Chapter 14
Monson, Maine
2050 miles down and 118 miles to go

Carl Newhall Shelter
    "A delightful hike here today - a beautiful (sunny, cool, windless) day for hiking. GREAT to see Sulu again and meet Father Time and Huck. And of course, it was a delight to see Campro for the first time since we got cut off at Brownie's in Delaware Water Gap (I'm still bitter about that). I have abandoned my laissez-faire attitude toward purists; today I personally drowned three of them in Cloud Pond. I hope they don't struggle to the surface and come after me with their ski poles. OH AND BY THE WAY - are you tired of Southbound section hikers who pretend they know EVERYTHING there is to know about the trail? If so, please consider spearing one with a tent peg. You'll be making the trail a nicer place. You wont have to hear about what a brutal climb Nesuntabunt Mountain is, you won't have to suffer through uninformed discussions about the AMC. Visions of the perfect world.

The Ordainer
GA > Perfection

     They had been writing "Georgia to Maine" in the registers for almost six months, and now they were crossing the state line into that last stretch of trail. They still had over 300 miles and a month to go, but it seemed like only a few steps and a few days. The long fold-out map of the trail that Wayah had carried since Hot Springs was now a testament to where they had been instead of a lengthy reminder of how far they had to go. There were only a few inches left on the map, and at the end of the dotted red line was a small national park punctuated by Mt. Katahdin. "K-Town" they had been calling it, The Big K. The Whites had been monumental, and now they were in the rugged lake country. They had been hearing stories about Maine all along the way, and now the objects of the stories were only miles or tens of miles away.

    Back in North Carolina they had passed Knothole Willie and Wolf Cloud who were finishing a long southbound thru-hike that had taken them all the way through the winter. Willie told them about Mahoosuc Notch, the hardest mile on the trail, and the climb that came after it. He said, "The Notch is the crotch, but the Arm does the harm." Now they descended into the infamous boulder-strewn gap, leaping and climbing, scrambling and sliding to where Mahoosuc Arm shot steep and high out of the gorge.

    They came to the infamous Kennebec River, eighty feet across with no bridge, so potentially dangerous that the old tradition of fording the river had been replaced by a canoe/ferry after some hikers died. The thru-hikers still talked about fording it, though. For some it was a macho thing, and for others it was the only way to really hike the trail. Wayah was the first Viking on the scene. He looked at the canoe and the hikers climbing in, and looked at the river. He had said to himself that morning that he would just take the canoe and not have to dry his boots for hours and risk falling in. Lately a pebble sized paranoia had set in. One bad step and he could break an ankle or a knee, and would have to crawl or limp the rest of the way to Katahdin. He looked at the water flowing smooth here, rough there, and at the round, slippery rocks along the bottom, and heard Jones coming up behind him. The sun shone hard and cut the river valley in stark, contrasting shapes.
    "You takin' the canoe?" Jones asked from behind him. As usual, hearing the question from another Viking helped Wayah quickly make up his mind.
    "Hell no. I'm fordin' this big lady." Jones gave a triumphant laugh as Wayah picked up his gear and looked for the best place to cross. There was no way he could pass up on this part of the adventure. He found a fairly shallow area, wider, but punctuated by a sandbar, and made his way slowly across the jagged and slippery rocks. The instant Wayah's boots had entered the water he felt the river start to intrude on his normally watertight foot-fortress. Within seconds the boots were filled with frigid water-so cold that his feet were quickly numb. He crossed the wide river slowly with legs like numb logs propped up by his walking stick and leaning into the powerful current. The water was up to his shorts and pulling hard against him. Jones was right behind using two sticks from beside the river to aid his balance. From the mountain approach, Squirrel saw them crossing, and he and Krummholz trotted down to begin their own ford. When the ferryman saw that they were making a ford he jumped from his seat and readied his rescue rope. Despite some dicey balance moments on the rounded slick rocks none of the Vikings fell in. Once across, they sat in the sun by the tiny Caratunk general store and post office for two hours, drying their boots, eating fresh, sweet cucumber, and opening mail drops with the other hikers that had joined them since they arrived.

    Each day was like an entire chapter in the adventure. The obstacles and victories all seemed larger than life, and the end crept ever closer. They traveled on and off with Just Chris, Rainman, and Johnny Stick. They were all good camp companions and Jones loved to play cards with them, sometimes stopping right on the trail to do so. The Blues Brothers hiked with them most every day, and camped with them often. Some nights the Viking horde numbered nine, and when Krummholz's friend Ledgehead joined them after Caratunk to hike the last stretch to Katahdin, they were ten. They were seeing more thru-hikers than they had ever seen before. When they started, they were ahead of the crowd, but now, with October coming close, they were in the main flow. In mid October, Katahdin would become too dangerous to climb. The winds and ice were deadly, and the park could be closed, so everyone was aiming to finish by the end of September or in the first few days of October. Several hikers also had friends and family come out to join them for the end of their journey. Sometimes campgrounds were packed with 20 or 30 people, and the Vikings, not interested in such a crowd, would stay back or move ahead to find some water they could camp by and be alone. After a while, even ten was too many, and Chris, Rainman, and Stick would camp separately, and sometimes Jones with them.

   In Monson, all of them but the Kaptain and Ledgehead shared a house that could be rented for the day for 40 dollars. Monson would be their last trail town and their last resupply. In the mail they all got huge packages of food to get them through the next ten days. Monson lay at the southern edge of the Hundred Mile Wilderness. For 100 miles there would be no places to resupply, and only a few little dirt roads trailing off into the green. Their travel arrangements for the end of the trail had stayed flexible before now so that they wouldn't have to set their pace by a schedule, but now the dates had set to be picked up from the foot of Katahdin. They could send back anything that they wouldn't need, and they had to fill their packs to the brim with food one more time. The end of the trail was staring them in the face. It was said that you could see K-Town for days before you got there, sticking out of the land like a pillar. They soaked up their last trail town as best they could. They dried and cleaned all the gear, did laundry, and took a final shower. They prepared a feast with everything they could find in the tiny the town store and celebrated into the night.

    By morning a light rain had settled in and Jones wasn't feeling well. He decided to sit the day out with Stick, Rainman, and Chris. Wayah and Squirrel and the Blues Brothers caught a ride in the back of a truck through the stinging rain to the trailhead and dove back into the green. The days were turning cool and wearing the heavier raincoat was no longer a problem. The nights were often frigid, and they woke up in the morning to find beads of ice on the insides of their tents. That first night it rained hard all night. Squirrel and Wayah had fallen behind the Blues Brothers, the Kaptain and Ledgehead. They camped on an unused road by a river that they others had already passed since they didn't want to cross it in the growing dark. Besides the danger, they didn't like the idea of not having any sunlight to dry off their boots on the other side. That night the driving rain streamed down the steep road and soaked them inside their tents. Their food bags were saturated where they hung, and some of Wayah's candy bars and gorp bag were filled with water. A long time ago they had learned to laugh off getting soaked. What gets wet in the rain gets dry as soon as the sun comes out. They took a long lunch the next day on a rocky outcropping to dry their gear. Even the wet trail mix in its new brick shape would not go to waste.

   Squirrel was given some military issue camouflage face-paint by a friend while he was at home during his Harper's Ferry break. He had carried it all those months since without using it. Now, in the Hundred Mile Wilderness, they decided they would wear it every day, and it became the Viking Warpaint. They caught the Blues Brothers, Kaptain Krummholz, and Ledgehead the next evening at the shelter, and the next day Jones, Chris, Rainman, and Stick caught up. They all began wearing the Warpaint every day in the Wilderness. If the dread locks and Warpaint weren't enough, Squirrel began wearing a skirt he ha picked up at a New Hampshire flea market. He said it provided him more freedom and ventilation. Really it was to scare section hikers. They marched through the Hundred Mile Wilderness in a long, strung out, painted line seeing old faces and new ones. They even saw Jokers Wild bouncing through the Wilderness in different directions, hitching a ride back to Monson with a prop-plane that landed on a trailside lake. The terrain was mild. They wound around lakes and climbed a few mountains, but the rugged climbs of New Hampshire and southern Maine were basically behind them.

    Rounding the higher mountains, they squinted intently at the horizon for signs of Katahdin. It seemed like it would glow, but they were rarely sure if one of the mountains they saw in the distance was their goal. They sat on cliffs on many days eating lunch and taking long breaks. Food was dwindling more than they would have liked even after a few days. The desire to eat some of the weight off of their packs combined with the cold weather was bringing their appetites to a high, and they were already having to ration to make sure they didn't run out before the store at Abol Bridge on the other side of the Wilderness. The store was probably small and wouldn't have much of their usual staples, but it became apparent that they would have to completely restock for the last two days there, even if it meant eating nothing but junk food.

    The Vikings sat on a high cliff one day during a break, jesting and snacking. Krummholz was eating peanut butter and bread and laughing. They had never stopped having fun, but now they were euphoric. From the clear sky swooped several Canadian Jays. After their experience in the Whites they seemed like little Vultures, craning their necks, hopping closer to their food like tiny thieves. Krummholz kicked out at one half-jokingly and then screamed as the joke turned tragic. His jerking leg had brushed against his jar of peanut butter and knocked it off the ledge. Some 2,000 calories, 160 grams of fat, and 70 grams of protein bounced hard down the rocky face of the cliff, catching in some brush 20 or 30 feet below. They all stared over the cliff in silence.
   "Wow," said Wayah, shocked, "That really sucks." Krummholz half laughed, half whimpered to himself.
     "I can't let this go," Squirrel suddenly blurted out. "That's peanut butter in a shatterproof container. I'm going after it." They thought to tell him he was mad, but they couldn't argue his reasoning, and besides, the Viking Hero was already scrambling down the cliff face.
     "You better not fall," Wayah called down. "I don't want to have to carry your ass all the way up Katahdin!" He did not fall, though, and true to his name, he rescued the peanut butter amid scattered and genuine applause.

One day it was just there, like The White Whale gliding out of the fog that hung over the plains. There was no question and no squinting, it was Katahdin. They sat in a row amid the brush and rock, faces painted and calm. Each day it was bigger, closer. They saw it coming over Nesuntabunt Mountain like a great dragon, the veins of rock running down her steep sides clear in the cold air. They camped by a dam on the edge of Rainbow Lake and she stood over the trees and reflected in the water, greeting them with the sunrise as geese flew over in formation, their wings rushing in the wind. The end marched ever closer, and then what? What would it be like to live in that world out there again, where their routines no longer made so much sense, where the day was measured in unbreakable moments instead of flexible experiences, where weather was an afterthought instead of the thing which shaped the way they went about their days. They remembered the people they had been before the trail and wondered what part of their new lives would survive leaving the woods. Going back to school, looking for work, paying bills, having to ask for permission to disappear for a few days and wander alone, it was big and frightening. They had found a life of blissful adventure in the simplicity of the trail, and they didn't know how they could just leave it. Even during the hardest times on the trail, the simplicity of their dilemmas and hurts were more than countered by their equally simple and more powerful joys. Their lives had been boiled down to simple questions with simple answers. Where will I sleep? What will I eat? What makes me happy? How much ice cream can I eat in one sitting? It seemed like the world outside simply created harder questions with meaningless answers. Perhaps it was because they depended on no one but themselves in the woods, and once off the trail they would be stuck in the web again. Wayah began to fill his contemplative moments with thoughts about how he could apply what he had learned in the woods to the life he would have to live when he was out of it. Their fears surfaced as humor, of course. Sentimentality was tolerated only three times per person per day. Any more and the offender would be covered with a sleeping bag and beaten. Even just a sigh followed by the number of days left to Katahdin counted for an offense.

   Before they knew it they were crossing Abol Bridge, the end of the Hundred Mile Wilderness. The store at Abol Bridge was the last place to buy supplies and after leaving it there were only 15 miles left to the top of Katahdin. The heavy metal bridge lay draped across the Penobscot River like some girded vessel and along its side was a walkway for hikers. When Wayah got there, Jones, Chris, Stick, and Rainman were already sitting in a line on the railing. Over the wide, arching Penobscot sat Katahdin. It was only a few miles away by the crow and stood monolithic over them. The days had been beautiful, the odd hailstorm aside, and now the air was crisp and the mountain held the deep blue sky high above them. It was September 28th. They weren't due to meet their respective rides at the foot of Katahdin until the first of October. The Vikings would spend the night at the campground by the bridge, have a leisurely walk eight miles the next day to the Daicey Pond campground, and then that night they would climb the mountain.

   When Wayah was much younger, long before the trail, he had gone to a summer camp in Maine. He had never hiked, but he liked mountains and had decided to join a three-day field trip to climb Katahdin. He had been intoxicated by its majesty then, even though it was covered with clouds that day and he could only see about twenty feet. He had looked on curiously as two ragged Frenchmen staggered through the mist to the top with heavy packs and looks of indescribable joy. It was years and years before he realized that they must have been thru-hikers and that first mountain he had climbed was the end of the Appalachian Trail. He remembered the group leader saying that Katahdin, as the tallest mountain in the easternmost state was the first place the sun hit in America in the morning, and when he put it all together he knew that he had to hike that whole trail and watch that sunrise from the top. Along the way they had shared their plan and others had been excited, and some had tried to tell him that the first place the sun hit was some other mountain farther to the east in Maine, but the Vikings were always able to convince them of the truth.

   The next day they woke up and had a leisurely day. Wayah bought a box of Fruit Loops and a half gallon of milk and ate them for his breakfast. Squirrel had chocolate filled doughnuts. They saw Screaming Coyote for the first time since Vermont as he hiked in early from the shelter, and they proceeded slowly on their way. It was only eight miles to the Daicey Pond campground and they had plenty of time to relax. They took long breaks to talk and snack, and then took lunch at the Little Niagara Falls. Squirrel and Ledgehead had crossed the low falls, surveying the slope to determine if it would be safe to slide down. Willwood was trying to cross the slippery top of the falls to join them and was not faring well. For each timid step he took forward with a long, lanky leg, he would slide a few inches toward the edge. Wayah and Krummholz sat on the trailside in the sun, shaking their heads saying, "Nope. I don't think he's gonna make it." Suddenly Will turned down the waterfall and dove in head first, laughing in compliance with the will of the falls. Squirrel and Ledgehead were close behind.

   They reached Daicey early and had a lot of time to look around and see who was there after they had been registered and informed of the park rules. The reporters were all there. All the teams had come to hike the end together, and the Vikings were able to see many faces that they hadn't seen in a long time. Harper's Fairy and Curly havd just come down off the mountain and were heading for town. Screaming Coyote was there with his parents, so excited they could barely perceive anyone else in the world. Saprophyte was camped with Peace Dog, and the campground was filled with hikers barely known and strangers never met. Many people, the reporters especially, had food and soda and beer to give them, and they talked and rejoiced with their friends into the evening. After dark they went out on the pond in canoes and circled in the dark, whistling across the water.

    They were ready for their night hike. Wayah, Squirrel, Jones, Krummholz, Ledgehead, Jake, and Will would hike to the ranger's hut at Katahdin Stream campground at the base of the mountain and leave their packs on the ranger's porch. Then they would hike up for the sunrise and have the top to themselves before hiking down the other side over the Knife's Edge to meet their families at the Roaring Brook campground. The Vikings decided to get in a few hours of sleep before midnight, though, and set up their sleeping bags in a field by the full campground. So that they wouldn't oversleep, Wayah kept watch over them in the night instead of napping. He didn't feel tired, and his mind was churning. The end had come so quickly. Each day that he was with his friends numbered among the best days in his life. There was a kind of energy that hovered around the Vikings, making the world magical, and forcing everyone in its field to smile. The Wolf built himself a small fire and sat looking into it and listening to its crackling and waving flames. He knew he would survive the world on the other side, but what would it be like without the Vikings? The hours crawled by slowly in the cold air and he was serene, surrounded by his sleeping friends, keeping a silent vigil.