I climbed Katahdin with three other hikers- a father and 11 year old son who 3 days later had to be rescued from the 100 mile wilderness when the dad blew out both knees and could not walk- and another solo thru hiker who caught a flight home today after realizing the AT was a lot rougher than anticipated.

Have met some other great people too, including a couple of section hikers from Connecticut who gave me a cup of starbucks coffee on the morning after Arthur, Wheezy who shared with me his water filter bag, Victoria and Callum- a really nice young couple from Canada, Wookie from Georgia and Doc and Hangry from Germany. Also, Tie and ‘Ole Man who put me up at their lodge the night before I started. Lastly, I happened on Brawny, a ridge runner employed by the Maine Appalachian Trail Conservancy (MATC) who you can read about in her great blog. She’s completed thru hikes of the AT and the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) and has a wealth of knowledge to share with hikers like me she encounters as she get’s paid to walk the trail. The picture above is a recent one from a shelter…the head lamp is definitely required gear…it get’s very dark in the woods.

Sorry if the Katahdin post kept changing for a few minutes. I’m experimenting with photo upload options and having a tough time of it. This post will be a collection of various pix with brief captions or explanations.

I was in the 100 mile wilderness when it was slammed with hurricane Arthur. All streams swelled as a result…fording streams (wading from one side to another) is a special feature of the AT in Maine. This was one of the few you could cross without getting wet.

Rare bit of smooth trail

Since the hundred mile wilderness can take 10 days one faces the prospect of carrying 10 days worth of food- a monumental amount. Whereas you may burn 5000-6000 calories per day, carrying that many is burdensome. For the 100 mile wilderness I carried about 1600 per day, which consisted of a packet of instant oatmeal for breakfast (which I ended up eating dry directly out of the packet so I didn’t have to spend time in the morning cooking) plus a clif bar (which I’ll probably never be able to look at again).

For lunches I had 2 clif bars and 2 fruit rollups and for dinner a package of instant ramen- to which I’d add sun dried tomatos- and a foil pouch of tuna or salmon. Since this is the longest stretch of the AT without going through towns, its the place where you are most constrained on what you carry for food weight. Even that relatively spartan amount of food feels very heavy. One way to alleviate it is to split your food into 2 portions and pay a local trail service place to do a “food drop.” There are no public access roads, but there are private logging trails and dirt roads every 5-10 miles or so and they can drive out to a spot on one of these that comes within reachable distance from the trail where they can stash some of your food, so you can get back carrying only about half. I took advantage of this and this photo was the paper I was given with detailed instructiona on how to locate my food. Since I was nearly out (thanks to losing a day to hurricane Arthur), it was like Christmas to find it…