Ice and Stone

Mount Katahdin, ME
Mile Last

We get up in the same way we have gotten up for hundreds of mornings. The sky is not yet light. First people up blow puffs of steam, then break out their cigarettes and pipes, filling the shelter with tobacco and pot smoke. Sleeping bags get rolled up first, to destroy the temptation of curling up in them again. Thermorests get rolled. Breakfast is broken out, and after we eat it, we go to the ranger station to fill in the form, under a gray sky of freezing rain.

If we do not return the form by the end of day, they will send Blackhawks to look for us. In this northerly climate, in this time of year at Katahdin's elevation, lightly equipped hikers can not be expected to survive above the treeline after dark. We pack daypacks with essentials, leave our big packs at the ranger station and head up.

The four thousand foot climb up Katahdin is concentrated in a one point five mile boulder scramble. I remember looking at the mountain from the wilderness, all excitement drained from me by wet and an incipient fever. Shouldn't be so bad, I thought, looking at the approach from the totally wrong angle. From the angle the AT actually uses, it is that bad. The day packs save us. We become quadrupeds on the way up, scared apes on the way down. It's a scary ridge. Concentrate too much on how high you are and you'd fall. You have to have a good sense of here-ness. This rock is here. I am here. I am going to the next rock.

After the scramble we are in the Katahdin Tablelands. It's a shockingly civilized climb from this point on, past Thoreau spring, so named for the prissy little bastard who never made it this far up the mountain. It's fantastic, like the Presidentials, but without the AMC presence, and the snackbars. On to the summit.

I break into a run for the last three hundred meters. Sprint to finish! People on the summit cheer. The run is a broken dancing thing, across rocks and scree, but it feels good. My body is so changed that when I summit I do not feel particularly winded. Holy Jesus in Heaven, I think, there's no time on Earth I've been in this shape. I've just run uphill for scores of meters and my lungs don't even notice.

It's freezing up here, literally. I avoid ice patches because they glow like polished stone. Don't step on the shiny bits. The view is incredible. I can see Avery Peak, more than a hundred trail miles back. My hands hurt. My nose really hurts. I don't feel either.

The sign. Katahdin. Northern Terminus of the Appalachian Trail. I feel curiously empty. Another crazy ass mountain. It's done. I'm done.

Coming down it is another matter entirely. It is by far the most treacherous part of the entire trail. The alternate route down Knife Edge looks even worse, not something I'd ever want to tackle without some real climbing gear. Hopping Gautama Buddha, do I have to walk down that?

Yes you do, says the Buddha.

And then I am down. I'm coming home..