Date: 2013-09-30
From: Katahdin Stream Campground

To: Katahdin
Miles today: 5.1
Weather: clear sky

Day Two Hundred and Six - (5.1) KatahdinI was so excited that even though I was totally exhausted last night I could hardly sleep and spent hours awake in bed. When it was finally an acceptable hour to get up I was up and ready in minutes! We had breakfast at McDonalds and headed straight for The Appalachian Trail Lodge where Ole Man was ready for us. We piled into a big van and left for Baxter State Park. The ride was awful and Canadian Bacon and I were both nauseous from all the windy roads but an hour later we were dropped off at the ranger station at Katahdin Streams Campground in the park and it didn't matter that we had spent the past hour trying to keep our breakfast down. It was a perfect sunny day with clear skies and we were at the base of Katahdin! We hiked out following the white blazes for one more day and found ourselves following the stream. It started out flat and then very gradually went up. There were sections where the footpath was perfect like the trail in Virginia and then there were sections where we climbed up rock stairs. I joked about Katahdin having a section of trail from each state and ended up being surprised by how true that statement turned out to be but in general I was just so surprised by how easy Katahdin was to climb! For years I had imagined it as the the mountain that I would have to hike the whole trail to practice for and who knows it was certainly more difficult than Springer Mountain the first mountain way back in Georgia but I found it easy and enjoyable! We stopped for a snack break at 9am and basically said we would meet up at the top and everyone went their own pace from there on. Michael and I managed to keep up with Canadian Bacon and Zenmaster until close to the top but slowed when we came to The Gateway/The Tableland. It's a flatter totally exposed area near the top but it had smaller rocks to maneuver over. From there I could hear the group of hikers cheering at the top and it was frustrating to still be a mile away. I broke away from Michael and sped to the top. As I got closer I could hear the cheering again and could only assume that Canadian Bacon and Zenmaster had made it! I sped up some more and was soon approaching the top! Everyone started cheering and shouting my trailname as I summited and raced over to touch the famous Katahdin sign! I did it! I made it all the way from Georgia and there was a huge group of hikers up top to celebrate with! It's funny throughout the hike the National Geographic Appalachian Trail documentary has been a topic for discussion on many occasions, joking about what it forgot to tell us or what it got totally wrong but the summiting scene at Katahdin with a group of friends celebrating each others success was exactly dead on! Of course there were other day hikers up there too wondering why some hikers were getting cheered on as they approached the sign and if we were all one big group. They couldn't believe that this many people had individually started in Georgia and made their way here. And they were right to wonder and be amazed, it was pretty incredible! Michael arrived at the top and after watching Pro Tip do a headstand on top of the Katahdin sign and several other thru hikers pose in every way they could think of it was our turn for a picture. We climbed the sign and as Canadian Bacon started snapping pictures Michael asked me to marry him! I had no idea that was coming and I think the first thing I said was "really" but I soon recovered and said yes! Wow! What a day! After taking even more pictures we ate lunch up top and drank the celebratory drinks we had brought and then Lionel arrived at the top. The other thru hikers helped us cheer him on as he arrived and soon he was doing a headstand in front of the sign! It was great but we still had a schedule to keep because we were being shuttled and had to start heading back down the mountain. Most of the thru hikers up there with us decided to take The Knife's Edge Trail down but we didn't have that much time and just took the AT back down. Lionel decided to take an even shorter route down called the Abol Slide. It was too bad that we had felt rushed to get off of Katahdin because when we got to the bottom the ranger called for our shuttle and we ended up waiting for him. The ride back was interesting Ole Man told us the history of the area and talked about the struggles a town has when the only major employer closes its doors. When we arrived back at the Lodge and went to pay him he refused to take our money and just said "It's trail magic!" Thank you so much Ole Man! This journey has been so incredible in so many ways and all of the trail magic from total strangers has just been so unbelievable! Later after getting cleaned up we had dinner and Lionel paid the bill saying again saying "trail magic!" And there again is another incredible thing about the trail, I met Lionel in Virginia when he was doing a section of the trail. He was just a fellow hiker who offered help when we got to his neck of the woods in New York. We got to know him and his wife when they took us in during the heat wave and now he drove all the way up here to finish with us! I have made some great new friends along the way! I am sure I will add another post or two when I get home but right now there are a few bottles that need to be emptied before its time for sleep. Good night world!Trouble