So, right after this picture was taken, my camera decided that it did not want to take pictures any more! Hurray!!! I think the software was messed up because the pictures would come out like the picture below.
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Surprisingly, the video function on my camera still worked! Therefore, from this point on, I had to rely on Snuggles' and Lazyboy's camera to get all my summit pics. That was fine with me, cause it forced me to stay with them the rest of the trip, which I was happy to do since they are such good people!
Alright, so that is all the pictures before Katahdin AKA the BIG K.
Now, I will give you all a preface before I put some more pictures up. So, if you have been following this blog since the beginning, or you know me personally, you probably remember that my sister passed away about a year ago. From seeing what she had to go through, it really engrained into my brain that life can be very short, and that if you want to live life, DO IT NOW, because you never know what the future can bring.
After seeing my sister pass, this whole hiking the trail became much more of a reality. I knew I was going to do it sometime in my life, but seeing her health slowly deteriorate until she passed, I realized it was now my time to grab life by the horns. Therefore, I decided to quit my job in mid march, and I started the trail on April 14th.
One of the biggest things I learned about the trail is to not plan your miles for the day, and just go with the flow. You think you are going to know exactly when you are going to finish as soon as you start at Mount Springer, Georgia? You obviously don't know JACK. If you think you are going to average 20+ miles a day for the next 3 weeks, just wait until you have a day where it is absolutely pouring down rain, and you gotta walk on some tough terrain, and that plan will be useless. It is much better to take the trail on a day by day basis.
That being said, I realized that when I was about a week away from Katahdin that I would be close to summiting on the 1 year anniversary of my sisters death. So, I called my parents up a few days before and verified that she did pass away on September 25th. I thought to myself that "Wow, that would be pretty neat if I summitted on that day!" But as I learned through many experiences with my life, don't dream about certain scenarios to happen, because it seems that with my life, the more I dream about things, the more probable those plans would crumble and not work out.
So, Lazyboy, Snuggles, and I just kept on chugging along with our hike, and we ended up at the Birches campsite (which is just at the bottom of Mount Katahdin, 5 miles away from the peak) on September 24th. Lazyboy's parents drove up from Milwaukee to see them both summit, and they were nice enough to let me stay in their hotel room that night before we would (hopefully) summit the next day.
Now, I must bring up a few points. I wouldn't say I am the most religious person out there, I tend to find myself more on the scientific side of things. You are going to tell me that when I die, I go fly around in heaven and I can get everything I want and I have sweet angel wings that make me fly everywhere? Ok, I guess that is probable, but I am not really 100 % on board with that. Learning all about the different things in my life, I have just realized that life doesn't make too much sense. I mean, there are like a quadrillion stars in the universe, and in the whole scheme of things, the earth is less significant than a grain of sand on a beach. Sooo...someone already figured out what is going to happen to me after I die? Sorry buddy, but I think your belief is as good as mine.
Do we fly up into heaven and I get to see everyone that has passed away in angel form?
Do I get reincarnated into another animal, another human, another planet of some sort?
I have no clue really, but I see any possibility as logical. But, I don't believe that we just die and that is it. I DO believe there is something after this life, but I like to think that our human brains are just too dumb to realize what is going to happen after we pass.
One thing I strongly believe in is signs. I remember the first day that I read about someone hiking the entire Appalachian Trail was back in my senior year at Purdue University in April 2011. I was browsing the website Reddit when I saw an AMA post about someone who thru hiked the Appalachian Trail. For those who are not Reddit savy, an AMA post is where someone posts that they have done something (hike the trail), and other people will post questions, and the main person will respond to all of the questions. Since I was born and raised in Indiana, I never even heard of a 2000+ mile trail that spanned across the whole east coast, but boy did it sure captivate my attention. That same day, I decided to go take a cruise in my car for whatever reason. I remember along the car ride, all I could think about was the Appalachian Trail. Then, at one of the stop signs, I was stopped right behind a car that had an Appalachian Trail bumper sticker on it. I believe it said "I hiked the Appalachian Trail!" or something like that. I just thought that it was amazing that I just had learned about the trail 30 minutes ago on the internet, and then I saw another bumper sticker about the trail! That was so crazy, and "spiritual", I guess, for me that I knew that before I died, I was going to hike this entire trail.
So, now for a little side note. If you knew my sister at all, you know that she was a HUUUGE Beatles fan. For her 30th birthday (which was after we learned she had terminal cancer), 30 of her friends and family members decided to write either a short story that talked about her or just give her some words of encouragement. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but I know that I included lyrics of a Beatles song to hopefully cheer her up. I took this excerpt from The Beatles song "Here Comes the Sun"
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right
I thought it would help her out, because even though in really crappy times, the sun will still rise, and it can't help but cheer you up. This was also the same song that was played at my sisters funeral.
So, flash forward to September 24th, 2013. We were back in the hotel with Lazyboy's parents, when his father decided to pull out his new tablet and check the weather. The forecast called for pretty crappy weather the next day, looked like a strong possibility of rain in the morning that could continue into the afternoon as well. I started to get bummed out because it looked like we wouldn't be able to summit on my sisters 1 year anniversary. It definitely wasn't looking promising, because 8 hikers tried to summit the day before, and they had to climb back down once the hike got above tree level because of harsh winds and cold rain. But, I still just did not mull over it and just realized, "I am going to finish this no matter what day it lies on, and it will feel glorious!"
After Lazyboy's father looked at the weather, he started to show Lazyboy all of the cool features his tablet has to offer. He wanted to show off the media player/speakers to Lazyboy, so he decided to play a song. That song was "Here Comes the Sun". I couldn't believe it. I didn't say anything, nor did I show much emotion, but from that moment, I KNEW that I was going to summit on September 25th.
So, we wake up the next morning, and the sun was shining! Everything looked great, and we got the OK from the Park rangers to summit Mount Katahdin! I was super stoked. Now, if you remember, my camera crapped out 5 days before summiting, and I was on such an adrenaline rush that I didn't stick around with Lazyboy and Snuggles on the way up, so I have no pictures of the climb up. I think its fitting though, I have done a great job showing you all what to expect through pictures, but I like keeping that last climb/descent for myself. The weather wasn't perfect that day for sure, it was cloudy most of the day, but it was still just as glorious. Seeing all of the intense rock faces when you start to climb up was incredible. We had a few moments where the clouds broke, and we got a nice view of the trees in the distance starting to change colors, and even a waterfall that was off in the distance on the other mountain. Plus, at the very top of the mountain, there was ice! Most people waited for a nice, clear day to summit, but I always have thought I do things a little different than most. The day was cold, foggy, and icy, but I would have taken this day over any other clear day.
Ok, now time for the summit pictures!
So, HERE IT IS! This is my summit video that shows me finishing my 2,185.9 mile thru hike!
So, that is it for the summit pics! As you can see, I was feeling super stoked at the summit. It was such a glorious time, and I got to share it with good people. I thought I might be bawling at the top, but that didn't happen.
I started to get real emotional on the way down when I got ahead of Snuggles and Lazyboy because I started to think about all that I have done. I mean, I was a dude who had absolutely 0 backpacking experience, and 0 gear just back in March. I quit my job, and in a months time I had all the necessary gear to get out and hike this trail. I started on April 14th, and I finished on September 25th. It was just such a surreal moment for me. I finished the first dream that was solely my decision. This adventure was such a surreal experience the whole time I was hiking it, and it was even more surreal finishing it. Finishing exactly one year after my sister passed was absolutely crazy too.
The part that hit me the hardest was thinking about what I was going to write in the final logbook back at the bottom of the mountain. It was wonderful seeing all of the people I knew that finished before me, and all of their entries. Most of them talked about what a crazy, wonderful ride it has been. I most certainly thought about doing that, but since I finished 1 year after my sisters death, I couldn't help but think that she was with me the entire time on this trail. That is why I decided to write to her for my last journal entry. I was just bawling down a good chunk of the mountain thinking about what I should say to her. Here it is.
I think here is a perfect place to end this blog post. I most certainly miss my sister every day, and just writing this blog has filled me with so many emotions that I am pretty much drained at this point.
I hope you all enjoyed watching my adventure unfold. It sure has been fun writing to you all! It has been really cool seeing the statistics of my blog posts, and seeing more and more people read it every time I write a new post. Thanks for that!
I still am not done with this blog, because I think coming back from the trail is just as crazy as being on it. It definitely has been a shock coming back to central Indiana, where there is, lets face it, absolutely nothing interesting geographically wise. A lot of thru hikers experience some sort of depression after the trail, and it looks like it is starting to creep into my life too. No longer do I wake up every morning, and exercise for 8 hours a day. No longer do I see wonderful views and the absolute beauty of nature. I now wake up and go, "well what do I do today?"
Now, my life is back where I have spent 98 % of my life already, and it is not so fun. I don't like feeling lazy, and so I can't help but feel like that now since I am currently jobless. It feels like I don't have a purpose to life right now, and that is really getting to me. The nervousness and fear that I felt at the start of my thru hike is miniscule compared to the nervousness and fear that I have now. It is a very daunting feeling that I must somehow acclimate back into society again. I am still debating on if I like sleeping in a bed more than I like sleeping in my tent.
Will I join the rat race again and work 8-5, wear a polo shirt and khakis, and go to eat at Chipotle once every Wednesday with my not-so-interesting coworkers?
Will I find a part time job that allows me to pay the bills, get out of the parents house, and live life so that I can pursue my passions while not get in the red every month?
Will I become the next Baltimore Jack and re-hike the trail 9 times? Oh God, I hope not.
There are a lot of questions that need to be answered in my life, and I have a feeling this will not be so easy. I hope I am wrong, and I hope things just start to fall in place.
I will keep ya posted soon on how everything goes.
For now, I hope you enjoyed, and I only hope that I have at least inspired a few people to attempt a thru hike in the upcoming years! If you have read my blog and thought to yourself "man that would be so cool to do it", and you have an opportunity to do it, trust me, DO IT!!!!! If you would like to contact me with any questions about anything, feel free to email me at JoeMoeAT@gmail.com
My next blog post will probably be more about reintroduction into society, and also I will probably make some sweet thru hike videos and gear review videos. But for now, I am gonna go out and exercise!
Peace,
Lighthouse (Joey)
April 14, 2013 - September 25, 2013
