WE MADE IT!!!

2,174 Miles

Summited on October 12, 2005

YES!!!

We had beautiful weather for nearly the entire last month of the trail, with a gorgeous summit-day. Mount Katahdin was a challenging finale to the journey, with about 4,000' vertical gain over the last five miles. Lots of hand-over-hand climbing became the order of the day...

...and getting to the top was a HUGE relief...

...so we clowned around on the sign awhile, playing Vogue photo-session. Kara took it particularly seriously.

.............

...More pictures later!

NH & ME pix!

Yes!!!

The weather was gorgeous yesterday...

Canoe ferry across the Kennebec River

....while today it is POURING. And we heard that a tornado (!!!) touched down near here earlier today. Did we not manage to get out hiking? Oh darn!!!

SO, in the meantime, here's a bit of catching-up on photos.

The Whites

Between Mt Liberty and the Franconia Ridge

Here, Kara is applying the highly technical wind measurement device called the "Hand Wavometer". We estimate that the wind speed was approximately 50mph.

As an aside, she was also doing product limitation testing of her Hiking Kilt.

We did not document this with pictures.

Yes, we found the product failure parameters.

On 9/11, NH had a project to put flags on all of the 48 peaks over 4000'. It was a beautiful day, and a moving display.

Probably one of our most memorable nights out, and our only night 'cowboy-camping': sleeping out under the stars on Webster Cliffs with our (mummified in the pic) friend Poet. New moon, no humidity. More Milky Way and shooting stars than you can shake a Leki at. Just Wow.

...And the power fritzed out. So that's all the commenting & pix for today!

Caratunk, ME

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

Or at least it was yesterday. And it's supposed to be beautiful tomorrow.

Today: rain. And wind.

But they make us appreciate the sun! And yesterday was probably one of the prettiest days in Maine that we've experienced. Up at 5am (sort of), hiking by 6:45am, and 14 miles by 3pm in order to catch the canoe-ferry across the Kennebunk river. We figured that we could blitz it, catch the canoe before the 4pm daily deadline, get a quick hitch into town, resupply, and run for it and maybe get another four miles in for the day.

But we stopped for burgers. And kept stopping. And just couldn't help ourselves staying overnight at this great place with great burgers and great on-site microbrews, and a great hot tub to which they serve the aforementioned great microbrews. It was great.

And today it's raining. With strong storm warnings. Hmm.

We're currently discussing the enjoyment of hiking & putting up in the rain.

Oops. Looks like we're zeroing today! Peer pressure is amazing. But we've all promised not to let each other run up a hot-tub-bar tab like last night's.

It'll be great!

Hanover, NH

Hurrah, another state!

Vermont is gone, long live Vermont. Such a terrific state it was... probably the greenest, lushest state since Virginia, with the best footing since southern PA, and the fewest bugs since the beginning of summer. Whenever that was.

We liked Vermont.

But on to bigger and higher mountains... they'll be the biggest since those in the Smokies, with supposedly some of the most beautiful views along the entire trail. And some of the steepest ascents and descents, too. Enough to challenge the sturdiest of knees. And feet.

Speaking of feet, mine are currently MUCH happier than a couple weeks ago. Really, this hiking this is much more fun when every step isn't accompanied by "Ow." I'm almost scared to leave Vermont... maybe if NH gets too bad, we'll subconsciously start the trail in the wrong direction one morning. And not notice 'til we're back in Vermont. The beginning of Vermont.

Just kidding.

Anyhoo, life is good. Just 160 miles to go until Maine!

Dalton, Massachusetts

It was just too nice here to not take a zero-day.

I've been back on the trail for five great days of hiking, and despite lots of cat-baths in streams, we're needing showers. Badly. And laundry.

We'd heard of a relatively new hiker hostel here in Dalton that isn't in the guidebook; it's at a local's home, and it includes not only shower, a bunk,and shuttles around town, it also includes *laundry*. For FREE! Hooray! All the SOBOs (south-bound thru hikers) that we've spoken to have absolutely raved about the place. It's a no-brainer.

My feet were aching (surprise, surprise), and we tried something new: sent Stephen ahead for the last eight miles into town so he can get us settled and get himself showered.

The reality turns out to be even better than the reports! Not only did The Birdcage have all of the above - for free - it comes with BEER. Wow. Just wow.

I show up about three hours after Stephen, and Rob picks me up at the gas station that he manages, drives me to his Birdcage, and hands me some clean extra clothes and shoos me into the shower. And then, HE DOES OUR LAUNDRY. Dang.

The Birdcage is a wonderfully comfortable place to kick back and relax, and we decided to take a day off - let my feet recuperate, yeah. We're depleting and replenishing the beer supply. Repeat until done.

And the question of the day was: Why? Why is he being so enormously nice to stinky hikers, above and beyond the call of duty???

"I can't stand the locals," says Rob, "Where else can you meet and talk to people from all different walks of life, help folks out, and party like when you were young?"

We asked him how he'd started doing this. Rob tells a story of a miserably wet day in 2001 when a grungy hiker walked up to his Shell station. Already wet, and very dejected-looking, the hiker watches the sky open up and start pouring on him again. He rounds his shoulders, lowers his head, and looks even more dejected than before. Shuffling up to the station, he asks Rob if there's anywhere in town to stay at a reasonable price. "No!", Rob laughs (this being the Berkshires). "Afraid not." The poor hiker looks like he's about to sink into the ground, and starts walking away. Rob decides to invite him in, and they both have a great time visiting. As the hikers leaves the next day, he asks Rob if he can tell other hikers about Rob. "Sure, why not."

Seventy hikers pop by that season.

Rob is now over the 1000 hiker mark, and seems to be loving it. Wow. Us hikers get really lucky sometimes - it's been a great pleasure to meet Rob and stay at his Birdcage. And now, looks like we might go take a dip in the swimming hole...

Oh yeah, the hiking's been fun, too.

Back to the Trail

Woo-hoo! Back to the Trail!

Well my feet are feeling happier, and hopefully some smoother terrain and some snazzy new shoes will keep them happy.

I'll be rejoining Stephen in Salisbury CT, approximately 150mi from where I left him to fend for himself. We'll be near mile 1500, only about 1/3 of the way to go to Katahdin...

And I'll get all the dirt (ha ha) on the section that I missed, and plan to do after summiting Katahdin. Originally, Stephen had volunteered to re-do it and hike with me, but he said it was a grinder of a section and now he's down to 'mayyyybeeeee....' (just kidding, he says then)

So now I'm a clean, rested Pixie. That should be good for about, oh, half a day.

Greg & Kenket Come for a Visit

On July 12th, Greg & Kenket diverted from their PA-UT drive to come hug us on the trail. Well, hug us after we showered, I suppose. A very good time was had.

How come Kenket's shirt looks like it's a snake that's trying to chomp Kara?

We took a nice visit to Yuengling Brewery - the nation's oldest - and got a personal tour thanks to Greg's gift of the gab. Even without having a single lager, I guess things were already getting a bit blurry.

Yuengling had a great Armed Services Support poster:

And some very cool stained glass and stern ladies above one of their vats:

Careful of the snake

NOTICE

Well, FOOEY!

Breaktime for Pixie.

New Jersey is actually a great state in which to hike the AT - it's pretty (really!), it's not all exactly the same, and it's finally relatively not-rocky.

Unfortunately, the not-rocky part wasn't soon enough for me. After 200 miles of Rock Hell Trail, my feet started to need amputation. Soreness and plantar fascitis do not a fun walk make. Thus, I am cooling my heels for the next 10 days or so and rehabbing them to take on the last 700 miles of trail ASAP.

Dangit.

So Stephen is getting to enjoy a bit of solo hiking, while I putter around on the internet and read books here in Carlisle. (Of course, I'm spending lots of time pouting too. :-( ) But not to fear - soon it will be back to the trail for me!

Anyway, here's some beyoootiful examples of the Pennsylvania Rocks that deserve their evil reputation:



















A short stretch of this kind of trail isn't bad, it's even fun, however 200 miles of it kinda does nasty, nasty things to one's feetsies.

By the end of PA, the trail register entries written by thru-hikers were almost exclusively rock-related. Here's our all-time favorite (with typed-out text, in case you can't read it in the pic):


("Peanut" writes..)
Dear Pennsylvania,
We need to talk. It's been a while, and I feel our relationship isn't the same as it was when we first met. I mean, I remember coming out of Maryland and meeting you. I said, "Hi Pennsylvania, I'm Peanut." You said "Hey, they call me 'PA'." Well you had me at "PA". I was immediately attracted to your rock hard body and your take-no-prisoners attitude. But time went on, and well, you really began to hurt me. You kept telling me you were sorry and that you wouldn't do it again, but you continued to hurt me. And others are talking. They say you're hurting them too. Well, PA, I just don't think I can do it anymore. I'm moving on. I haven't told you yet, but I'm seeing someone else. His name is New Jersey. He told me he'd going to treat me right, and I think I deserve that. Goodbye, PA. I will try hard to remember the good times. -Peanut
*Disclaimer: This letter is strictly for entertainment purposes only. Peanut fully appreciates every mile on the AT.
-----

Well that about covers it.

Pout.

A couple more pictures

...some last-minute pix before returning to the trail...

:Our current hiker-style:

and our newest stickers for our Nalgene bottles

(yes, the pink/straightjacket one is Kara's)

(and no, I haven't figured out how to get the formatting right yet. Pbbllfft.)

PICTURES!!!

PICTURES!

Finally, the visual component of Stephen And Kara Take A Hike is IN.

We've added pix to a lot of the old posts, so if you're interested (DAD), page through the archives. You should be able to click on the pictures to bring up a full, life-sized version. Well maybe not that large, but largish.

Enjoy!

________________

Longhorns sitting in a field that you're about to hike across is rather disconcerting. But then, so is a copperhead snake curled up in the rafters of the shelter...

Pennsylvania has some great shelter advancements...

...and some beautiful butterflies.

Turtle, anyone?

...how 'bout a nifty orange salamander?

Sometimes the trail gets a little tricky...

...though Stephen knows how to relax.

Look! a BEAR! My, what big feet he has.

Here's how we recommend NOT to hang your hammocks.

And watch out for the trees, sometimes they have an appetite.

Don't forget to register!

...but make sure it's really a register box instead of a bird house before you pull it apart.

And when it's cold at night, Kara can curl up in her hammock with Birthday Wabbit!

Pulaskis dig GREAT catholes. Almost tempting to carry one along. Almost.

A cool morning curled up in the hammock

Time to HIKE!!

ps... Stephen has shorn the Mountain Man beard. Should have photos in another three months....