Date: 2014-09-18
From: Mount Katahdin

To: Roaring Brook campground
Miles today: 0.0

My Katahdin adventure continued: Continuing with yesterdays story since the day was too fun-filled to post in one entry. After spending some time on the summit and looking at the Knife's Edge I finally talked myself into continuing on. Knife's Edge looks incredibly scary. While it isn't as bad as I initially imagined it would be, there are still some sections that could win you a very expensive helicopter ride out of Baxter State Park. Taking an hour and forty five minutes to compete it, it is easily the slowest mile I have ever done. There was alot of hand over hand climbing, balancing, and sections were I was so afraid of falling I ended up crawling on my hands and knees or hugging myself tight against the rocky walls. Toward the end I ran into Moneymaker, Dallas, and Moneymaker's father. I followed them the remainder of the way to Pamola Peak and was super glad to have some help near the Chimney! (These awesome folks along with Moneymaker's support team gave me trail magic soda and poptarts at Abol Bridge. Thank you!!) By the time I made it to Pamola Peak my body was exhausted and I was feeling exhilarated. I rushed down the Helen Taylor Trail praying DoubleR would still be there. When I finally made it to Roaring Brook a ranger noticed me pacing the parking lot and searching the hiker registers and asked who I was looking for. Interestingly enough when I described DoubleR and Turtle he knew who I was looking for and directed me over to where they were sitting waiting for our ride. This is where things get more interesting. Pay attention. DoubleR's nephew and some friends were originally supposed to show up at Katahdin Streams to summit with him. When they didn't show up DoubleR had climbed up by himself. When plans went wrong because the second pick up truck (one was supposed to be at Roaring Brook, the other Katahdin Streams) contained wood from outside of the park so they couldn't park it in BSP. They found a parking lot for the truck and then went to Roaring Brook and climbed up to the summit from a different trail. DoubleR had left the summit before they arrived because it was too cold to wait and texted them to tell them he would be waiting at Roaring Brook. DoubleR was hanging out near his nephew's truck when he was questions by a ranger. After telling him who he was waiting for the ranger again suspiciously knew exactly who he was talking about and told DoubleR when they had left and when they were expected to return. Well, the trail they took was challenging so it took them longer to complete it and they didn't roll into the parking lot until approximately 8pm, two hours later than expected. We still needed to get our actual packs from the ranger's office at Katahdin Streams so we were going to go back to the second truck so DoubleR's friends could started heading to the camp and we could get our packs. When we got to the parking lot we find a ranger's truck and the other pick up truck is no where to be seen!! We find out that they had some how parked in a helicopter landing zone. They had to hover the helicopter over the zone and wait to tow the truck so it wouldn't be damaged! What luck!! They knew who the truck belonged to and were keeping tabs on where he was so they could tell him what happened. So in order to get the other truck back the ranger offered to frive DoubleR, Turtle, and myself to the ranger's office while DoubleR's nephew brought his friend to go get the pick up truck. What a cold 80 minute round trip that was on the back of the pick up truck. On our ride back to the helicopter landing zone where the ranger was going to drop us off so we could wait for DoubleR's nephew to come back we were discussing how we were going to get in our sleeping bags to wait to warm up or even better, how wonderful it would be if his nephew was waiting for us but how unlikely it would be. The ranger came to a quick stop to meet with another truck within a few minutes of our conversation.. and who is it? His nephew! What awesome timing! So finally around 1130pm we ALL arrived safely at DoubleR's friend's camp for the night. What an adventure. The story does it no justice. Needless to say the next day I zero'd with everyone at the camp. I most certainly enjoyed my time at the camp and I got to pick Champ up today (9/18)!! Thanks again to everyone for their help and hospitality!