting off this mountain, much less below the tree line. My body was done. In a future journal I may share my physical challenges with those of you who don't know what I've been through. Our clothing was soaked, hands freezing, feet numb, bodies broken, hope was all we had. My mind went back and forth between praying for mercy from all of this and contemplating my death. We had two miles of wind and rain to the tree line at which point we felt much better. Looking back now I know that it was YAH and my wife's encouragement that got me off of that mountain. I have never seen death so closely before. Would I do it again? Nope. That was one sucky experience. I am pretty sure that I experienced mild hypothermia. My fingertips on my right hand are still tingling and somewhat numb. But I am glad we made such an accomplishment, not just making it to the top but making it back down. Katahdin is much more than you guys can possibly imagine. Words are nothing to describe it. But then there are those who are much more capable than I at this point. One man I just learned about has climbed the mountain 70 something times in his life. I don't know if that's accurate or not but I do know that once was good enough for us. It took us 14 hours. My sister headed back after half an hour of waiting. And now we're ready for anything...because Katahdin is way behind us!