Wait, did we really just walk from Georgia to MAINE?!

Maine photos updated here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/HikeStrong2010/

Is this real life? Did we really just walk from Georgia to MAINE?!? I guess I have the bruises, scars, smelly clothes, useless shoes and mangled feet to prove it, but it just doesn’t feel real… I couldn’t have possibly walked the entire Appalachian Trail. I was warned we would feel this way once we got off the trail and came back to the “real world,” but I had no idea how surreal being back would be. We search for jobs, run errands, hang out with friends, and do everything normal people would do. It’s hard to believe a few short days ago we were celebrating hiking over 2,175 miles and raising exactly $11,466.13 to fight cancer. Thank you so much to everyone for your support, donations to LIVESTRONG and good karma! We definitely needed it and it helped us prevail on the trail!

Since we last blogged…

We saw a Moose! MAN that thing was big! It was just in the style I like to see bears… far away and walking the other way. The moose was a little less daunting than the bear, as it was in the water on the other side of a pond. Soon after we spotted it, the moose slowly lumbered off into the trees and up the opposing hill never to be seen again. Several times throughout the day and rest of the trip we would stop when we heard something in the distance, hoping it was another moose, but it always ended up being squirrels or birds or something else completely non-moose.

There are legends on the trail about people from Maine. Most of them we heard from our pal “Bad Dinner,” and others we propagated as we hiked on. These legends included things like “Maine could conquer Canada, but they don’t want to have to pay the taxes,” and “Icy hot is too weak for people from Maine. After hiking they just rub their muscles down with liquid hot magma.” These “Maineiacs,” as we liked to call them always seemed to carry the heaviest pack, walked the most miles a day and never carried trekking poles (they are too girly I guess). Their distinguishing characteristics included enormous hiker thighs, bushy fu-man-chu’s and a glare that could turn a man to stone. Thru-hikers from Maine were tough… and when we finally reached Maine we were taught a lesson why.

You see, when you get to Maine there is a nice pretty sign that tells you you’ve reached the border. After that sign you slip your way up a wet stone slope and then hike directly back down a boulder-filled rock face. There are no “foot bridges” in Maine on the Appalachian Trail. If you want to cross a stream you take your shoes off and walk through it. Once in a while a lumberjack will have chopped down a tree and you can walk across that, but fording rivers is what you do in Maine. There is only one place in Maine where you seem to get a break when it comes to stream crossings. On the Kennebec river there’s a nice guy named Dave who ferries you across the river in a canoe. They ask you not to ford this river because there are multiple dam’s on it that can quickly cause the water to rise without notice.

Maine also has a few other key attributes. We talked about Mahoosuc Notch in our last post, the “most fun or hardest one mile of the AT” which had us scrambling over boulders for over a mile. Sugarloaf and Bigelow were also killers. Then, just as you feel like you are getting to the very end of the trip, you get to the 100 mile wilderness. The sign as you enter it warns you that there are no places to get supplies or help for a hundred miles, and tells you to take 10 days of food as you enter. Once you make it out of the 100 mile wilderness, then you have to climb Mt. Katahdin. Mt. Katahdin is where the AT ends for us Northbounders, and the 5 mile ascent is what I consider the most difficult hike of the entire trail. Some would argue with me on that one, but I still say it is the hardest.

The trail up Katahdin starts out fairly low-key, quickly getting steep, climbs over boulders up to false summit, flattens out for a mile, and then finishes with another step climb to the top. The hike was agonizing as we tried to pick the best route up the rock slopes knowing full well when it was over we would have to scramble back down the same way. At one point we were sure we were near the top when other hikers passed us going down the mountain. One of them said to Jeff, “you’re almost to the top of the first peak, and then you’re gonna laugh.” What in the world did that mean!? I mentally prepared myself for the worst, climbed over the last big boulder, and then completely understood what the guy meant. When I got to the top of the first peak I could see over a mile of flatland leading to another peak, waaaaaaaay in the distance. The hike up the mountain literally felt like it lasted forever. We pushed on, climbed up the peak we had seen in the distance, and then saw the infamous “Katahdin” sign. Oh what a feeling! We took a few minutes to take in the beauty of everything we saw around us – 360-degree views of the valley, trees, cliffs, lakes and clouds – it was so surreal. Surprisingly there were a LOT of people on top of the mountain, and the weather was getting bad, so we snapped some triumphant photos and headed on our way back down the hill. Maine didn’t let up on us till the very end… raining on us as we tried not to slip off the rocks we had to scramble down. When we made it back to Baxter State Park, we put our shoes in a pile of things to burn later, and headed out of the park.

We really want to thank all of you for following along with us, and for all the great support from you all. A special thanks to all who have donated to LIVESTRONG in our name and enabled us to raise over $11K to fight cancer! If you would still like to donate, you can do so by going to www.hikestrong2010.com and clicking “donate online!”

Not sure what is next on the agenda… but I’m sure it will be awesome!

~Styx & Bones