Date: 2016-07-18
From: AT Lodge

To: none
Miles today: 0.0

Sitting out my second day in a row waiting for good weather to climb Katahdin. It is Monday afternoon and the latest crop of climbers are trickling in. They did the same thing yesterday. That in itself is not irritating to me. Some of them have scheduling issues and needed to take the chance of being caught in bad weather up there. Some are just naive about being up there in rain and possibly lightning. Some were just mislead that nothing can go wrong. It did rain at times here and on the mountain both days. Undoubtably some hikers had a weather experience. I know one couple, who didn't really look like hikers, who quit 1.5 mile from the summit and blew it off. But those stories were few. I am guessing most that climbed the last three days made the summit. Around 4pm I left my room and who did u meet in the hallway? Wolfman the yellow blazer. By now he knows me also and believe me we are not friends. His first words are "oh you again", followed by announcing that he just finished his hike (summited). I felt some social pressure to say congratulations but squelched it in my throat. I also squelched my second thought which was, you completed what? Another day hike that you are making believe was part of walking the AT? Luckily I said nothing and he returned to the bunkhouse without further comment. I don't expect to see him again. Nor his partner Meek who hasn't been around for a while. Then I realized what had happened. The person I was most annoyed at, for maybe insufficient reasons, was within one day of standing on top the mountain with me acting the part of a thru hiker, or at least a complete AT hiker. I am so happy that didn't happen. I don't know who I might see up there tomorrow. Maybe no one if life follows the pattern of my hike so far. I may have to take a selfie of me and the plaque. Better than celebrating with someone I know cheated. Let's define cheating again, just for the sake of clarity. There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with skipping any parts of the trail, as long as you don't then still claim to have hiked the whole thing. Claiming completion is where cheating enters the picture and I have recently met more people than I thought that cheat and just ignore it. The couple that didn't make the summit say that they did the mountain. They are not coming back. This morning I had breakfast at the AT Cafe. They have a cool feature where they have AT completors sign a ceiling tile. The ceiling is covered with many years worth. The current tile is on the ground for new signatures to be added. I happened to see one signature which included a sergeants emblem and the name Brent. This was the guy who was yellow blazing way back in Connecticut when I stayed at Vanessa's. It bothered me. Why. Why do I care about this evidently purist feature and not any if the others? Walking the wrong way, slack packing, using shuttles, taking zeros, etc. They are all frowned in by some purists. But walking the trail seems to be fundamental. If not, how much can you skip and still be a thru hiker? One girl told me the AT patch was only fir 2000 miles. That means you could skip Katahdin, the 100 mile wilderness and the entire White Mountains. Quite an omission. I don't buy it. Every mile of this trail took effort and took its toll on the body. I now am aware that I probably could not have managed a thru hike. Doing it in three years was probably my limit. But, after tomorrow I hope to have really done it.