Skywalker--Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Walker

  The next couple days this hiker convoy moved through the last part of the Wilderness at an increased clip. Periodically, we would stop at one of Maine’s seemingly endless, large, shimmering lakes with names like Potawadjos, Pemsdumcock, Nahmakanta, or my favorite, Mooselookmeguntic, to take in glimpses of the imposing fa ade of Mount Katahdin. Unlike the first glimpse of it one hundred fifty miles back from the ski summit house, it was quite clear what we were gazing upon.

  In one shelter register Paparazzi captured my thoughts well with the following entry:

  Rainbow Stream Lean-To—mile 2,151

  5-5-05: What is it going to be like living in a world where people don’t argue incessantly about Warren Doyle, Baltimore Jack, and Wingfoot?—Paparazzi

  Finally, we got to Abol Campground and the end of the 100 Mile Wilderness.

  I walked alone the next day along a stream running away from the mountain with the heavy mass of Katahdin looming ever larger. The forest was approaching full-golden there in late September. The blazes ran out on this side of the rushing stream, and I wandered around confused. Finally, I spotted one on the stream’s far side and pondered how to get over. At last I found a log-and-rock path across and looked downstream at the white rapids of this mountain stream and the golden autumn forest. I had never seen anything like Maine. It’s a jewel. It was really coming home that this whole new, intense way of life was coming to an end, and I wondered how in the world I would come down from it.

  I followed the serpentine trail and entered Katahdin Stream Campground. At the ranger station they told me there was a special campsite for thru-hikers, called the Birches, for which I paid eight dollars. “What’s your weather forecast for tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Not at all good,” he said ominously. “The hurricane-related weather is expected to get here tonight.”

  A group of hikers arrived right after me and said they were hitchhiking to Millinocket, twenty-seven miles away.

  “Why not just do it tomorrow, after summiting?” I asked.

  “Have you heard tomorrow’s weather forecast?” one said, looking me in the eye.

  This looked like one of those places, such as Mount Washington, where weather could be an especially critical factor. I thought of Paddy O’s remarks back in New York that, “I owe that mountain more than I could ever repay.”

  When I got to the Birches Campsite the Joy Machine, Stitch, Hit Man, and Cactus were already cooking dinner. There was a sense of anticipation in the air, although everybody was well aware of the weather forecast. “It’s hard to believe this is our last night out here,” Hit Man said. But my thought process hadn’t gotten that far as I was directly focused on how to scale Mount Katahdin—and the ominous weather forecast.

  As I was putting up my stove I felt the first light drop. “It’s raining,” I reported to nobody in particular. Everybody headed to the shelter, and I got in my tent for the last time.

  Mount Katahdin is, with the possible exception of Mount Washington, the most storied mountain east of the Rockies. In the native Abenaki language Katahdin means “pre-eminent mountain.” Bamola, the god of Katahdin, was known for flinging boulders through the air and creating violent storms and blizzards to avoid human contact. Thus, it is believed that the natives never climbed Mount Katahdin before European settlers arrived.

  In 1804, Charles Turner led a trekking expedition through Maine’s North Woods. The explorers were shocked after bushwhacking through the flat plains to look up and see this granite monster hovering over them. They decided to ascend, and nine hours later became, apparently, the first people to summit Mount Katahdin.

  None other than Henry David Thoreau was one of the next to attempt to climb Katahdin, in 1846. Struggling with the elements and the direction Thoreau later wrote, “There was clearly felt the presence of a force not bound to be kind to man. It was a place for heathenism and superstitious rites, to be inhabited by men nearer of kin to the rock and the wild animals than we.” He ended up getting lost and never saw the summit. Despite that failed attempt, a spring bearing his name flows about a mile from the summit, farther up than he ever made it.

  September 26, 2005, dawned with heavy gray, leaden skies. It’s often said that the summit of Mount Katahdin is the first place in the entire United States to receive any sunlight. But not on this day. I decided to eat most of my remaining food before heading up, while everybody else hurried out to try to beat the rain. But it soon started pouring.

  Each morning the rangers post the weather forecast and classify the days for suitability of hiking above treeline. Often in the fall the trail can be closed for up to two weeks. Baxter State Park closes for good on October 15 each year, and there were rumors every year, including this one, that it would close early. In short, Mt. Katahdin is an iffy proposition in bad weather. After three nice days, that’s what this day was. Damn.

  I trooped down the dirt road to the ranger station, stopping to fill my two bottles from a running stream. It was hard to imagine much running water in a forty-two hundred-foot climb. I was hoping this would be the last water I would drink from a creek for a long time. “Is the mountain open?” I asked the ranger, halfway hoping he would say no.

  “Yes,” he flatly said, and I meekly went about making final preparations.

  I started up the AT for what I hoped would be the last time. The trail went straight up, and the wind and rain howled into my face through the narrow chute the trail formed. After a few hundred yards there was a register to sign and I glumly noted that it was filled by the names of only a few thru-hikers. Of course. Who in their right mind would try something this macabre that didn’t have to? Right off the bat I began thinking about turning around and waiting to summit another day.

  But I kept walking and the trail got steeper, the rain and wind got worse, and the visibility was extremely poor. My first big mistake was not putting on long-johns and my marmot jacket over my Gore-Tex and fleece jackets. Soon I was shivering and soaked.

  After a steep and steady climb of two thousand-plus feet I stopped to eat a candy bar. Normally, after such a climb I would rest for at least fifteen minutes, but with wind buffeting me down the narrowly cut trail I couldn’t relax. I tried hiding behind the spruce trees that lined the trail, but it provided scant comfort. I was cold and wet and either had to continue on or turn around. I headed on.

  Although the first part of Katahdin is straight up, the second part is far and away the most difficult. The trail does a figure-eight around a mansion-sized boulder at which point treeline is violated. I couldn’t believe what lay ahead. It was the most exposed area on the entire trail and the visibility was worse than any of the previous 169 days. Combined with the steady sheets of rain and sixty mile per hour wind gusts, I was in conditions the likes of which I had never seen in my forty-five years. My first thought was, again, that I was going to turn around. But, instinctively, I continued.

  Right away the trail became hellish. First, there was a five-foot ledge to scale, and I wondered if I was going the right way. But I saw a blaze, which meant I had to get over this shelf, so I looked for a way to clear it. Finally, after a couple false starts I found a stone to use as a springboard to get over. Soon it became clear it was necessary to work for every step— with maybe fifteen yards of visibility.

  Would I be able to find my way back down? All I could see on three sides were sharp boulders and steep rock walls. It felt like some Manichean version of Blindman’s Bluff. The previous year a hiker had been killed when a boulder had landed on top of him.

  Another ghoulish thought kept popping into my head; my old friend from Chicago, Rob Slader. His lifelong dream had been to climb K-2 in Pakistan. Finally, he had received a coveted permit from the Pakistani government to attempt the climb. Before boarding the airplane for Pakistan a reporter asked him about the perils of K-2. “I summit or I die,” Rob crowed. “Either way I win.”

  Slader and five other members of the expedition team finally reached the summit of K-2 on a br
illiant August day in 1995. They radioed down to report their success. Soon 110-mile per hour winds roared out of Manchuria and blew all six off the mountain. None survived.

  Thru-hiking the AT was a several-year dream for me, but it didn’t reach that level of fanaticism. The only way I could blow it was to blunder right here.

  But I continued on. Finally, I made out some human forms about thirty feet in front of me. It was Thistle and Lightfoot. Lightfoot was, as his trail name suggested, quite fleet of foot. He had already summitted and was on the way down. “What’s it like at the top?” I asked anxiously.

  “After you get through this steep middle section the trail levels off into a tableland that is much less difficult,” he replied.

  “Is the wind bearable up there?” I quickly asked.

  “Well,” he said pensively, “you can expect high winds from here on, especially right at the summit.”

  Thistle, a rugged Texan, stoutly said, “We’ll go up together, Skywalker.”

  “I’m shaking, man, I’m so cold,” I said grimly. “I’ve got to turn around.”

  Grabbing me and pulling me over behind a rock wall Thistle said, “Stand here for a second and relax.” I tried, but I was soaked through and shivering uncontrollably. Further, Thistle traveled at a slow, even pace which meant I would probably end up alone, and I again worried about getting lost up there and not making it down before dark. Heck, I wasn’t entirely confident about getting down from where I currently stood.

  “Well, I’m going,” Lightfoot said.

  Instinctively, I said, “Let me trail along back down with you.” I was less than two miles from the summit and badly wanted to finish. But I started back down, attempting to chat with Lightfoot to slow him down a bit. Having somebody to follow in the dense fog made a big difference and soon we were back below treeline. Lightfoot soon disappeared. By the time I got to the bottom I couldn’t believe the difference in rain, visibility, and wind force. It seemed almost like a normal, wet day, as opposed to the surreal conditions I had just encountered above treeline.

  I went to the ranger station and asked, “What does it take to close the mountain?” Then I asked, “How do you know what in the world it is like above treeline being down here?”

  But those were just the hollow words of a depressed, defeated hiker.

  I was out of food and my clothes were soaked, which meant I had to find a way to Millinocket, twenty-seven miles away. The park was essentially abandoned. Mercifully, two rangers agreed to take me fifteen miles to the entrance of the park, and from there I was able to hitchhike. I was exhausted. Normally chatty to anyone considerate enough to give me a ride, I couldn’t stay awake.

  I glumly walked through Millinocket, looking for a place to stay. Fortunately, I found a room at the Appalachian Trail Inn and then ate at the Appalachian Trail Restaurant. Then I wandered around in the rain, finally locating a grocery store and then a Laundromat to dry my clothes. A general northern hospitality pervaded Millinocket, another decimated factory town.

  I returned to the Appalachian Trail Inn with hangdog airs and ran into Mr. and Mrs. Snowman. Mrs. Snowman had started off as a thru-hiker with her husband, but was one of the unfortunate ones to drop off in Georgia. Her husband had hiked onward, while she returned to their home in Wales for several months. But now she had made the trans-Atlantic passage again to try to scale this last mountain with her thru-hiking husband.

  After I recounted my day’s humbling tale, Snowman said, “We are headed out at four thirty tomorrow morning. You’re welcome to go with us.”

  “Sure, but why so early?” I wondered.

  “Because we anticipate it taking all day to get all the way up and down,” he replied.

  “See you at four thirty,” I said and buried myself in my room.

  An hour later Cackles and Box-of-Fun arrived with their fathers who had picked them up at the foot of Mount Katahdin. Cackles screamed at the top of her lungs a long, drawn-out, “Weeee’re thruuuu-hiiikers.”

  I didn’t have much residual ego as a hiker, but whatever existed was now badly frayed. Somehow I felt I had badly failed a basic test as a hiker. They knocked on my door.

  “My hat’s off to you,” I said. “That was a helluva’ hike you two made today.”

  Cackles had a mountain-climbing background out West and had led them through the most awful circumstances to the top and down. And Box-of-Fun deserved the Hang-In-There Award. She had struggled to keep up with the fleeter-of-foot Cackles for 6.5 months and 2, 175 miles.

  “When are you going to summit, Skywalker?” Cackles asked.

  “October 15,” I said, referring to the day that the mountain closes for the year.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “Are you going out with Snowman and his wife, tomorrow?”

  “At four thirty a.m., although the weather forecast, while not outright diabolical like today, is sketchy. And I sure don’t want to endanger my reputation as a fair-weathered hiker.”

  I got about three hours sleep and headed out with Mr. and Mrs. Snowman in the pitch black on September 27, 2005. I tried to relax by focusing on deep breathing. When Snowman noted my total silence his wife said, “He’s either sleeping or praying.”

  At the ranger station I felt a little better when I saw that the rain accumulation the previous day had been 2.25 inches. The forecast for this day was high winds again, but with skies clearing by mid-morning. After forcing down some more mediocre trail food I swallowed three Tylenol and headed off. This time I was fully bundled.

  I had expected the trail to be a quagmire, but the powerful wind howling through the narrow-cut trail had mostly dried it out. Again, I slowly lumbered straight up the first two thousand feet, concentrating on every breath. After ninety minutes I stopped in the same place as the previous day to ingest a Snickers Bar for a last energy boost.

  The direst recurring thought stemming from my failure the previous day was of Kutza. She was an Israeli girl who had told me a moving tale back in Virginia of hiking all the way from Georgia to Mount Katahdin in 2002, but failing on multiple occasions to ever summit because of repeatedly terrible conditions. The story had seemed incredulous at the time. But now I understood.

  I reached the giant boulder where tree line begins and, shielded by the rock, forced myself to sit down and deep breathe for a few minutes. Then, bracing myself for the worst, I stepped out for the second time into the howling winds and rock faces of Mt. Katahdin.

  The gusts were even stronger than the previous day. Again I started over the boulder fields and rock walls of Katahdin, wondering how this was going to work. Fortunately, the strong winds had started thinning out the thick fog layers, and for the first time I got a look at parts of this granite monster of a mountain. Indeed, in this middle part it seemingly went straight up. But on this second try I could see blazes.

  Mr. and Mrs. Snowman had started up at first light, but I soon saw her wedged in a crevice. Seeing she was immobilized I said, “You must be mimicking my performance yesterday.”

  “Skywalker, please don’t step on me when you pass, or on the way back down either,” she replied good naturedly. “I plan to still be in this position.”

  “Well at least you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” I replied. “That’s more than I could say yesterday.”

  I judged this was about where I had turned around the previous day, and could even see the shelf where the tableland began and the trail leveled. I had been within about 150 yards of making it there the previous day. Nonetheless, despite the high winds, which periodically buffeted me from side to side, it was a different hike on this day.

  Upon reaching the tableland I could clearly see the summit of Mt. Katahdin 1.5 miles off in the distance. Home free. A group of hikers had gathered around the summit marker, all bundled up. It was a fairly gradual climb over a rocky, moonlike landscape straight to the summit. There may be no other mountain on earth like Mt. Katahdin; a straight-up climb through a narrowly cut trail, followed by a g
rueling steep section of boulders and rock walls, and then a fairly gentle ascent across a wide tableland to the summit.

  The trail runs right over Thoreau Spring. I emptied out my Nalgene bottle and filled up with what has to be some of the clearest, purest water in the world.

  The wind howled, with gusts of up to sixty miles per hour, as I neared the summit. My first thought was that I would just touch the weather-worn sign-post I had seen in so many photographs in trail towns and then immediately head back down to get some relief below treeline.

  “Skywalker, Congratulations,” Smiley said cheerfully. “Have you got your speech ready?”

  “Yes,” I responded. “And it reads, ‘Any idiot can do it the second time.’”

  “Well, you’ve undoubtedly set the record for hiking the entire Appalachian Trail in the least number of steps,” he replied. All joking aside, that might have been true. A normal thru-hike is said to require five million steps. Perhaps I had been able to make it home in four million paces.

  Fortunately, there were no rumors about my performance the previous day as had proliferated after my abandoned backpack mishap in Georgia.

  “I heard you couldn’t even see your hands yesterday,” one hiker said.

  “The truth is a lot less friendly to me,” I said, and proceeded to recount the events of the previous day.

  “You were smart,” everybody said, and they actually seemed to mean it.

  Peter Pan offered to take a couple photographs of me on the renowned weather-worn signpost at the summit. They now occupy a prominent place in my living room. Those photographs and the good company were adequate consolation, for if I had summitted the previous day there would have been no photographs or celebration at the top.

  It was strange to see the signpost indicating distances to southward points, but no more references to anything north. All along the way I had eagerly scanned such signposts and markers to glean distances to various campsites, mountaintops, etc. But after spending almost six months wondering if this trail actually had an end, I had to fight the tendency to think, “Is that all?”