The End: Katahdin's Peak

As Hansel and Gretel climbed their way up Katahdin with Mom and Dad, they discussed how it's kind of stupid that a lame sign is THE thing that signifies the completion of their 2,181 mile adventure.  It seems rather arbitrary to say "you have to get to this sign and then you're done."

"We signed in.  It's not like being on top of the mountain is going to be anything great," they said.  They were kind of poo-pooing it the whole way.  At that point, they were both just so tired and ready to be done with the Trail.  That's not to say it hadn't been the adventure of a life time, they were just ready for it to be over.  With that kind of attitude going up, neither of them were really prepared for the emotions that erupted out of them when that "arbitrary sign" came into view.

"We finally got there and, I have to tell you," Hansel said, "it was NOT an arbitrary end point and this sign was one of the most meaningful things in my life.  I can't even express the emotions that just flew through my body and I can't even explain why this piece of wood with writing on it elicited all these emotions.  [Gretel] and I just gave each other a hug and both of us just cried for like five minutes.  And everyone around us started crying too.  Mom and Dad were crying.  It really was like nothing I have ever experienced before."

It's not every day that a hiker completely the Appalachian Trail, but it's even less likely that a pair of siblings finish the Trail together.  Throughout their journey, people have wondered if Hansel and Gretel were married or dating, and they are always confused when their interactions never really match either of those statuses.  When the on-lookers realize that Hansel and Gretel are in fact brother and sister, the response is always so positive.  It must be refreshing to see that a set of siblings could be such good friends.  Having finished this adventure through the physical, psychological, and emotional hardship, there was something truly magical in the embrace that Hansel and Gretel shared at the top of that mountain.  This really was the moment of a life time.  They had done it!  And they had done it together!

True sibling love

2,181 miles with Froggie and Black Bear (the little animals they are holding)

Mom, Hansel, Gretel and Two Bad pretending to be asleep on the sign.

Not only did Hansel and Gretel climb the mountain, also climbed the sign!

Hansel posing like the cover on the AT Guide Book (click here to view)

Hoooooray!!!!!

The End: Katahdin Ascent

Hansel and Gretel started the final 5 miles up Katahdin at about 11:45am and it took them a little over an hour to catch up with Mom and Two Bad.  Their rendezvous came at the point on the mountain that Mom and Two Bad had rendered impassable.

"Well, it looks like we are going this far and that's it," they said regretfully as they gazed up at an 8 foot boulder at the top of which were two pieces of rebar (a metal rod) that had been hammered into the rock.  In order to climb this thing you had to hold on to the higher rebar rod and then swing your foot up to hook the other piece of rebar.  The foot hold was so high up you almost had to knee yourself in the face to reach it while your other foot dangled bellow your body.  Are you picturing this?  If not, you can see an example of another heel hook here.  You just have to imagine this taking place on the edge of a mountain instead of a foot off of the ground.  From the heel hook you had to pull yourself up.  If you let go, the fall would be about 6 feet and nothing to catch you after that.  It was pretty scary, especially for Mom and Dad.  Dad because he has hip mobility problems (recall previous post: Two Bad's Out of Reach Feet) so finding the flexibility to get his foot on the rebar would be extremely difficult, and Mom because she would need to find some super upper body strength to hoist herself up over the rebar.

"I don't even know how Mom and Dad did it, but they both got up over this part somehow," Hansel said.  Many people turn around when they reach that part of Katahdin, but Mom and Two Bad were determined even though Hansel and Gretel tried telling them that it was ok if they didn't go all the way to the top.  Once they got over the rebar, Mom said, "Well, I'm up now so we're going.  I don't know how I'm going to get down again, but I'm up."  As brave as she probably would have liked that to sound, she was almost crying because she was so scared.  They kept telling her that the hard part was over, but that wasn't really true.  There were more hard parts after that as the trail went straight up the mountain for the next 1.5 miles.

This was the most rock climbing Hansel and Gretel had done on the entire trail.  There were parts where they had to pull themselves up over the rocks.  Mom ended up doing a lot of seal-like belly slides to get up on the rocks.  Or she would just put her knees up because it was too hard to pull up on arms alone.  As they climbed up, a bunch of people were passing them going the opposite direction.  When they looked back, there was no one coming up the mountain behind them.  They were the last group to up and most people had already started the climb down.  This made them kind of nervous too, but as Mom said, "There's nothing else to do.  Can't do anything but keep going."

Gretel and Mom making their way up the boulders.

The End-ish-ish

Mom and Two Bad decided to climb to the top of Katahdin so they could be present when Hansel and Gretel reached their goal.  They left me in the parking lot of Katahdin Stream Campground at 11am and began their 5 mile climb to the top.

Mom and Two Bad.  Katahdin is the peak you can see just above their heads.

On their way up Katahdin!

Thinking that Hansel and Gretel had already passed through the campground, I set up shop at one of the picknick tables and began constructing giant celebratory signs on pieces of poster board.  I couldn't have been more than 15 minutes into it when Hansel and Gretel came trotting out of the woods.  I quickly lept up from the picknick table, abandoning my signs, and started walking towards them as cool as can be.  I made every attempt to draw them away from the picknick table I had left, but they were heading straight for it!  They were looking for the ranger station to sign in, which happen to be just past my table.

"We'll just put our packs down with your stuff," Hansel said, indicating over at my abandoned picknick table.

"That's not mah stuff," I said quickly.  But Hansel just kept walking towards it!

"Oh," he said and put his pack down right next to it, making sure to peak over at the poster board that the wind had blown off the table and was now laying on the ground with the words "Gretel, you did it!" written across it.  Luckily, my tape dispenser had also blown off the table and landed on top of the R E and T part of "Gretel" so it wasn't completely obvious that the sign was for her... just mostly obvious.  Fortunately Gretel is as gullible as I am so when I said "that's not mah stuff," she actually believed it wasn't mah stuff and didn't even bother looking at it.

The three of us walked over to the ranger station to register Hansel and Gretel as official finishers of the Appalachian Trail!  Of course they still had to climb Katahdin, but the Guide Book says to sign in before going up.

Hansel and Gretel were the 374th and 375th hikers to begin the trail back in George, and the 41st and 42nd to finish up in Maine!  That means that 333 either quit or Hansel and Gretel passed them on the trail!

Gretel's note for the log book at the ranger station

Registered Thru-hikers!  Numbers 41 and 42!

The End-ish

Two Bad and Mom took Hansel and Gretel to the trail head early in the morning.  They had a 10 mile hike to get to the base of Mt. Katahdin in Baxter State Park and then there would be a 5 mile climb to get to the top.  Their hike to base of Katahdin took a bit longer than they expected because "there was a stupid river that wasn't listed in the guide book that we had to ford."  Because it wasn't listed, they spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out where the trail went.  It seems as though other hikers were also a bit confused by this river and ended up creating other trails going up and down the shore in an attempt to figure out where the trail went and the best way to cross.

Finally, Hansel and Gretel realized they had to ford it.  Hansel was actually able to jump from rock to rock to get across, which is pretty extreme.  There was one leap in which he hopped about 4 feet to the next rock over the rushing water!  Gretel wasn't quite as daring so she took off her boots half way and waded through the river.  This not the most comfortable for her because the rocks at the bottom were really sharp and she didn't have her Crocks with her since they were only taking the bare essentials to climb up Katahdin.  They made it across, frustrated that they had waisted 15 minutes (time is precious to a thru-hiker who has made it all the way to Maine).  Half a mile later, the white blazes led them to cross right back over the very same river.  The rest of the trail was pretty easy and they blew through the remaining miles to the Katahdin Stream Campground, where I was waiting at the base of Mt. Katahdin.

Happy Trails!

That is Mt. Katahdin as seen from Katahdin Stream Campground

Hansel and Gretel coming out of the woods and not quite recognizing me yet.  Note Hansel's confused countenance as I snap this photo. 

Huts and Wormholes

Hansel and Gretel have now visited every hut with the exception of Greenleaf.  Some they actually spent the night, others they just stopped in for a visit with the crew or got some food.  The hut system is fairly straightforward and you received some details on the structure in a previous post, but we can learn a little bit more how it works now. 

Basically, there is one Hut Master.  Under him (or her though I suppose it would be a Hut Mistress if it was a female.  Sounds a little scandalous.  Anyway, we are getting too technical already) is the Assistant Hut Master.  Then comes the Crew.  There are typically 5-8 crew members.   It is their job to clean, cook, bring food in, pack out the trash (any garbage that they produce has to be brought back to civilization), and do search and rescue missions when necessary.  As a general rule, the staff at the huts are awesome.  They are usually good-natured, interesting, energetic people and often very friendly toward thru-hikers and 

Staying at one of the huts can be more than $100 per night and as part of your stay, you get a bed/bunk, dinner and breakfast.  If you are thru-hiker, 100 bucks can be pretty steep so the crew works out a deal.  Thru-hikers can do a work-for-stay.  If they arrive by 5 or 6pm, they are given little jobs like sweeping the floor or doing the dishes.  It's generally about 2 hours worth of work.  In return, they can sleep on the dinning room floor and they get all the left over food when the guests are finished eating.  If there are extra bunks, sometimes they are even allowed to stay in a bed.  

You already know that Hansel and Gretel missed the work-for-stay at Galehead, but they still worked out a deal and only had to pay $10 for the night.  They were "official" guests at three of the huts.  "Dad hooked us up big time," Hansel professed.  They stayed at Madison, Mitzpah and Carter Notch Hut.  

At Madison Hut Hansel and Gretel made friends with the Hut Master, George.  He was completely funny and goofy and had them laughing for at least two hours that night.  There is some question as to whether or not he was flirting with Gretel, but in general, he was just a great guy.  He also seemed to be a rather humble fellow, but Hansel and Gretel got the sense that he had done some pretty wild and adventurous things.  For example, he did the "White Mountains Hut Traverse."  This is a challenge in which a hiker must touch each of the 8 huts in less than 24 hours.  Now we thought the Maryland Challenge was bad.  The Hut Traverse is an "ultra-gnarly 54-mile route" climbing up and down a number of steep peaks.  It's a trip that should really take 3-4 days, but where's the fun in that??  In any case, George has apparently taken on this challenge.  

At one point in their conversation, George started playing with Hansel's bandana.  It's a very special bandana because it doubles as a map of the Appalachian Trail.  George took it upon himself to introduce the wormhole principal.  This is a concept discussed in physics that represents a hypothetical "shortcut" through spacetime.  George found their current location on Hansels mapdana with his finger, then located their end point, Mt. Katahdin with is other finger.  As he slowing moved his two fingers toward one other, squishing the mapdana, he concluded that Hansel and Gretel were actually already on top of Mt. Katahdin.  Geez wormhole principal, where were you 2 months ago!  This whole thru-hiking thing could have been so much simpler!

Happy trails and happy physics! 

*Also, some new photos have been coming in that have gone into older posts.  Be sure to check back incase you missed something.  Click on the links to see pictures from The Inn at Long Trail and the VT/NH boarder! 

A view of the White Mountains above Pinkham Notch