Date: 2005-07-02
From: Baxter State Park

To: The end of the trail!
Miles today: 5.2

The family had some delays on the drive from Boston to Millinocket, and didn't arrive until 11:00 at night...way past my bedtime! I've got everyone up and out of bed by 5 AM for the "Big Day," and we are all a little sleep deprived and delirious. It's time to climb one last mountain: the 'Big K', the 'Mother K', the 'greatest mountain.' The end of the white blazes! "Happy Birthday," my mother reminds me that it is my 25th birthday too!Everyone piles into the SUV for the drive to Baxter. I am sitting in the far back with my eyes glued to the forest and swamps, shouting at everyone to look for Moose! The early mornings are one of the best times to be on a Moose safari, and I really want my visitors to have a sighting. Shortly into Baxter State Park I see movement in a pond and I'm screaming to stop the vehicle and screaming at everyone to get out of the vehicle. Pardon me, I'm a little fired up today. My visitors sure are lucky, as watching this bull moose dip his head under water again and again, going after water plants has been the most exciting wildlife observation of my entire hike!   When we finally pile back in the vehicle we see another Moose in minutes, running down the road. We park at Katahdin Stream Campground and I walk over to the Ranger Station to get the weather report. Overcast in the morning, should clear up in the afternoon. I make one last entry in the ranger station's register: "After 2,000 miles I still do not have anything profound to say, so I'll just repeat what I wrote on top of Springer Mountain and say I can't believe I'm finally standing here."I suit up for the final walk, taking my usual backpack despite it's stench, despite it's size. The ranger station provides daypacks, but I've carried this one the entire hike and it doesn't feel right carrying another. My family walks behind for the first mile, then my cousin, sister and I walk on. The trail is wasting no time gaining elevation, and soon we can turn around and get panoramic vistas of distant cloud-covered peaks. Yesterday Just Mark called Katahdin "a vertical Mahoosac Notch," and I couldn't describe Katahdin in a better way. My cousin turns back when the hiking switches to climbing, this is not a trail for those afraid of heights! Taking one obstacle at a time, Smoothie and I inch our way through a mile long vertical boulder field. There are occasional metal bars to assist the hiker, but most of the time you've got to use your own problem solving to get up and over. There are a few sketchy places we climb up that I have no idea how we will get down! There is no turning back now! Eventually the boulders end and the trail levels out for the "Table Land" of Katahdin. The trail is practically flat, weaving in and out of gigantic boulders. We stop for a snack on a table-like boulder, putting on extra layers to help break the chill of the wind. Now that we are above timber line, the wind is really pushing us around. Through the boulder field we were crouched down on all fours most of the time, when we switched to walking upright on the Table Land, we realized how strong the winds have gotten! Our views are still obstructed by cloud cover as we walk the remaining miles. It is too windy to carry on any conversations, I'm lost in my own world of thoughts anyway. I am struggling to piece this journey together as a whole. It sounds strange, but the only way I've completed this hike is by breaking it into small pieces. Town to town, state to state, day to day, one mountain at a time. Can you remember back to what you where doing on New Year's Eve? Does it seem like a long time ago? That is when I started this hike. It is hard to piece everything that has happened into one adventure. It seems like years ago when I was putting on frozen boots and tromping through knee-deep snow! Now here I am, within sight of that heavily photographed junked-up brown sign marking the Northern Terminus of the Appalachian Trail! And I'm going to get cheesy on you and get a little chocked up too...I wait for Smoothie to walk the last yards of trail with me. There is a descent crowd of 10 people at the summit by the time we get there. I stare at the brown sign, stare at the last white blaze on a boulder just below the sign...stare into the cloudy abyss off the Knife's Edge. The crowd of people sure is mellow. "It's so quiet up here," I say to Smoothie with a grin on my face, "should I do it?" "I dare you," she says. Then I let out my "WAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" We run around the summit taking lots of crazy pictures. After being on the summit for five minutes, the clouds lift and the sun comes out! So we run around taking more pictures.   Mother nature WAS playing a joke on me, waiting until I'm on top of Katahdin to finally lift the veil of haze and clouds that has been hiding this peak for the last weeks. I guess I wasn't suppose to see Katahdin until we were face to face!Standing on top of Katahdin with clear views, there is so much to look at: countless lakes, distant peaks, the Knife's Edge: a narrow trail following the crest of Katahdin's ridge. Not for me in these winds! We spend about an hour at the summit, taking in the views...thinking. This is the end of the trail, the end of my journey. It hasn't sunk in, what I've done or how different my life will be now that I won't be following white blazes all day long. I'm done, now can I get a helicopter? Climbing Katahdin is the easy part, it's getting off this mountain that's the hard part. Any obstacle we were nervous about coming up is worse on the way down. Now that the clouds have lifted, we keep turning back to look at where we came from. Katahdin towers over any surrounding peaks. This really is "a mountain like no other." What an extraordinary mountain to end an extraordinary journey. The end? The end of the bugs, the relentless heat, the foot pain, the heat rashes, the days of rain, the wet gear, the mud, the overactive mice, the frozen boots, the snow-covered trails, the unwashed socks, the giardia? The end of getting lost, the sunburn, the spider bites, the blisters, the countless falls?Not the end. Just a break. This long distance hike was suppose to be my transition into "the real world" of getting a job that lasts all year, maybe even settling down and living in one spot. Well that plan certainly backfired! How was a half year of living like a wild animal suppose to prepare me for that?!   Not the end. Just part one: see-ya on the PCT!One last note: It was a perfect day minus one thing--Not a SOBO in sight. Instead of carrying a pebble from Springer to Katahdin, as the tradition goes, I've been carrying the lighter Torch passed on to me. I left the lighter in the register box at the Baxter Ranger Station with a note exclaining it's past. If someone picks it up, that will be it's fourth trip down the AT!