Saturday - Tuesday
July 20 - 23, 2019
Friday night after our summit through Sunday afternoon we stayed at Katahdin Inn and Suites. We needed lots of rest.
On Sunday afternoon, we got a shuttle to Medway so we would be close to bus stop to go to Bangor on Monday.
Monday at 9:30 we caught the Cyr Bus to Bangor. We had a reward night at the Comfort Inn through Choice Hotels. We planned to stay there Monday night and get the shuttle to the Bangor Airport on Tuesday morning. However, we got a message on Monday evening telling us our flight had been cancelled due to thunderstorms in the area. Flights would not be resumed until Thursday! Yikes! We definitely had not planned to recuperate that long in Maine.
After much deliberation and phone calling to Delta, we decided to rent a car on Tuesday morning and drive to Boston to catch a flight home. We were ready to go. Besides, we would be spending the same amount if we spent two more nights in a hotel in Bangor, especially since the room rates were going up due to a Sheryl Crow concert at the Waterfront Pavilion on Tuesday night.
After all that, we made it home right on schedule on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, tired and sore, but very satisfied with our accomplishment. After 8 years of hiking, we have finished the entire 2, 192 miles of the Appalachian Trail.
Bittersweet.
Summit Katahdin!
Day Fifty-Two
Friday, July 19, 2019
Summit Day
Well, the final day has finally arrived. We woke up early, excited to begin the day. We knew we needed to start before our buddies if we were going to make it to the top about the same time. So after a quick breakfast, Wait-up and I took off. We first went to the Ranger Station to leave our big packs. We had borrowed a day pack from them the evening before and had it packed with food for the day. Then we went to find the re-routed beginning of the Hunt Trail--re-routed due to the collapse of the bridge across Katahdin Stream some time back.
At 5:30, we signed in at the hiker kiosk. The first ones of the day signing in here. We were at least half way up before the first couple of guys passed us on the way up.
The trail was fairly easy for awhile but got harder and harder as we got about half way up. When we came out of the trees, the views were breathtaking.
The boulders got bigger and bigger and more numerous. It was busy hands and feet at this point.
We had heard so much about how hard the Hunt Trail is, especially the rebar places. We only found one. But, yes, it was hard--had to grab hold of the rebar to pull yourself up, place your foot in a rebar hook on the side which was too high up for me to reach comfortably, and get over the edge to the ledge above. I made it up without help though!! However, as I progressed and the boulders became more and more challenging, I began to worry about the descent, almost to the point of panic. I really didn't want to come back down the Hunt Trail. Going up was bad enough!
We finally reached the tableland. We thought we would be to the summit shortly, but no! Our buddies had passed us back on the boulders and we heard them rejoicing at the top long before we reached it.
The well-worn trail is clearly defined with string at this point.
Time to descend via the Abol Trail. We found it to be steep and rocky. Not too difficult though, since I mostly scooted down on my backside. We saw Brightside and Squeaks (we made their acquaintance in the 100-Mile Wilderness) going up as we were coming down.
We left our day pack at the Ranger Station and picked up our backpacks. We were hoping to find someone in the parking area that we could hitch a ride with, but no one was around, so we went on out to the road to try to catch a ride there. Soon Brightside and Squeaks came out to also hitch a ride. As we were standing there, a small car came out of the campsite parking area with Jurassic! He had come down from the mountain just in time to find someone leaving the parking area. You should have seen the grin on his face as he went by and waved, lol.
So Wait-up, Brightside, Squeaks and I were left standing beside the road hoping someone would come by on their way out of the park. The Ranger had warned us that the later it gets, the chances of catching a ride became slimmer. Also we knew that the chances of 4 people getting a ride were pretty slim, not to mention there were two women on the other side of the road that we thought were also hitching --come to find out they had a ride coming for them.
Soon I saw a truck coming, so I stepped up to the side of the road and stuck out my thumb. Low and behold, he stopped! It was an extended cab truck. I said, "I know you probably can't take four people, but can you give two of us a ride into Millinocket?" He said, "I think if I clear my back seat, I can get you all in there." So we threw our packs in the back of the truck and all four of us jammed into the back seat. It didn't bother us to be close, we were use to the smell by now, but I felt for the driver and his wife.
They were just out driving around the park since they had the day off from their kids -- how timely was that! They delivered Brightside and Squeaks to their B & B and then took us to Katahdin Inn and Suites. It was conveniently located in town.
In the same parking lot with the hotel was a pizza place. I walked over to it and picked up a pizza for our dinner. The next morning we walked to the McDonald's down the street for their big breakfast, then came back to the hotel for their breakfast. :-) Poor Wait-up couldn't seem to get enough food -- he was looking and feeling very thin. Next on the agenda was a trip across the street to the Dollar General and Dollar Tree to buy makeup (it's been TOO LONG) and some sandals (my feet are ready for a break from boots!)
Friday, July 19, 2019
Summit Day
Well, the final day has finally arrived. We woke up early, excited to begin the day. We knew we needed to start before our buddies if we were going to make it to the top about the same time. So after a quick breakfast, Wait-up and I took off. We first went to the Ranger Station to leave our big packs. We had borrowed a day pack from them the evening before and had it packed with food for the day. Then we went to find the re-routed beginning of the Hunt Trail--re-routed due to the collapse of the bridge across Katahdin Stream some time back.
YouTube of Katadin
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| Our buddies, Jurassic, Ferrel and Flickertails at The Birches Campsite on summit morning. |
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| Oops, this buddy Torch got left out of the first picture. |
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| Katahdin Stream Falls - Bridge Out! |
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| Katahdin Stream Falls |
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| Katahdin Stream Falls |
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| The infamous rebar pull-up. |
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| The tableland. |
We finally reached the tableland. We thought we would be to the summit shortly, but no! Our buddies had passed us back on the boulders and we heard them rejoicing at the top long before we reached it.
As we neared the top of the mountain, we began to see lots of people! Wait a minute - we didn't have that many people pass us - where did all those people come from? Then we saw that other trails were coming in to meet ours. I asked one group who was coming up the Abol Trail about the difficulty of that particular trail. A young lady said, "Ask my mom, she's not a hiker." Mom said the trail was not that difficult and had no scary places in it (like the rebar!). That's when I decided that's the trail we would be taking down.
The well-worn trail is clearly defined with string at this point.
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| Our first glimpse of the summit |
At 10:30 a.m. we reached the summit!! Woop woop! It was surreal. The weather, although allowing some views on the way up, was now foggy and we couldn't see a thing below us. We celebrated with our buddies Jurassic, Torch and Flickertail, who were still here. Rested awhile, ate lunch, took lots of pictures. We knew this was our one and only time being at this spot.
Time to descend via the Abol Trail. We found it to be steep and rocky. Not too difficult though, since I mostly scooted down on my backside. We saw Brightside and Squeaks (we made their acquaintance in the 100-Mile Wilderness) going up as we were coming down.
At about 3:30 we came out at the bottom of the Abol Trail into a campground. We were out of water by now and needing some pretty badly. We asked some fellows at a campsite about a water source since we could hear the stream running behind their site. They offered us a Propel -- oh my, was that good!
We then started the walk back to the Katahdin Stream campground where we had left our pack --about 2 miles. We quickly got tired of the road walk and I started sticking out my thumb. Soon a nice bird-watching couple stopped and picked us up. Yahoo!
We left our day pack at the Ranger Station and picked up our backpacks. We were hoping to find someone in the parking area that we could hitch a ride with, but no one was around, so we went on out to the road to try to catch a ride there. Soon Brightside and Squeaks came out to also hitch a ride. As we were standing there, a small car came out of the campsite parking area with Jurassic! He had come down from the mountain just in time to find someone leaving the parking area. You should have seen the grin on his face as he went by and waved, lol.
So Wait-up, Brightside, Squeaks and I were left standing beside the road hoping someone would come by on their way out of the park. The Ranger had warned us that the later it gets, the chances of catching a ride became slimmer. Also we knew that the chances of 4 people getting a ride were pretty slim, not to mention there were two women on the other side of the road that we thought were also hitching --come to find out they had a ride coming for them.
Soon I saw a truck coming, so I stepped up to the side of the road and stuck out my thumb. Low and behold, he stopped! It was an extended cab truck. I said, "I know you probably can't take four people, but can you give two of us a ride into Millinocket?" He said, "I think if I clear my back seat, I can get you all in there." So we threw our packs in the back of the truck and all four of us jammed into the back seat. It didn't bother us to be close, we were use to the smell by now, but I felt for the driver and his wife.
They were just out driving around the park since they had the day off from their kids -- how timely was that! They delivered Brightside and Squeaks to their B & B and then took us to Katahdin Inn and Suites. It was conveniently located in town.
In the same parking lot with the hotel was a pizza place. I walked over to it and picked up a pizza for our dinner. The next morning we walked to the McDonald's down the street for their big breakfast, then came back to the hotel for their breakfast. :-) Poor Wait-up couldn't seem to get enough food -- he was looking and feeling very thin. Next on the agenda was a trip across the street to the Dollar General and Dollar Tree to buy makeup (it's been TOO LONG) and some sandals (my feet are ready for a break from boots!)
Abol Bridge Camppground to the Birches Campsite
Day Fifty-One
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Abol Bridge Campground to the Birches Campsite
10 miles
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Abol Bridge Campground to the Birches Campsite
10 miles
After a free breakfast
buffet at the campground, we hustled on up to the sign-in kiosk at the entrance
of the trail. It was further in than we
were thinking it would be so I guess it was a good thing we didn’t try to come
here early this morning to sign up for the Birches then go back for
breakfast. Anyway, the sign said that
was not allowed, which we did not know.
We were third on the list. We had
seen one fellow come by while we were eating breakfast, out from the last
lean-to I suppose.
It was a
relatively easy 10 miles. The first 5
miles went by pretty fast, the last 5 not so fast. We thought we had done 5 miles, then we cam
out on a parking lot and found out we had 2.5 more to do!
We came out of
the woods at Katahdin Stream Campground, and went across the bridge to the
Ranger Station to check in with them and get a daypack to use for our summit. The Ranger told us the water supply for The
Birches was the stream under the bridge that we had just crossed (inside
Katahdin Stream Campground). We stopped
to fill our water containers and lo and behold our last Sawyer water bag
busted! We had nothing to squeeze our
water into our bottles. I had been using
a soda bottle for one of my drinking bottles, so we used it as our dirty water
bottle, but that put us two water containers down. We didn’t have enough bottles to hold enough
water for tonight and in the morning both.
We would have to come back to the water source in the morning before
breakfast. Not a good thing to happen on
your next to last day and in a spot where there was absolutely no resupply
place.
The Birches
campsite sure seemed a lot further than .2 up the road. When we got there, the youg man we saw go by
us this morning was already there (his name was Smurf or Smitz or something
like that). Later on Jurassic and Torch
came in. Flickertail came by with her
parents, they were staying at Abol Bridge Campsite and her dad was going to
hike to Katahdin with her tomorrow.
Jurassic,
bless his heart, gave us a liter bottle full of water. Saved us a lot of trouble. Besides, we didn't have enough water bottles to make it to the top of Katahdin and back.
The excitement
was tangible as we all thought and talked about tomorrow’s summit of
Katahdin. We had all come a long way to
get here, one way or another.
We all finally
made our way to our tents or shelters and called it an early night so we could
get an early start tomorrow. Sometime during the night another fellow named Ferrel came in and joined us for our summit.
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| Baxter State Park Boundary is in the middle of a bridge. |
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| Signing up for The Birches Campsite. |
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| Ranger Station at Katahdin Stream Campground |
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