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