2174 to go!

Hallelujah, praise Jesus! I'm done!

The end of the trail has been a very emotionally confusing rollercoaster. I'm so happy to be done and had been looking forward to being done for quite a while as you might imagine. I thought taking a rest would be the best thing ever, but as it turns out I'm in some kind of walking withdrawal. That and I miss having a little book that tells me what will happen in my life.

I got to the peak of Mt Katahdin, the end of the trail, at 10 AM on August 16th. Turned out to be the worst time to summit all summer. I was well on my way to becoming a hypothermic casualty when I got to the summit due to a light rain that was being driven into me by 60 mph steady winds. The climb itself is just that a climb. There are a fair number of sections that involve hand over hand rock climbing, an activity made all the more fun if you are being power washed by mother nature. By the time I made it to the top I was a mess and not in much shape to enjoy my accomplishment. Upon my arrival I was hooting and hollering and shouting at the top of my lungs, although that was just to be heard by my friend who was 2 feet away. You can't possibly imagine how much I had thought about the moment this trip would end on my hike. I had all these different pictures I wanted to take and in no scenario was I not having a celebratory drink and a cigar. However, it was so awful up there that I didn't even drink the PBR tall boy I had hauled up. I took a couple of pictures with a friend named The Kid whom I had met the night before and hiked up there with, but then quickly retreated behind a rock to get out of the weather. Within a couple of minutes my teeth were chattering and the umbles (mumbles, stumbles, fumbles) had set in. I hadn't taken hardly any of the pics I had wanted to and my mind was solely focused on getting off the mountain and keeping my body moving so I wouldn't lose any limbs.

On my way down I was passed by a couple of friends heading up the mountain, Boundless and Achilles, who remarked on how God awful I looked. They caught up to me on the way down and we all made sure each other made it. All three of us were excited about the 5 miles we had to backtrack to get to where you hitch hike out of the park. We're all 5 miles into our southbound section hike at this point! I saw my friend b down there and said bye to Achilles and Boundless who hitchhiked out with a group of girls we had turned around half way up the mountain who were wearing tank tops with water bottles shoved into their cleavage. They didn't strike us as prepared for the conditions, and suggested a retreat just in time to get my friends to town. I was met there by my friend Lindsay who drove me all over northern Maine on a tour of some absolutely beautiful places and to Bangor the next day to catch my flight out.

The few days leading up to Mama K I had walked through the 100 mile wilderness. This is a section of the trail renowned for being difficult and long. The guide book suggests carrying 10 days worth of food. 1 out of 2 southbounders doesn't make it past the 100 mile. It's a good way to end the trail because it makes you realize how far you have come as a backpacker. For its horrible reputation I would have to say that the 100 mile wilderness had some of the easiest trail on the entire trip enabling me to walk through it in 4 days. I read a note on the first day through that said "If you think you are making it through in 8 days or less you are dumb! Nobos suck it!" I think what makes this section of trail so hard is that everybody coming through has 10 days of food in their packs. That is a lot of extra weight. Take out half of that weight and you can walk twice as fast. That is what I mean when I say how far you have come as a backpacker, because you have stopped listening to popular opinion and you just walk and you walk fast. It is also a stark contrast to meet sobos who have just started a couple days into their hikes and compare them to the nobos who are months into their trips.

It is funny thinking about walking fast these days as I sit in my living room in Ventura. I hobble down the stairs in the morning holding on to the banister for dear life as my ankles and knees crack and give out the whole way down. I weigh 16 lbs less than when I started, well 14 lbs and then I shaved my beard into a buffalo bill and it turned into 16 lbs. I sit here in my recliner and wonder how I was ever able to do that when right now walking to the store around the corner causes me so much pain. I've been having fun though drinking milk shakes, eating fresh food and changing my clothes 5 times a day. Having more than one thing to wear apparently feels really good.

Reflecting back just over a week now I don't feel like I have hiked the trail, but rather it was something I read in a book. Don't get me wrong I am physically and mentally exhausted, but I think the sentiment has something to do with the mentality needed to accomplish something like this. I had to never think about what I was doing because a realization of it, or the sight of a map would have been such a demoralizing blow I would have never finished. I think a side effect of distracting my mind from the task at hand for so long is this feeling that I didn't really do it, like it was a long novel I was really obsessed with. I suppose that is why people hike it multiple times.

We'll see if I feel any different after this next time around. Only 2174 miles to go!

-Wrong Way

Last stop!

What in the world is going on? I have had the most world wind experience in the last 24 hours, and now I'm trying to sort it all out a bit hung over in Greenville, ME. I made it to Maine!

I haven't written anything in a while because I've been cruising along at a good pace and not really spending any time in towns, not that the towns have actually had internet. New Hampshire was really pretty and lived up to the hype of folks talking about how difficult it was. I still managed a couple of 20s in the Whites just to spite those SOBOs, but they definitely took a toll on me. The trail up this way isn't so much a trail as often traveled rock slides. It just goes straight up mountains without a thought to making it easy by offering even a single switchback. The first 60 miles of Maine were so grueling and steep that there were parts I would have been wearing a rock climbing harness if I was working with kids. The ATC has a fun habit as well of warning you to avoid stream crossings and other hazzards mostly caused by bridges on the trail that are out or under construction. They will come up with rediculous detours to address these closures that take hikers miles out of the way, but the crossings are easy rock hops over creeks where bridges aren't necessary. I don't mind agencies being over cautious about things like this, but shortly after the last one of these I hit a part of the trail where I had to down climb a flipping waterfall. So dangerous, and there was no other option for getting around. I didn't realize it was the trail at first and was so confused as to where the trail could possibly go.

I met a friend I've been hiking with for the last couple weeks named lower case b. We met at the start of the Whites and he was planning on summiting the day after I on Katahdin so he helped me keep pace and shared in the hardships. He lives on the North Side of Pittsburgh, and has a brother who lives in Goleta, CA whose ex wife is a bartender at the Old Town Tavern, my favorite watering hole in Santa Barbara county. The world is small. He has been a pleasure to walk with, but is taking a zero here in town today while I press on to finish on Monday.

Things have been so rough up here that everything seems to be falling apart. My water bladder was the first thing to go, so now I have a gatorade bottle with a hose running in through the cap instead of that. My shirt then wore through in several spots on my back and I'm sure I will lose the left sleeve by the time I'm done. The other day the tip of b's trekking pole fell off, then the next day his other tip fell off, then the next day one of mine fell off. Not good advertising for Black Diamond whose trekking poles seem to have a 1900 mile limit. I myself look a little tattered as I have not showered since Ally left 4 weeks ago, and am so tired from trying to maintain my pace through the mountains that I quit several times a day. There is never a road when I quit, so I just keep going. Because of this I think I am the fastest section hiker to have done the trail. Maine at the start was so rough that b and I turned Maine into a curse word that we shout when we slip or fall or step into giant mud bogs.

Last night we were coming to the road crossing to get into town to buy some groceries. b always hikes ahead of me cause he is really fast and as I get to the road I here all this commotion and people talking about Stillers. He had run into a family who were out hiking for the day. They were from Pittsburgh and up in the area to support their son who is hiking the trail and will finish on Friday. They gave us some sodas and drove us to town very excited about meeting us feeding us all this food in acramped car they stuffed us into with our packs on our laps and they jsut kept throwing food at us. They drove us to town and I wanted to go to the outfitter to get fuel. We get in there and the grandmother is running around with the shop employee walking all over the place and I can't get any fuel cause she keeps talking to him and then all of the sudden she is behind the counter and the rest of the family keeps talking to b and I. I finally get some fuel and head outside where the family continues to talk to us and distract us when all of the sudden the grandmother comes out of the shop with 2 brand new pairs of Leki Makalu trekking poles and gives them to us! b and I just stood there stunned, these are $140 a set. I still can't believe it. So we took some pictures and they left us sitting on the sidewalk with 8 poles between the two of us. Unreal. The funny thing was that while the grandmother was running around I was talking to the aunt about the generosity of people on the trail and how humbling that is. Epic trail magic! b and I then went and celebrated at the Black Frog bar and then went and slept on the public dock here on Moosehead lake. Still haven't bought groceries.

This will be my last food buy and my last entry from the trail. I have 114 miles left to go and enter into the 100 mile wilderness today where I am really hoping there are no computers. If all goes according to plan I will be out on Monday the 16th having completed my journey. I have nop idea what I will do after that as my guide book stops there. I will miss having a book that tells you what your days ahead are going to be like. Hope all is well and spread the trail magic!

-Wrong Way