Day 189: Katahdin

A perfect day.

We Left our packs at the ranger station and went up slack pack style. Our first off road slackpacked of the whole journey . It felt weird slacking. But by the time we.started up the long rocky scramble we were glad. Super long super steep super.fun. easily.my new favorite section of trail.

We saw the mooners.on the  way up. They had lots of trouble with getting into the 100 mile wilderness and had to skip it. It sounds like that may be the case for a lot of people behind us.

We also saw lumberjack and cheeks at tje trail head.

The climb up.katahdin is amazing. First a nice cruise through the woods past waterfalls. Then the real. Climbing comes up. All of a sudden you find yourself above treeline. The mouthing surrounding katahdin are sharp and even more dramatic in their profile amd ruggedness than the whites. Sharp peaks and steep rock slides everywhere. Good thing the sadist who.made.the trail didn't have us come from the west over all those other peaks. One katahdin is just fine with me.

Above treeline the climbing gets even more technical and exposed. But there are only a few sections with rebar. Weirdly some of the rebar are not handles.but instead hooks. Looks like.you could snag a scrotum on some. It'll make.for a.scary descent.

The climb is Soo steep and then you just suddenyl.top out and boom you are.on the table lands. A flat.treeles rocky alpine zone for the next 2 miles as you reach the summit at Baxter peak. The katahdin sign is clearly.visible but still.so small.

And then we were there. Without any fanfare or final.physical.challenge you just get to walk up amd.touch the sign. Becca amd I held.hands and finished together.

Magic.

We ate lunch with lumberjack and cheeks. They prepared to descend the knife's edge. We just went back down the at. Maybe next time we are here well do the knife's edge. Ha.

On the way down, at the aforementioned scrotal hook, there was a pile of blood. Wtf?

We made the descent celebrating our lightnesd md dancing practically die to the lack of giant backpacks making every step and painful knee jarring crash. Becca was sliding down rocks like a kid in a playground. It was the best down yet.

As Becca predicted, don't ask me how she did this TMI was at the ranger station sig ING up for the birches. Holy hell I can't believe she knew.tmi.would be right behind.us.

We.got a ride into millinocket with a very nice couple who we had traded photographer duties with at the summit.

Dropped.off at the katahdin inn, we made.our way to the room, showered, got beer and pizza, then spent some time relaxing in the hot tub. Like I said, a perfect day.

Day 188: In the Shadow of katahdin

We had just 3.5 miles to get out of the wilderness and to the Abol brushes store.

Abol store slim pickins due to it being so late in the season. The Restaurant was even closed. So instead we had a Junk food feast. 6 pack pbr amd bag of doritos and supplies for tonight.

On to trail. Just 13 miles today. Couple fords. Then we got to the katahdin stream campground. There we Saw east and Mezla on the way  down from their summit. Congratulations! They started the same day as we did.

Birches is  our thru hiker ghetto and our paradise. We are Alone again. Just like day 0 at amicalola.

Wlthe weather is looking perfect for our summit day. It feels.like the night before the first day of school. So just like in those days we popped a couple benadryls.in order to ensure sleep.

Day 187: the incredible shrinking mountain

14 miles away, 36 trail miles to go. The increasing number of katahdin sightings are great, but sometimes it seems farther away due to the winding around that we are doing. Just all over the place up here in order to go around lakes and follow the rivers. This place feels very wild despite the knowledge that humans touch everything. Sounds of logging trucks amd chainsaws amd airplanes. Here and there we escape that, but only temporarily.

Day 186: Hiking Thru

There seem to be very few purists left on the trail. Today we saw the family going south with kazooie.  Some kids we saw on rain day had yellow blazed 30 miles with miss j amd.skipped white cap. At least.mesla and east are a day ahead and still pointing north, we hope.

Another beautiful cold day. Ok fords. Becca went ovwr one on a log. It was.ninja.

Katahdin looms larger every time we get a peak. It's massive. The excitement builds.

Day 185: The price of blue skies

Sooo cold. That north wind really brought us the crisp air. But at least the skies are blue and the rain is gone.

Started the day with a pleasant downhill through an amazing land of boulders and moss.

Then we got to our first real ford. The east branch of the pleasant river. It was raging through a narrow chute ate the crossing but just down stream it mellowed out but looked deeper. Maybe waist deep. Not sure so I shirtcocked it. I found an ok path over rocks but nearly fell.in between them.into pretty deep holes. But we made it.

Then it es the flat land. Trying to cruise and get big miles. Maybe will see miss j at her bbq.

More ford's only knee deep or ankle.

At 5ish got to jo mary. Saw the bounce box van! But sadly there was No bbq. Rain had made her cancel the trail bbq and instead do it in monson. Oh well. She gave us consolation muffins.

Good news too. The Hurricane is ptobably not gonna hit maine. We may get to go right on up katahdin. Yeehaw!

Day 184: Lucky us

Woke up to check ford. The Water level is maybe even higher than yesterday even though rain stopped around 6pm. So the mountains are draining.

Went to check out parking lot to see about ride into town.

Pringles was there. He had a maine gazateer in the car amd we found a route across the river on logging roads. I love state gazateers. Always carry one in your car when adventuring.

He Said we can scout the bridge. It Looks good so we come back and rush packing up so he can start his hike amd still take.us down the road. he takes us over bridge. When he leaves we see a huge puddle.of gas. We tried but failed to run after him to let him know of his situation.He punctured his tank driving us so we feel awful. Sent him a message. We feel awful.

Walk down road for another 5 miles and we should reach the other side.of the ford. Not five minutes.of walking passes when a Truck rolls up. It was some Hunters checking out the back roads. Dad and old man. Offer to explore with us. They ended up dropping us off with just over a mile to go. So much time saved. How lucky are we to encounter 2 hitches in the middle.of the 100 mile wilderness. Maybe it.aint so wild afterall.

Into the woods. Muddy wet climbs all day to get over the white cap range. I wore my Sealskinz for the first time this trip amd they rock. Becca's feet are soaked. Get to first shelter .push on over the white caps.

Pushed all through whitecaps. Amazing. Ar the top.of the main peak we could clearly see katahdin. There was a Super cold wind biting North wimd as we descended the open summit. It was strong enough to throw us off balance on the rocks. But then magic happened. Nearly all the. Way down the matc had.installed stone steps. Its Like thematc rolled out red carpet for us nobos. They have sent a messgae. Dear nobos. Congratulations for getting up amd down all these mountains, let us make this penultimate descent an easy one for you. We feel lucky. Hopefully the ford across the east branch of the pleasant river is ok tomorrow.

Day 183: rain out zero

Wow. It rained a lot. Rained all night and hard. We woke up to thunderous water. The creek we are camped by joims the river just 50ft from our tent. The tiny creek is a raging chute of eatwr now. And if that was crazy, the river was worse. No way we can ford. It was shin deep yesterday. Its at least a thigh deep white water splashing rushing death trap now.

Maybe it will go down tomorrow. We should have forded yesterday. We are stuck for now. We are choosing to zero. Although due to our food situation, we only ate some trail mix amd Ramen today. But since we were on our backs all day this amount should be ok.

I kinda panicked. I think the river won't go down for days and I am afraid we are going to have to either backtrack to monson or hope that there are cars on the nearby logging roads. Wilderness though? Fingers crossed.