Date: 2018-08-05
From: Hurd Brook Shelter

To: The Birches shelter 
Miles today: 13.4

I didn¢t sleep at all last night. Sometimes my body is so sore all over that no matter what position I lay in everything just physically aches. It was definitely one of those nights.A lot of us stayed at Hurd Brook campsite last night: me, Potato, Kidska, Bird, Spider, Torino, Zoom Zoom, and Hot Sauce. It¢s the last shelter in the 100 MW, which means it¢s the last shelter outside of Baxter State Park. Pretty much everyone was gone already when I woke up. There¢s a lot of logistics involved in entering Baxter as a thru-hiker and planning your summit of Katadhin. For instance, there¢s only ONE free campsite/shelter (The Birches) within Baxter that is reserved for AT thru-hikers, but it only takes in 12 people a night and it¢s a ¢first come first served¢ basis. So usually on this day everyone is literally racing to the park to claim their spot. If you don¢t get a spot then you¢ll have to throw down some money ($40-$120) to stay at a campsite or cabin, assuming they¢re not all booked up for the summer. The second thing you have to do is visit the ranger station and get a permit to hike Katadhin. Yes, you literally have to get a card to climb a mountain because for environmental reasons they only let a certain number of people a year hike it. The cap-off is in the thousands and has so far never been reached, but still the fact that someone could tell you ¢Sorry, you can¢t climb this year¢ is a little stressful. I¢m number 1,195!I was in no hurry to get to the park this morning, but I was definitely doing a 3 mile sprint to get out of the woods and to that camp store. I got to the store at 9am and bought BBQ potato chips and a root beer for breakfast. Lol Options were very limited. It was basically a ¢pantry¢ compared to the gas stations I¢m used to resupplying at. Luckily I just needed to buy enough snacks to get me through today and then up the mountain tomorrow. I¢ll be in Milinocket, ME by tomorrow night. The next 10 miles into Baxter State Park were essentially a ¢walk in the park¢. It was amazing. The trail followed the edge of a river the whole way. The river was full of big boulder slabs and swimming holes with shallow, sandy bottoms. I eventually realized that this was my last opportunity to swim in Maine, and since there were no leaches in sight, I jumped in! Spent more time swimming today than hiking, which was a nice change. Really tried to enjoy the chill day because tomorrow is totally gonna kick my ass. That¢s one thing the trail has taught me so far. Enjoy the little moments. Appreciate the small things. Like good weather, the company of strangers, a healthy body. Or a running faucet, flushable toilet, hot shower, real food. It gives you an entirely different perspective on what matters in life and what you really need to be happy and content. Eventually, I made it to the center of the park, claimed my spot at The Birches shelter, and got my permit to hike Katadhin for tomorrow. There is WAY less people at The Birches tonight than I was expecting. I was expecting to see all the same faces from last night¢s shelter, but it looks like the majority of them pushed ahead and decided to summit Katadhin TODAY. Which is insane because climbing Katadhin is like an all-day thing. You ideally wanna start at the base around 7-8am, not 2pm in the afternoon! But more power too them I guess. I just thought I¢d get to see some of them one more time. At The Birches tonight it¢s me, Kidska, Potato, Durwood, and a guy named Maple Tree ¢> And get this, I met Maple Tree just one other time and it was in Pennsylvania over 2 months ago! It took us a bit to piece together how/why we recognized each other. But damn, I met him on like my 8th day out here. Lol Crazy stuff. The trail is about to get SO different for me. Like everything is gonna change. And not just the terrain, but the people and the mental hike itself. I¢ll never have any more moments like this where I run into familiar faces. This is my last night Northbound. Every NoBo I¢ve ever met up until now, I¢ll never see again. Every NoBo that was ahead of me is already done at this point and off trail. I feel like I¢m about to completely start over from the very beginning. Potato already thru-hiked the whole AT last year and just came back this summer to re-hike New York through Maine, so he¢ll be going home after Katadhin. Kidska is a 23 yr old flip-flopper like myself, but she¢s taking a week off trail to visit family before she flips down south. And since I¢m going directly back to Harpers Ferry, I¢ll be a week ahead of her and we¢ll likely never cross paths again. The trail is about to change SO drastically for me and in so many ways. And I¢m not sure how I feel about it yet. It¢s exciting, but also terrifying. This trail is more about the people than any of the mountains or views. Interactions with people on trail are always very fleeting, yet very genuine. Every time you meet someone, it¢s likely you¢ll never see them again. You can be hiking with someone every day for weeks and then one day the trail separates you both and that¢s it. It¢s a sad reality of the trail, but it also makes you appreciate all those little interactions with others. It highlights the value of community while also forcing you to be extremely independent and self-supporting. I don¢t know man, Trail Life is a weird and unique thing. And I¢m just along for the ride.