#baxter peak

Our first ford came two days before Monson, before the 100 mile wilderness. There were no signs or warnings like elsewhere on the trail. Just one white blaze on the south shore of a river and one blaze on the north shore. We had thought about it so much that when it came time to cross, it was a huge deal. It shouldn’t have been though, there was nothing too bad about it. It was cold and wet and you have to take your boots off, but you warm back up pretty quickly. We didn’t even lose any oxen. 

Arriving in Monson, we made arrangements to stay at Shaw’s, an AT staple going back decades. At the hostel, we had a home cooked dinner (meatloaf, potatoes, rolls, salad). The strange part, though, was that this hostel probably had 15 hikers staying that night and we only recognized one of them. Not to say that we know every single northbound hiker, but it’s strange to run into someone new at this point in our hike. Now there were 14 new faces. 

Monson is the standard stop before entering the 100 mile wilderness and most people come into town for a week of supplies. It is also the last trail town before Katahdin. This means that northbound hikers worried about weather or the October 15 deadline could jump ahead to Monson to make sure that they can climb Katahdin. We never really found out for sure, but we assumed this was the reason for so many new faces in Monson. 

Back in the Whites, we were doing a large load of group laundry and I came up short a pair of pants. This meant that, in the Maine autumn, I only had gym shorts to hike in. Monson seemed like a groovy little town but it didn’t look like a town that would have an REI, or Walmart, or even a souvenir shop that sold sweatpants with sparkly writing on the butt. Luckily, for “thrift store prices” the hostel owner sold me a pretty nice pair of lightly worn smart wool tights. This was a good thing. The nights in the 100 mile dipped below freezing and we have both lost some body insulation over our journey. 

We carried exactly 7 days of food with us, plenty for 6 days in the forest and 1 day up and down Katahdin. The 100 mile wilderness is the largest expanse of forest through the most isolated part of the trail. The party line is that there is no way to re supply or get rescued from the forest except back the way you came in. In reality, this wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was definitely more isolated than any other part of the trail. 

Day 1 in the wilderness had only one major climb but we didn’t make it as far as we had planned and ended up camping at a shelter 4 miles short of our goal. This was a big deal because of how tight our supplies were stretched. To make matters worse, day two ended the same way- a couple miles short. At least we were able to get cell reception on a mountaintop and let our families know we were still alive. Day three was more of the same, but we didn’t have the luxury to stop at nightfall- again short of our goal. We knew that rain had been forecast for our day 4 and that day would have three mountains, with one open summit. We wanted to get as much of that as possible done without rain. Our little bubble of hikers stopped at a nice campground and had a fire going by the time we got there. It was hard, but we managed to get water and actually put our packs back on to get a few more miles done in the dark. We camped on top of cold, windy, cold Hay mountain in a makeshift tent spot. We got our earliest start ever the next morning to get some hiking done before the rain. We actually got to the top of our last mountain before Katahdin, White Cap, before it rained. This was great because once the rain started, about 9am, it came down hard and lasted all day long. It was very, very cold. The internal debate was whether to put my cotton gloves (why do I even have these?!) on to keep my hands from going numb. They would never dry and wouldn’t be very warm, but would be better than nothing. In the end, I decided to put them on and it was 100% the right decision. 

It rained while we ate lunch. It rained through a river ford. It rained while we put up the tent and cooked dinner. At times it turned to sleet, but never snowed. Crawling into the tent wearing like 5 layers, all soaked, was super not fun. But it got better eventually! We threw on our one dry set of clothes and got into our sleeping bags and eventually didn’t notice how wet everything was. 

I took a misstep across a bog

The next day was hovering in the 20s when we woke up. Putting on our dripping, frozen socks and shoes we decided that it wasn’t in the cards to do any morning hiking. We built a fire with wet wood and our awesome outdoors skills and warmed up ourselves and dried our clothes a little. We managed to leave that day, day 5, around 10:30 in the morning. We did 19 miles before throwing our tent down in a dirt parking lot. The next day we did 18 to get us successfully out of the 100 mile.

First view of Katahdin. 16 miles as the crow flies, 40 trail miles

Finally, we were back in civilization, at least circa 1980: there was no cell coverage and nobody accepted credit cards. But at least the road was paved for, like, a half mile before turning into gravel. We had arrived at Abol Bridge! Closest town: Millinocket, 11 miles away. 

We had known about Millinocket since about Harpers Ferry because the ATC had posted signs from Baxter officials pleading with thru hikers to 1) walk in small groups, 2) not stand on the Katahdin sign, and 3) not bring alcohol into the park. This last point was hammered home with the statement, “Save the drinking for Millinocket!” This gave us two impressions, that either the ATC was throwing Millinocket under the bus or Millinocket was party central.

Not to put down Millinocket, it was a fine town, but they were not cultivating anywhere close to the party atmosphere we were expecting. So because of that, it was kind of boring. It could stand to be spiced up a little. Maybe a change in the town slogan would help. I don’t know if they already have a slogan, but we thought of better ones. Allison and I each came up with one, but I won’t reveal who thought of which, so as to not bias the vote. There is the cruddy, plain slogan, “Come rock it in Millinocket!” Or the clearly better, “Don’t Millinocket ’til you try it!” We will let the voters decide. 

The most incredible part of leaving the 100 mile was knowing that the saint, Steve Broadwater, was somewhere in Millinocket in a warm dry cabin waiting to pick us up after our summit. We kept missing meeting up with him the day we arrived at Abol bridge. How did anyone make plans before cell phones?! But the next day, after our stay in the thru hiker exclusive campground The Birches, we finally met him before our climb and he had brought with him something that has been on my mind for about 6 months: pepperoni rolls! After eating a half dozen, we were ready to climb. 

One of the best quotes ever

Katahdin itself was everything we had been told. It was the hardest, steepest, rockiest mountain on the trail. It had hands down the best views too. We made it to the top in record time to beat the impending rainstorm. We hung out at the summit long enough to eat lunch and take pictures, then booked it back down, only losing the trail a few times. Steve met us in the parking lot with more pepperoni rolls after our 7 hour hike up and down the mountain.

Our time in Maine was concluded in spectacular fashion in a secluded (though really all of Maine is secluded) cabin, spending an entire day eating, propping our feet up, watching TV, and airing out our soaked.. everything. A few trips to fast food, a couple real dinners, and a trip to the AT cafe finished up our experience in Vacationland. I don’t know if Maine really is The Way Life Should Be, but it was unlike anywhere I have ever been, and we liked that. 

I don’t know how we did it. On some days I couldn’t even tell you why we were doing it. But in the end, we did it- and we did it how we wanted. Our journey wasn’t heroic or impossible. It wasn’t something we were thrown into against our will. It wasn’t even something that helped anyone else. But it was our journey. In the end, if the only thing we accomplished was reaching a goal that existed solely in our own minds, then I’m still extremely proud of it. What we learned about Appalachia, the wilderness, backpacking, and each other are things that we will remember for the rest of our lives.

AJ

P.S.

Next stop: Virginia! (After a 22 hour drive). We skipped some miles before our week of canoeing down the Shenandoah back in June. So we have to wrap up those miles and then, finally, home! This won’t be our last post though. We will have a few more about what gear we loved or hated and some pictures that never made it into others.