The Last Hurrah

Well, I have been home for a week.  I guess I have no excuse but go ahead and conclude this.  For those who have asked me, and for those who have wondered, a book is not likely to follow the publication of these last posts.  Why?  Well I believe I have a perfectly acceptable written account of my travels here for all to read.  But don't be too disappointed, for we still have the final leg of this journey--or as we called it, "The Last Hurrah"--to cover.

As I mentioned in the very end of my previous post, we were in Boston.  It was an interesting change from the trail environment, to be sure, but not as startling as one might accept.  I guess we still viewed it all through the lens of a traveler, except we had exchanged forests of trees for a forest of glass and steel.  We laid low the first day at our Air BnB; eating, shmoosing Netflix, tossing the frisbee around, and generally being lazy.  It was lovely.

We began our Boston experience in earnest the next day by navigating public transit systems to downtown Boston (now here we could stop and have a entirely separate post about the adventures aboard the trains, buses, subways, Ubers and more throughout the cities, but I will forgo since there is so much else to write about).  We then started the Freedom Trail.  It's not a trail in the sense of "hiking trail," but rather a series of cool historical sights that this trail of red brick set in the side walks leads you to.  You meander through the city, stopping at grave yards to view the resting places of Signers, the house of Paul Revere, the monument to the Battle of Bunker Hill, chapels where notable figures such as Washington attended, and meeting hall where the Founding Fathers debated and planned the Boston Tea Party.  All in all, it was very cool.

The following evening, we went to a Boston Red Sox game in Fenway Park.  It was a post season game, and boy, what a game!  Within 30 minutes of us arriving, the Red Sox had put two over the fence and that was just the beginning.  The Red Sox, who had been doing poorly up to this point, dominated the game.  And in line with all home field games, the fans went berserk.  Thus ended our time in Boston.  We were headed for the Big Apple.

I have a cousin who lives in Yonkers, and he offered to host us for a couple nights.  What a treat!  Though we spent most of our time in Manhattan, it was nice to come back and hang out.  We spent both days visiting as many sight as we could.  The Empire State Building, Times Square, the Two Towers memorial, the Statue of Liberty, and more.  It was fun and crazy.  The item of note is we did get a New York style pizza, in New York.  To be honest, it was a little disappointing because it looked and tasted like any old pizza.  But it wasn't all bad, well, because it was pizza.  And it's hard to go wrong with pizza.  What was even cooler, we sat in a Subway and we feel the subway running under the store.

Two full days in New York didn't feel like enough time, but we moved on to Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

Some old collage friends of my parent offered to host us while we were in town.  They were super awesome and made our time in Philly really enjoyable.  The first day, we went on an adventure at Valley Forge and ended our day at a gunpowder factory.  While we got to the factory late, we still were able to poke around in the machine room.  It was full of industrial grade tools from the late 1800 and 1900's that still worked.  Drill presses and saws that run off of gears and pulleys, it was all pretty cool.

Day two in Philly, we wen down and visited Independence Hall and spent hours in a museum about the creation and evolution of the Constitution.  For those of you who know me, I am a politics/debate nerd.  The art nerds have their museums, the car nerds have theirs, but this was a museum for debate nerds.  It was beautiful.

We finished off the day with a trip down the Fulton Alley, the oldest continually inhabited street in the US and an intense debate about state rights/necessity of the Senate.  Then, after church the following day, we were off to Washington DC.

Now, unlike the previous three cities, both of us had been to DC before.  We revisited the National Mall and the myriad of monuments, which we both had seen before, but we also visited the Air and Space Museum, the Holocaust Museum, and Arlington which each one was new for at least one of us.  We tried to tour the capitol, but you couldn't take food or water into the building and we were loaded with lunch and snacks for the day so it we missed our window of opportunity (I guess they're worried that the politicians will get pelted by fruit).  Regardless, we still had a blast.

Then, after almost six month of travel, we headed for home.  We had completed the AT, visited the major cities of the eastern seaboard, seen the sights, and now it was all drawing to a close.  It was an all-nighter Greyhound bus, headed for Nashville TN.  Not the most ideal vehicle to try and sleep in, but it was heading home, and that is where were we wanted to go.

We Came, We Hiked, We Conquered

Greetings to all who have followed this adventure. We are done.  It feels weird to say it, but the truth still stands: we have finished the Appalachian Trail. 2189.8 miles completed in just under 5 months (May 7 to September 29). 

I apologise for the extreme tardiness of this post, but my route has kept from access to computers. But enough piddling around, to the adventure!

We had come to Shaw's Hostel on the cusp of the 100 Mile Wilderness, the final stretch to Baxter. After a long day of finalizing post-trail logistics on a crappy computer with even crappier WiFi, we shuttled out at about 6:30 to the trail and hiked out 3 miles to the shelter.

At the trail head, we had roughly 115 left. Do the math: 100 in the wilderness, 15 in Baxter (100+15=115). Additionally, he HMW had two subdivisions: the first 40 were rough, the last 60 and the first 10 of Baxter were easy going. This was what we had a head of us.

The HMW has earned a reputation since there is nowhere to resupply for 100 miles. Piece of cake, no problem. A 100 miles in give days was the story of our life down South. What we didn't account for was this obscene heat that plagued Maine. All. Through NH and southern ME, the temperature had been lovely. Chilly at night, but the days were cool and it made for all around great hiking weather. But in the last week leading up to Monson, it had been getting warm. Now it was downright hot!

There were 80° days with 80% humidity for those first 40 miles. Oh joy. And having only packed 5 days of food, we had 20+ miles on the schedule every day. Even better. 

The pros and cons of ME in the heat.

Pro: were weren't cold
Con: we were hot

Pro: the rivers were low so they were easy to ford
Con: water was sometimes hard to find.

Pro: we were unlikely to get frostbite
Con: I suffered from heat exhaustion.

Pro: the heat made the various swimming opportunities welcome
Con: it was so humid, you never dried out

The first day wasn't too bad. We had several river fordings, and the AT ran parallel to a stream for stretches here and there. I stopped and swam in one hole. On doing so, I slipped and cut open my heel. Day one, with over a 100 miles ahead of me, I had a cut on the one part of my body that I would repeatedly slam into the ground for the couple days. Fortunately, though the cut was deep, I had this thick callous from the 1400 miles in sandals, so it wasn't all bad (though it was painfully tender for the two days).

Day two is where it got rough. We had already fallen off schedule and we had the roughest portion ahead. We hiked up several 500-700 foot climbs, in the heat, with my foot. It was an all around bad day day.  We summited Whitecap Mtn. where there was a view of Katahdin. But we arrived after dark and had no luck.

 

The next day started off on a downhill to a river fording. We crossed the river and began the flat section. While it was easy on the legs, the thick humidity killed all efficiency. I haven't been that hot since PA. I ended up taking a 90 min nap where we had lunch and the shelter. I could not cool down. I did the last section in the "cool" of the late afternoon and early evening.

Finally the clouds rolled in and it was coolish. It rained hard that night which cooled everything down! Finally! The other moral boost was we ate lunch on an outlook that gave us a view  of Katahdin. The next day great. We killed the last 21 miles to the Birches, the shelter at the base of Katahdin. There was a small store right outside Baxter where we picked up some celebratory Doritos and Chips Ahoy.

Bright and early, we headed up.

Five miles, that was it. The first two were easy. The next mile or so was difficult in that is was steep, but we had dropped our heavy pack and we're slack-packing, so we just bounded up the rocks. We broke out of tree line a for the last section. 

The next mile is known as the Boulders. It starts on the rock climb out of treeline and continues up this thin ridge. 

You then reach the Tableland. A boulder strewn plateau. 

Less than a mile later we summited.

There were between 20-30 other thruhikers there. It was a gorgeous day and everyone was happy and having a picnic on top of the mountain. Not much in the way of fanfare, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

After the traditional pictures, we headed back down to where an old friend of my grandma had offered to put us up for a couple of days. So within 24 hour of our summit, we were off the the coast of ME at this cottage on and island. From the rugged Alpine summits to the sea (I feel inspired to start a line of outdoors gear, Summit to Sea, I like it...)

We rested, cleared brush, picked apples, painted, read, and ate--a lot (homemade applesauce and bread galore). After several awesome days, we headed out on the ferry to start the final faze of the adventure.

Accomplishing the AT feels great,even a little unreal. It hasn't even fully sunk in. There were ups and downs (literally and metaphorically), hard days and fun days. But we did it. I'm sure that is an unsatisfactory concluding statement, but I am not sure how to say what I feel, this will have to do.

Anyways, we still have a little bit left. We are visiting some of the cities we passed on the way up as we head back to TN. If you were following this blog for the AT, that section is over, but there will be some updates about this last hurrah if you wish to follow our journey a bit further.

That's all for now. Happy trails,
-Levi

The Best Birthday Ever

Hello my faithful readers.  The end is in sight.  As of this moment, I am a mere 114.5 from Katahdin, in Monson, ME, a small town just south of the One Hundred Mile Wilderness.  It seems like it was years ago that I first shouldered my pack at Amamcola, yet it also seems like it was only yesterday.  Time sure does fly.

I guess getting older makes one more melodramatic, being 19 does that.  Oh yeah, in case you missed the hint in the title, I had a birthday.  More about that later, first I must pick up where I left off--the Hostel in Gorham where we had retreated from the weather of the Whites.

While we had done the bulk of the Whites, we had one ridge left: the Wildcats.  We left the hostel late-ish and found a cool campsite less than a mile from Pinkham Notch at the foot of our 2,000 foot climb (in 2 miles, because switchbacks are for wimps).  Due to our lazy pace off of Madison, and our lazy out of Gorham, we had done 5 miles in two days, putting us behind schedule. We did the logical response: hike a 19 in the toughest section of the trail.  Yes, what a brilliant idea...

We did it, but we were bushed the next day. We did an easy 16 to the peak of Mt. Success.  We camped up in the alpine zone this one time and it was awesome.  It was also very windy.  We layered up, found a grove of pine, hunkered down, and slept like babies.  It was also fitting that we slept on Mt. Success because we were less than 2 miles from the Maine border, a huge achievement.

Before I move on, I must be the bearer grievous news--Excalibur bit the dust.  The stick that had been a trusty companion since NJ, and now it is no more.  I lost the bottom 8 inches saving myself from a fall.  It briefly became Anduril, the Flame of the West, reforged from the shards of Narsil.  But he stick was too short, so I stuck it in a moss bank, and moved on.  Several days later, I found Loki, my replacement trekking pole.  Loki and Voldey, my trekking pole are named after notorious villains.

We entered ME the next morning and promptly enjoyed all the rough terrain the southern ME has to offer.  Full of rock scrambles, bogs, roots, and more, southern ME beats you black and blue (literally).  We ended that day with what our guidebook labeled as the, "most difficult or fun mile of the AT,"--Mahoosuc Notch.  Mahoosuc is a ravine filled with massive boulders that you hop, scramble, crawl, weave, and ninja your way through.  Most SOBOs we talked to said the average time to get through the Notch was 2 hours.  I forgot to look at the exact time that I entered, but I did see the time when I left the shelter 1.6 miles before it.  I left the shelter at 3:45, I was walking out of the Notch at 5:20.  1 hour, 35 minutes for 2.6 mile with the Notch being one of those miles.  What was the secret?  Well, as they say: when the going gets tough, the T Mac gets pumping.

We hiked into Andover the next evening, where enjoyed the homely--but overpriced--comforts of local hostel.  What should have been a $35-45 resupply ended up costing just shy of $70!  Oh well, I knew that it was going to be more expensive going North into the land of one-street towns, but still... Yikes!

The next section was nice.  The terrain mellowed out for the most part, and we entered the land of 10,000 ponds.  We still had the climbs of Saddleback, Crocker, and the Bigelow ridges, but they were not the same rock scrambles and climbs of the Whites.  The weather was great; cool in the evenings and morning, but hot enough during the day to make for perfect swimming opportunities in the streams and ponds.  It was in this paradise of trail that the most important day of the year rolled around--my birthday.

You must understand, I traditionally have had a blueberry pie on my birthday.  It started when I was turning 5, I believe, and every year since then without fail I have had a pie made by my awesome mother.  I wanted to pack out a pie, but Andover had an appalling lack of pies, so I was forced to go for a blueberry Pop Tart instead.  We slept in, swam in a creek, and pulled a lazy 16.  All-in-all, it was the best birthday ever, even considering the lack of blueberry pie.

We resupplied in Stratton at a much more reasonable price, and headed out.  We hiked the Bigelows the next day, our last 2,000 foot climb until Katahdin.  The following night we were at Pierce Pond shelter.  This was the best swimming yet and the sunset was drop dead gorgeous.

After roughly three weeks of 15-17 miles a day, we did a 23 to Moxie Bald shelter.  It felt good to actually to do a serious chunk of trail.  Anyways, that day we had to cross on the famous Kennebec River ferry, the only ferry on the AT.  On the northern shore, I got my second taste of fame (my first was an appearance in a Hank Williams Junior music video).  A reporter from the Wall Street Journal was doing a piece on the ferry.  So we got featured in the prestigious WSJ, not bad, if a I do say so myself.

(Photo Courtesy of Debbie Morrison via Facebook)

We rolled into Monson the next evening where we are resupplying for the One Hundred Mile Wilderness and the final push to Katahdin.  We expect to summit around the 29, which brings our hike to a grand total of 145 days for 2189.8 miles of awesomeness.  I hold that date loosely (Baxter SP limits the number of hiker allowed to summit each day, and we have hit a bubble of hikers, so competition for those slots will be high), but we will summit by the end of this month for sure.