MAINE! The Final Stretch and The End?

Updates from the Mountains

Episode #15: The Final Stretch and… The End?

DK’s 14-day plan was a success

Warning: this one’s probably gonna be a little bit long bc now I’m at home and can sit and type as much as I want hehehehehehe pls help I’m already bored and I don’t want to clean my gear it smells really bad

My parents decided my summit date for me. I’m an annoying daughter and kept responding with “I don’t know. I can’t tell” whenever my parents would call and ask what day I thought I’d be done so they could fly up to meet me. So finally my mom texted me and said it looked like Eitan and I could be done by August 13th and she would be booking flights to be there on that day.

It was July 31st. Welp… guess I have to plan out how I can get to Katahdin by August 13th. I sat in my tent that night and came up with a 14-day plan complete with how many miles we would do, where we would stay, and where we would resupply. And then the grind was on. (I say grind, but really we took two nearos and a zero… so it was actually pretty chill)

But the plan could not predict what would happen during those 14 days. And as usual, it was an adventure. Here’s what the last two weeks of the trail were like:

I wish I could fully refer to my journal entries in my phone for this, but unfortunately I got really lazy (read: tired) with my journals and there are many days missing. So I’ll do my best to recall what happened…

The night I made my 14-day plan was the day I mentioned in my last email where I had run back into some trial friends from earlier on: Marathon, Chappy, Red Maple, and Hawaii. It was a lovely little reunion. But it almost didn’t happen. We stopped early that day bc I’m a weenie and got really tired and refused to hike any further despite the fact that there had been little elevation change that day, so it should have been an “easy” day. I’m brining this day up again becuase it was the start of frequently seeing and hanging out with trail friends again, which continued for pretty much the rest of the trail.

I wrote my last email from the Maine Roadhouse, a very popular hostel with some delicious breakfast. It was Eitan’s birthday and we just stayed over night, but the next morning Eitan, Chappy, Hawaii, Red Maple, and I decided to take a “half day” where we didn’t get back on trail until almsot 1pm. The five of us made our way up the last 4,000ft mountain of the trail before Katahdin - the Bigelows. It was gorgeous. And so fun to be hiking with friends :) That night we all squeezed our tents into a less-than-ideal campsite and had a lovely late night dinner.

The next morning I headed off by myself. As I’ve mentioned before, I love hiking by myself. Over the course of the trail I had a lot of time to not only discover that I enjoy hiking alone and hanging out with firends at camp, but also to reflect on why I feel that way. Since this is a newsletter email and not a therapy session, I won’t go into all of that, but my point is that 1) self-reflection is good and 2) I tried to spend a good part of the remainder of the trail hiking by myself when I could, even when there were friends around.

The next night the group I was with all stopped at the same shelter (Pierce Pond Shelter) and met up with even more trail friends, including Marathon and Rabbit. The shelter is (aptly) pond-side, so it’s quite popular and offers a nice spot for a dip. Being popular, including with weekenders, there were few good tent spots remaining, so I had to set up my tent in a less-than-ideal spot (again. life is hard. so much adversity camping next to a pond in Maine along the AT with friends…). Being a nice spot for a dip, I jumped (literally, and did a flip) into the pond after dinner with Chappy, Hawaii, and Red Maple. Fun! Scenic! Surprisingly warm! Refreshing! The other great thing about Pierce Pond Shelter is that it’s 0.2 miles away from a hunting camp cabin where a man lives who makes pancake breakfasts for hikers every day. So the next morning I headed out with a big group of thru-hikers to this cabin to eat a scrumptious breakfast of coffee and OJ and eggs and twelve (12!) pancakes. Did I have to ford a river at 6am to get there? yep. Gooooood morning. Feeling full, we all trickled out and down the trail towards the Kennebec River.

What’s cool about the Kennebec River? It’s a mandatory ferried canoe crossing. You have to have someone ferry you across the river in a canoe. Amazing. Across the river we had only 4 miles to go before getting picked up by a hostel. There was a quite a large group of hikers getting picked up there because the hostel offers free shuttles, showers, and laundry (quite the rarity), and supposedly has the best on-site resupply on trail (it was, in fact, a great resupply). I felt super lightheaded and gross for those four miles. So when we got to the hostel (long story short) Eitan and I decided to stay for the night instead of hike on. That meant saying goodbye to Chappy, Hawaii, and Red Maple as they continued on with the goal of summitting Katahdin on August 11th. It was a sad moment :( But while we stayed there, two more trail friends showed up- Speedboat (who we met in the Whites) and Salamander (who we met in New Jersey?). After two naps, a good night sleep (not on a deflating sleeping pad), and some ice cream, I was feeling a lot better by the next morning and Eitan and I set out again on the trail. But only for two more days until we got to the next hostel. Yes, we basically hostel-hopped through Maine.

Blah blah hiking hiking mountains lots of roots and rocks and roots and roots and uphill and OOH AHH pretty views of lakes and mountains and yayyyyy Maine is so so pretty! No meese. Poor sleep. YAY friends at the next shelter! We stayed at Weenie Hut Jr. one day (hiding in a shelter for an hour while a storm passed by). I poorly predicted the overnight forecast one night and it ended up absolutely dumping rain and flashing lightning and didn’t live that down. Hiking hiking talking about what we’re gonna do when we go home looking for meese. no meese.

YAY we made it to Monson! Monson is the last town along the AT heading north and is home to one of the most famous hostels: Shaw’s. Eitan and I walked 18 miles before 3pm to get to Shaw’s, where we had arguably one of the best hostel stays. So many of our friends were there (and planning on taking a zero)! The vibes were amazing; there were music instruments in the common room where a bunch of us gathered. People were playing guitar and piano and singing songs and hanging out and laughing and reading and eating and living. It was a wonderful community feel. Staying at Shaw’s with friends and friendly strangers felt like a revival of the feeling I had in the beginning of the trail where the thru-hiker community was tight-knit, jovial, silly, and genuinely kind group of people. More hikers I hadn’t seen in a while as well as ones I had met jsut a few days before showed up, too, including Quirk, Boom(er), Smiley, Boom Box, Pacer, Scropion Queen, and Slow Roller. Everyone was in high spirits as we prepared for the true final stretch of the trail: the Hundred Mile Wilderness (HMW).

The negative side of my Shaw’s stay was the sleeping pad repair failure and the amount of money I spent there. Yes, I spent almost my entire zero day trying to repair my impressively leaky sleeping pad. I did not want to but a new one. Inflate it. Spray it with soapy water to look for leaks. Deflate it. Patch leak. Reinflate it. wait. Deflates on its own. Reinflate. Spray. Search for leaks. Another leak?? Patch it. Reinflate. Deflates again. Spray again. Search for leaks. THREE MORE LEAKS SHOW UP. I accept defeat. My sleeping pad has died. RIP Sea to Summit Etherlite sleeping pad. You served me well. I slept on you in 19 different states over the past 2 years. You will be missed greatly. And then I had to buy a new sleeping pad with only a week left in my hike.

I also spent money on a “food drop” through Shaw’s. Going throught the HMW means just under 100 miles of hiking with no resupply points or easy access into towns, foloowed directly by two days in Baxter State Park. You can either carry ALL the food you’ll need for pretty much the entire rest of the trail, or you can pay Shaw’s to drop a bucket off for you 2/3 of the way thorugh the HMW. Since I didn’t want to (nor do I think I could have) carry 7 days worth of food with me, Eitan and I decided to split to cost of a bucket drop. We would put the last two days of our trail food in a bucket and pick it up for the end of the trail, where the trail flattens out and gets “super easy”. And you better believe I took advantage of not having to carry my last two days of food with me over any mountains. What did I put in the bucket? Only the essentials. Things that would be impractical to carry on a thru-hike otherwise: Go Go Squeez. Marshmellows. Jelly beans. A can of Spaghetti-Os. And otehr food thatactually has some nutritional value.

Okay so YAY we entered the Hundred Mile Wilderness! The sign as you enter warns you to bring a minimum of 10 days worth of food ot get you through the 100 miles. Eitan and I planned on it taking us 5 days. So with three days of food in my pack, I sauntered into the wilderness. The HMW was amazing. So pretty. So many ponds and lakes and river crossings (fords) and relatively long stretches of flat trail!! Plus it smelled like balsam and pine, which is mmmmmmmmmmm. There were only two mountain “ranges” with pretty easy climbs. There were also a surprising number of weekenders and section hikers. That was all fun until the remnants of a hurricane came through.

The night before, we met a super fast hiker, Yard Sale, (he had already hiked the AT 3 times, and has completed the PCT and the CDT) who started on JUNE 6th!! and was planning on finishing in 3 days (we were 80 miles from Katahdin). I bring him up because 1) that’s literally crazy, 2) he ate “ramen, cold soaked in the bag” for dinner, which I beleive is a noteworthy crazy ultra-light thing to do, and 3) he was one of the only people I saw hiking the next day during the hurricane. The morning started out great. I actually really enjoy hiking in misty conditions, especially when it’s cool outside and I can wear my rain jacket without sweating bullets. But as the day went on, the reain got gradually heavier until everything was soaking through. I walked up the last mountain before Katahdin while talking to Yard Sale, but as we approached the exposed peak, he disappeared and ran down the mountain. I can’t blame him. The summit was above treeline and the rain was blowing sideways. Needless to say it was miserable. I couldn’t see thorugh my glasses and I was getting cold so I shuffled my way down under treeline as quickly as possible. And from there I continued ot get soaked. The rain kept coming down and everything was wet. My rain jacket and rain cover for my pack soaked through. My shorts, underwear, shoes, and socks were all soaked, too. It was windy and cold. That meant I hiked fast with the thought of getting to a shelter, drying off, and changing my clothes in mind. Eitan and I hiked 20 miles and got to the shelter very early; 3:30pm. And it was already full AND there were already 4 people setting up tents nearby. Yep. I saw oneor two other people hiking that direction all day, but when we showed up in the middle of the afternoon suddenly a bunch of people appeared. Overly upset by this, I set up my tent in a spot I hoepd wouldn’t flood over night. And as I took everything out of my pack I found out that my sleeping bag had gotten wet. Great. The footbox was compltetly soaked. I couldn’t even be warm and dry in my tent. Luckily my fleece was dry, though, so I put that on and tried to cozy up in my tent hiding from the rain.

Overnight it rained even harder. And the wind gusted. There were some fallen branches in the middle of the night and no one slept well. One guy’s tent even flooded. In the morning, one of the other hikers I knew told me it was quite possibly her worst night on trail. But we were all releived to learn that the rain was over and the next two days were warm and sunny. Good thing because it allowed me to dry out my clothes and sleeping bag during lunch. We all only had a few more days left on the AT.

Those last few days were cruisyyyyyy. The trail in Maine is covered in big tree roots, awkward sized boulders, and other tripping hazards. But much of the last 50 miles of trail are flat in terms of elevation change. Big mile days were easy and scenic. As I reached the end of the HMW I started feeling all the emotions. I was so at peace as I hiked with an easy, quick gate. I was excited about reaching the end of the trail and approaching Baxter State Park. I was grateful for the better weather and the other hikers I had been spedning time around recently. But I was also feeling eager to go home yet sad that my dirtbag lifestyle for the past 5 months would suddenly end and things would go back ot “normal”. And that’s a shockingly difficult thing to accept. Hiking gave me time to reflect on, well… hiking. The next two days would just be a victory lap. And so it was.

I entered Baxter State Park on August 11th with a bunch of other hikers I had met anywhere from earlier that week or months ago. We went to the campstore to get snacks and ice cream and oohed and ahed at the view of Katahdin by the lake. A small group of us set up our tents in a small group at the Abol Pines Campground, then the larger group reconveined early the next morning at the ranger station kiosk to “fight over” (there was no fighting involved) spots at The Birches, a NOBO long-distance-hiker-only camping area at the base of Katahdin. After securing our spots, we walked a mile back to the campstore for a quick breakfast (ofc I got some cheap coffee) before heading towards the Birches. It was a 10-mile “hike” (more like a walk) from Abol Bridge to The Birches. It was sooooooo flat and smooth and chill omg. Which meant all of us thru-hikers were having a slow, lazy day to get there. That included stopping at waterfalls and having lunch at a lakeside library/cabin. What did I have for lunch there? A day-old lobster roll given to me by another thru-hiker whose mom had brought him and his friends too much food the night before. I did not die from eating it and it was delicious. Then a bunch of us took some canoes out on the lake with an amazing view of Katahdin. After having a properly lazy and excessively long lunch break, Eitan and I walked the last 2.5 miles to camp. We got our AT thru-hiker Katahdin permits (yayyy!) and set up in one of the lean-tos at the Birches. Both Eitan’s parents and my parents had seperately arrived at the campsite to visit us before our last day on the AT.

That night the ranger gave all the thru-hikers how climbing Katahdin, decending the mountain, and leaving Baxter would go as we roasted marshmellows and ate dinner. What did I have for dinner my last night on trail? A can a Spaghetti-Os, cold pizza, and a couple of s’mores. mmMMMmm. Gourmet. Sitting around a campfire with a group of 11 other thru-hikers talking and laughing was a great way to spend my last night on trail.

On August 13th, Eitan and I climbed Katahdin. And it was pretty much a perfect day. Out of camp by 6:22 and carrying only daypacks with only “the essentials”, we began our ascent. Climbing Katahdin was so so fun. OMG. We could not have asked for better weather. Half of the acent was a huge rock scramble with borderline bouldering. It was LIT. Amazing. So fun. Fantastic views, invigorating gusts of wind, and clear skies. Touch rock. Go up. Alpine zone. Excitement and energy. I think it was my favorite part of the trail. As we approached the top, we ran into some other hikers we knew on their way back down and we all exchnaged enthusiastic congratulations. When we reached the iconic summit sign I felt such a large range of emotions that I can’t even describe. (“I can’t really explain it; I haven’t got the words”.) The closest thing I can say is relief and pride. WE HAD COMPLETED A THRU-HIKE OF THE ENTIRE APPALACHIAN TRAIL!

Eitan and I took our pictures with the sign then sat on some rocks nearby. Eitan opened a gift for us his mom had placed in his daypack: two medals with our names engraved in the back and some Kilwins fudge. WHAT!? So we adorned ourselves in the medals for some more photos then indulged in some snacks. I had a Go Go Squeez at the summit becuase it only seemd right. (Go Go Squeez pls sponsor me). Then we had to make a decision about which way to go down the mountain. Because the weather was so perfect that morning, we decided to take the “Knife Edge”- a trail that follows the narrow alpine ridge of Katahdin from Baxter peak (where the northern terminus of the AT is) to Pamola Peak. The trail is extremely exposed and can be very dangerous in bad weather. So we took the rare opportunity. It was AWESOME. Admittedly a little scary and difficult, but so so fun. It was the perfect little “victory lap”. More amazing views and touching rocks and even some vertical trail. AAHHHHH it was so cool!!! The descent from there was a bit rough. My knees didn’t love it and it felt like the longest 3.2 miles in the world, but we eventually made it down where our parents were waiting to see us!! No better way to end a thru-hike than with hugs from your parents and some fresh fruit.

So there you have it. I’m now officially an AT thru-hiker. I seriously can’t believe it. I hiked 2,197.4 miles from Springer Mountain, GA to Katahdin, ME. And I had a perfect summit day. I’ll save all the reflections, summaries, and emotional stuff for a later email after I spedn time processing everything. In the meantime, I want to give yet another huge thank you to everyone who has been following along, supporting me, or was a part of my hike in any way. Thru-hiking may be a very personal experience, but it cannot be done alone. You’re all amazing. Time to sit on the couch until my knees and feet can function again.