Date: 2012-10-06
From: The End of The Trail

To: The End of The Trail
Miles today: 42.0

After spending the night in Gorham, I caught a shuttle back to Grafton Notch and headed South again up Old Speck Mountain. It was a long, but not too steep uphill, made worse by the constant dampness of late. It hasn¢t been a hard rain, but no sun either to dry out the trail. There was some good news when the clouds parted enough. The trip down the Mahoosuc Arm on the other side of Old Speck Mountain, was at times treacherous and slick but since today was scheduled to be a short mileage day, I took my time, resting by a stream near the bottom of the Mahoosuc Arm.I camped at a nice campsite just before the infamous Mahoosuc Notch. The next day I hiked through the notch. It actually was a lot of fun but I still felt compelled to go slow as I wanted to be safe and enjoy it. It is a mile-long jumble of large boulders that are car-size up to bus-size, all piled on top of each other. At times, you have to crawl through with your pack off, through caves under the rocks. Other times you had to go over the boulders, scrambling on all fours, and other times you had to jump from boulder to boulder, in search for the occasional poorly marked trail. It was very interesting and challenging to get through the notch. There was constant sound of running water in the river that is buried beneath the boulders. Anything that you might have dropped into a crevice was lost forever for sure. The mud was, of course, everywhere and made things slick and dangerous. I did enjoy the difficulty and variety of the notch.Afterwards, I just kept grinding out the miles, crossing back into New Hampshire for the final leg of my journey. Finally, a day full of sunshine to escort me joyously to the gondola on Wildcat Mountain. It was a day to dry out. I wore my headlight on Friday night since Friday was such a good day weather-wise, and I wanted to make sure I positioned myself so I could finish this hike on Saturday. I hiked until about 11:00 at night with the headlight on and then pitched my tent and got up early Saturday so I could continue pushing on to the final part of my hike. I arrived on Saturday, the sixth of October to complete my through hike of the Appalachian Trail, standing at the very spot I got on the gondola and went home about five and a half weeks ago. I had returned three and a half weeks ago to climb Mount Katahdin and then headed South bound to finish my hike today, all alone, at a gondola that was not running!!! I had assumed it would be running and I could ride it down but it was not running and I was the only person around. Very anti-climactic as far as ending your hike on Mount Katahdin but it was fine for me. I was sure it would be running but fortune smiled on me and I caught a ride down on a service road as a maintenance man was leaving for the day. That beats having to walk down off the mountain. Thus my through hike was finished as the rain started. No fanfare, and no fireworks to celebrate the occasion but also no less meaningful to me. My personal journey, my personal victory. It was a tearful moment filled with introspection and covered with joy.I hitched back to Gorham, where I¢m going to spend the night in a bed, and tomorrow will leave early to drive to Rhode Island to have breakfast with a couple of my friends, Bev and Linda. End of my through hike.