Entering Maine, Meeting Southbounders (July 5-22, 2011)

"Southward bound where I stop nobody knows." GB, 3/17/2011, Rausch Gap Shelter

"Talking to SOBOs is like talking to a kid who has yet to crushed by the hardships of life." Elvis, 7/4/2011, Full Goose Shelter

Sensei (left) and Yikes with a Clear View of Katahdin (July 22, 2011)

Maine had a lot of rugged trail. One nagging problem I had was forgetting that Maine still
had 280 miles of trail and I felt like I belonged at the finish line. I had read an article by a former thru-hiker early on the trip where she described being so close to the end in Maine, yet not wanting to hike another step. I felt exactly what she felt. I wasn't sure if it was a self-fullfilling prophecy or not, but I burned out entirely. Anything I could do to dull the pain, I did. I kept my head phones on all day and just worried about going each mile. It seemed like I started looking at my watch every 5 seconds and pulling out my trail guide to verify mileage.

I kept reminding everyone I hated hiking (I did) and I would never show my face in the woods again. I can't describe how the novelty wears off. The end was excruciating for me. The bugs became insufferable. We had black flies that burrow into your hair and bite with the heft of vaccination needles. The gnats hover in front of your face and kamikaze bomb into the moisture in your eyeballs. I would get into the habit of waving my hand in front of my eyes every 5 seconds to keep the gnats at bay. When they made it into your eyes, and they frequently did, the best thing to do was pry your eyes open Clockwork Orange style and let the thing fly away. Rubbing your eyes would kill them and ensure they stayed in your eye, irritating the shit out of you.

Then there were mosquitos that would punish you relentlessly. The best defense of the mosquito is to keep walking and put on barrels of deet.

Occasionally, there were horseflies and deer flies. This was torture, not the adventure of a lifetime. I felt like someone who went to Hollywood to star in major motion pictures and ended up doing soft core porn for Cinemax. This was not what I had in mind.

There are no switch backs in Maine. You just get on the stair master and ascend over each mountain top. The Bigelow range was my least favorite of Maine. It just destroyed me. The views atop the mountains were consistently majestic, however. I kept thinking how odd it would be to begin here when the trail below New Hampshire had nothing comparable.

And many people do begin in Maine. They are called southbounders. We began to see some of them in New Hampshire and then a ton more in Maine. When you encounter them they are green and fresh-faced. Everything is wonderful. They are heading out on the journey of a lifetime. Who can blame them? We can. I think we all secretly envy their enthusiasm. All they can do is smile. But they will all be broken soon enough.

There were some good towns in Maine as well. Rangley was one of our favorites. We got a hotel on the lake and took a zero. We went canoeing, which meant we shoved off towards the middle of the lake and tried not to work too hard. Yikes had the enviable position of not having an oar. She simply pointed to places she wanted us to take her.

Somewhere past Rangley we ran into Stillwater, Pants, Niners and Kathmandu (Storm Song and Treebeard got held up in the Whites). It was quite a reunion and we were able to party with them in Monson for the Porcupine Dick festival, or whatever it was. A Black Fly festival? Not really sure. It felt like a pretty special thing to keep running into the same people, after leap-frogging each other dozens of times.

With roughly 100 miles left we hit Monson. I'm not really sure why the final 100 miles are called the 100 mile wilderness because it seems less rugged than southern Maine. I can't think of anything distinguishing about the last 100 miles before the Katahdin summit.

At the end of the 100 miles wilderness we hit an old camp store. On July 22, our penultimate day, we got up early and started drinking about 9am in front of the camp store. We met a guy named Breeze who was always close behind us and caught us one day before the end. He instigated a lot of the debauchery, so I was immediately pleased with him. A park ranger came over to inform us he'd never seen anyone get as drunk as we did before a Katahdin summit.

Absolutely no moralizing,  I said. I've been in the woods for 5 months.

Breeze started smoking a joint. I bought more beer. We scared off all debbie downers and do-gooders. Even Spam started judging us, so he left. One of our own felt betrayed by our behavior. I forgive him.

Now the 10 mile walk to Baxter State Park was a real treat.

Only 5.2 miles left. It's 9:30pm and we're nursing terrible hangovers. I couldn't care less. I'm there.