Samwise Hikes the Appalachian Trail! - Trail Journal -
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October 4, Katahdin - mile 2168.1

The journey of a lifetime concluded today atop Mt. Katahdin, "greatest mountain" in the native American language. What a feeling! I'm filled with happiness, relief, pride, not to mention plenty of aches and pains and a kind of deep-seated weariness that I have never known before. I think I am also still in shock that I am actually finished. I did it! I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine in 187 days.

And the best part of all is that Tony came with today for the final climb. We started out early this morning, signing in at 6:45 to begin the 5 miles of climb. The first two miles are relatively mild, with nicely graded trail and a beautiful stream alongside that eventually culminates in a waterfall before the trail veers in the other direction. It all has the effect of lulling you into thinking this climb won't be too bad after all. But it's a trap! Once you get near treeline, the terrain grows ever more difficult, until you're rock climbing such sheer boulder faces that you wish more than anything you had ropes and proper climbing gear. In a few locations, the trail crew has bolted in a small, well-worn piece of re-bar to serve as a hand and foot-hold, but I always find these so curious. They are generally so few and far between and installed in places which seem no different than the last 50 difficult toe-holds. I frequently wonder if the re-bar is installed only in a place where someone has fallen to their death. I know it's a terribly morbid thought, but there seems to be no other good explanation.

But finally, after eight hours of struggling up the mountain side, we reached the summit. As it turned out, my earlier fears of being in the middle of a huge crowd of hikers on top were unfounded. Everyone else had long since passed us, both going up and down, so we had the summit completely to ourselves! I was glad of that, because it was a moment I didn't really want to share with anyone else. When that weather-worn sign finally came into view, I found myself utterly overwhelmed with emotion. The tears -- of happiness, relief, weariness -- poured down my face as I touched those white-painted letters: Katahdin, northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. Then I saw the rock cairn, now at least 12 feet high, built up by the hundreds of "Springer rocks" brought by thru hikers over the years. It's tradition among thru hikers to carry a small stone from Springer Mountain in Georgia when they begin hiking, all the way to the cairn on Katahdin. I, too, had carefully carried my Springer rock for at least half the trip, until one day I discovered I had lost it. Lucky for me, though, Tony thought of a brilliant alternative, and he asked my mom to send a rock from the farm in Iowa where I grew up. Two farm rocks showed up just before he left for Maine, so we carried these up today and added them to the cairn.

Though it was the moment of a lifetime, we also had to keep it short, as we would be racing darkness to get down the mountain. I knew, by that time, we would never be able to reach the campground before dark, but it was crucial to get below treeline and finished with the difficult rock-climbing section while we could still see what we were doing. Though both of us were already struggling with extremely sore knees, we made good time and got three miles behind us just as the burning red sun dipped below the horizon.

The last two miles are now a bit of a blur in my mind. Of course, I had my headlamp to guide me, but the connection is loose and every time I jumped down from a rock or log, the wiring would jolt forward and the light would nearly go out. Tony had an even worse time, for all he had was a tiny mag light with weak batteries, and had a terrible time holding onto both it and his trekking poles. But by 8 p.m., we were back at the trailhead, signing out our 13+ hour day (I suspect that's a record length of time). In retrospect, I regret very much listening to the other hikers' reassurances that no one was taking more than 3 hours to reach the summit and that the climb really wasn't too bad. I knew by looking at the elevation profile that I should expect a 1/2 mile per hour pace on that kind of terrain, and yet, I let myself believe that somehow, this time, my pace would be the same as others. Instead, it was the longest, most difficult day I've ever had on the trail!

Still, despite the enormous struggle it was, I am glad to have finished what I started. There were so many times when I was so exhausted, sore and missing Tony, I would have quit in the blink of an eye, except that I was three days from the nearest way out! But what a regret it would have been. Now I have the satisfaction of knowing I tackled a challenge that relatively few other people in the world have done.

Now it's time to go home and I'm very excited about that, too. I've been dreaming of all th things I'll do when I get there, like cook on a real stove with actually foods that aren't dried or dehydrated, and go shopping without caring in the least what things weigh! And though I'm not a TV person at all, I can't wait to see the video tape of the very last Star Trek Voyager episode, which ended a 7-year run in May. Yikes! But first I need some time to recover. My body feels worn out and I'm not sure how much longer I could have continued this routine. My poor knees took the worst of it, but my feet are also pounded to death and my bruised ribs are never going to recover unless I stop slinging this pack on and off a dozen times a day. So it's time for a good deal of R&R, with no worries about how many miles I need to hike today or how steep the mountain climbs are going to be, at least not for a little while.