Maine. Legendary Maine. The northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. Land of conifers, slippery uphill slabby rocks, moose, Moxie, Mahoosuc Notch, and some of the best hostels on the entire AT. Maine is 281 miles of rugged footpath vaguely loping from one point to another. It is cold mornings, fabulous views, fall foliage, and misty clouds parting into afternoon sunlight. It is Baldpate Mountain, campfires, all-day vaguely-rain, loons, ponds, canoes crossing the Kennebec, the feeling of eventual ending. It is laughter with friends morphing to steam in the evening air. It is warmth and struggle. And yes, there is Katahdin. But Maine is so much more than the end point.
It was my favorite state on the Appalachian Trail.
I was tired, but I never wanted it to end. It did end, like all things do. But first, there were almost three hundred miles of beauty that I will never forget.
Here we go. The last of the AT entries. The final state. Enjoy.
12 September, Long Pond, 12:15
When I think of Maine, this is what I imagine. A soft shore of a lake with clear, shallow water rippling to land. Loons calling in the distance. Pines and firs on the edge of the water. Clear blue skies and the mountains beyond. It’s perfect, and it’s ridiculous. The sigh of the water could be a track on a “Sounds of Maine” CD. Are those loons even real? I’m losing my mind watching this scene. As the wind pushes to shore the tiny waves lap and flee over and over. I could have plucked this place from a magazine featuring local trails and nature walks for weekenders. It isn’t fair. It’s so beautiful, it’s just not fair.
It is bizarre to be approaching the end of such a long journey. I’m done with the walking, over it completely, but I don’t want to be done with the trail. Friends have gone ahead and people we know have already finished, and we have a new tramily now. It feels like change, that only constant, is seeping into the cracks of on-trail space time and saying this is ending, you’ll have to let it go.
A few days ago I was desperate to be done—wet, uncomfortable, uncertain. Now, I know I’ll miss this. The presence. The light. Hearing Jingles laugh at our silly inside jokes. Singing Les Mis with Patches to get through a rough mile. Listening to Platypus tell me about trees. I never want any of it to stop. But I feel that things are coming to an end. There will be other trails and other summers, but never another trail and another time like this one.
And I am okay with that, in a way. When this is over, it will be through. I will leave it behind and hold it forever, just the way it was. Not a journey that was perfect or exactly as I imagined, but something much better: the adventure that did happen, the people that I did meet, the things that I did experience, the lessons that I did in fact learn.
It’s almost too perfect the way the trail parallels life. As much as we expect things to be a certain way and work towards their fruition, the fact is that nothing is set. Everything is always becoming something else. I remember how my mom told me once that when she was young, she had this idea about life that went something like this: you work hard and you learn all there is to learn, and then you start your life and you’re set from that point forward. And then she learned of course that this isn’t how it works, and I’ve come to realize it firsthand too. We’re constantly learning, or we should be. We are always evolving. There should be constant addition and subtraction as we move through the world. Life is always beginning and ending, and we are never set. Learning to live in that tenuous liminality is the real gift of walking.
So I know the days by the ponds with the loons will come to an end. It’s just how it works. There is no other way. I don’t want to think about that right now, though. I’m just going to sit here, Jingles on my left and Patches on my right. My friends; my family. We’re just going to eat lunch and sit in the sand before everything starts moving again. Here we are.
13 September
Piazza Rock Shelter, 06:10
I was cold last night. I had to sleep with my filter because it felt like freezing. Fingers of cold air kept slithering into the space between my down quilt and my sleeping pad. I kept waking up, feeling every bruise and ache, trying to keep myself from longing to be home because I know I’ll miss this, all of it, even the discomfort and the frosty fall nights in Maine. It’s so hard now not to fantasize about a warm, comfortable bed and a hot shower, and a meal that doesn’t come from a bag. I could foam at the mouth right now imagining the way my childhood home smells in October, with my mom’s pies in the oven and a host of autumn candles sending pumpkin and caramel into the air.
But I have to keep myself from falling into these thoughts, because I still have 218 miles to go, and I’m still out here on the trail that is my home. I still have people to meet, I still have mountains to climb and things to see and lessons to learn. I have to get out of this sleeping bag and into the cold air. I am so close, but I still have to keep moving.
On Saddleback Mountain, looking towards The Horn, 13:12
I will never get over how beautiful this state is. Treacherous, yes. Cold, yes. And beautiful despite this, or because of it. The trees are slipping into autumn robes everywhere around me, in the valleys, on the distant hills. I look downwards and then up, a parabola from me to the next peak. I see the path I’m about to walk. It looks so easily erasable, just a thin brown pencil line wiggling between one point and another.
I see Jingles down and across the dip, ascending towards the Horn. She’s a tiny purple speck sauntering upwards. It hits me: we are just little things. Such little things, walking. But we contain so many worlds. I’m here in my head and she’s down there in hers, probably rocking out to something loud, and somewhere behind me Patches is probably listening to a podcast, and up ahead Platypus is managing a severe lack of snacks. So many of us out here, occupying our own distinct universes, while we share a smidge of space-time out here on this path.
It’s so cool. I love this place. This trail has made a home for itself inside me.
20 September, Moxie Bald Mountain, 07:34
Last night I cowboy camped here with Sorte and Zippy. We got to the summit just as the sun was setting and drank hot chocolate while the world turned orangey purple. I fell asleep with starlight streaming in my eyes and the Milky Way loping across the night sky. It was cold, colder than any other time I’ve cowboy camped, and I had to wear all my layers and pull my buff over my face to keep the chill out of my bones. I thought about Max Patch, lying in the grass with KG and Patches, one of the first nights when I felt like I really started to know them. Last night felt like a sigh of acceptance. I will be in Monson either today or tomorrow—the last town before the 100-Mile Wilderness, and the last stop before I summit Katahdin. The last hostel and the last full resupply.
I didn’t let myself think about Maine any earlier than Vermont. If you think about the end of a thru-hike when you’re in the middle of 2,192 miles, you’ll drive yourself insane. So I thought about other places instead: Hot Springs, Damascus, Shenandoah, Harper’s Ferry, New York, Rutland, the Whites. The goals were little and manageable, bumping just ahead to the next destination when one was reached. So when I crossed into Maine, and realized that this trail did, in fact, end up here, I had to start thinking about Katahdin.
Katahdin. The sacred mountain. Already summited by some of my closest friends on trail. The end is within sight, almost literally, just about a week away now. All of the memories of my hike are starting to play behind my eyes like an end-of-movie montage. I see laughter on the way up steep mountains, epic sunrises and sunsets, curses and cirrus clouds at sunset in Shenandoah, reading books over coffee and watching movies in tents. I see ponds and silence, tears, Sour Patch kids, entirely too much peanut butter, and the feeling of clean relief after taking the first shower in six days.
They’re all there, these and more, in my memory. My friends are all in my heart. I’m not ready, and never will be ready, for this hike to come to an end.
How do you end a thru-hike? How do you get to Katahdin, and realize that you are done walking? How do you stop walking? How do you tell your tramily goodbye?
I guess I’ll find out soon.
26 September, Rainbow Lake Campground, 13:18
I’ve just finished a meager lunch from what remains in my food bag. I still have 7.9 miles to go, and I’m taking it easy today, since my 27.1 yesterday took it out of me and tore up my feet. I haven’t seen Patches or Platypus in two days, and Jingles is a day ahead and summiting tomorrow. I was alone all day yesterday and I have been for most of today, with the exception of chatting with Data at the shelter a few miles ago. I stopped here at this lake for lunch because I needed to be on the shore of a body of water. I needed to hear the little rippling waves lap up against the rocks. I needed to see the reds and oranges of fall across the lake.
A loon calls from somewhere in the distance. And then, all of a sudden, I am crying. Something about that sound, the two melancholy notes from across the water, makes me able to feel the palpable closure of this journey. I see the book being shut. I see the credits ready to roll after the final scene. Tonight I’ll sleep at an Appalachian Trail shelter for the last time on this thru-hike. I will finish the 100-Mile Wilderness, and all that remains afterwards is Katahdin. When I summit that sacred mountain, I will no longer be engaged in a focused pursuit where the only major daily task to accomplish is to walk. I won’t wake up to fireflies in my vestibule, I won’t step carefully over roots, I won’t scrounge around the bottom of my ursack for a jar of peanut butter. I won’t see notes in logbooks and won’t have any more logbook entries to write. Won’t sign my trail name or write “to the world!” for any other hikers to see. I won’t stay in any more hostels or eat my soul out at any more buffets. I won’t stop for lunch at a lake in Maine and hear the loon calls.
How the fuck do you just stop walking? How can you go back, once this is what you’ve known? I hate this trail sometimes, don’t get me wrong. I screamed at it in the dark last night, begging it to just give me a nice easy walking surface for once. My feet pulsed and ached with every step and god, I just wanted to be done. I am ready to be done. But life can never be easy, can it? What’s the fun in a straight, flat, unchallenging path that goes on for miles? What’s a hike without a little pain? What is an existence that does not contain a little madness, a little darkness, a little fear?
The loon cries again. The tears redouble. God, I’m always crying. It’s my default method for dealing with the madness of emotions too big to grasp. The wind pushing gently towards me feels like the spirit of the trail itself entering my blood cells. You did it, says the Appalachian Trail to me. You said you were going to do it, and you did it. Look at me and love what you’ve done.
I love what I have done. I love this trail. I love my people. I love what I have become.
Sarahmarie Specht-Bird 