Hike your own hike

For those who make pilgrimages to the wilds carrying the essentials of survival on their backs, there is only rule – hike your own hike.

Even though as in life, you may for a time, spend part of that journey in the close company of others, ultimately, when you shoulder a pack and seek the solace of wilderness, you walk alone.

The Mecca of all long-distance hikes in the United States is the storied Appalachian Trail that stretches 2,185 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia to the lofty summit of Katahdin in Maine.

Granted the peaks of the Appalachian Range are mere hills compared to the Rockies. It is their advanced age, however, not youth and inexperience, that dictates their diminished situation. Atop these ancient mountains that pushed skyward 400 million years before the Himalayas began their geologic rise, the trail climbs the highest peaks and passes through some of the most scenic and wild areas on the East Coast.

While some of it features highly engineered switchbacks for ease of walking, other stretches are chaotic jumbles of ankle-biting rocks. There are heights to scale, streams to ford, bears to fend off, and extremes of heat and cold to endure, all while carrying 40 pounds on your back. The rewards are more sublime -- views out 100 miles, the embrace of unmanicured nature, and the satisfaction at being able to look up as the alpenglow fades in the western sky to marvel at how far you’ve come.

Those who accept its physical challenge come to understand the route wasn’t laid out to be easy on the feet. It was chosen to be nourishment and inspiration to the soul.

I was reminded of that last weekend when I spent three days hiking in Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness near Rainbow Lake. It was two years ago, while trying to route-find a new way into that stretch from the Golden Road to the north, on old logging roads, that I snagged a root in a skidder rut with my foot and dislocated my hip. Fortunately, it went back in when I landed on it. It hurt like hell and the two-mile hike back to the truck was agony. Having good friends who took turns hefting my full pack, filled with everything for a four-day trip, was a Godsend.

Sitting in the Emergency Room in Millinocket the doctor noticed no broken bones on my x-ray. "Boy, you do have a lot of arthritis in that hip," he said. It was news to me as I had never had any pain.

Over the next two months, however, things went downhill. The verdict nearly a year later -- I needed a new hip.

So last fall, I had the surgery with the winter to recover. Over the past summer I built up my day hiking endurance. That set up my determination to get back into Rainbow Lake, to finally reach my original destination.

An estimated 2,500 people set out to hike the AT end-to-end each year. Slightly more than 10 percent succeed. The woods near the first road crossing north of Springer are often littered with cast off gear, the detritus of poor planning, unreasonable expectations, and the premature evaporation of what at first seemed to be a boundless supply of perseverance.

Some stop due to injury; others when the tangential tug of gravity from lives and loves back home can no longer be ignored.

Some run out of time. Some run out of money. Some run out of heart.

For others, vagabond dreams surrender to a new daily monotony and the reality of being at times cold, wet, bug bit, hungry, sore and tired – and often all of the above.

Others depart unable to accept the notion of themselves as sole confidante, needing more entertainment than is offered by the metronome of their own pulse.

Not all are comfortable with powerful rhythm, itself life’s primordial soundtrack. Its detection in the womb corroborates a new spark of existence – its departure at the end of life’s journey irrefutable evidence of entropy's inescapable silence. With acknowledgement comes acceptance that the number of our heartbeats is finite, some say fixed – as fleeting in the cosmic sense, as ancient mountains, as time itself.

Since it opened in the 1930s, slightly more than 10,000 people have managed to complete the Appalachian Trail. Few among them know that a Mainer is among those they are indebted to for showing the way.

Myron Avery was born in Lubec in 1899, graduated from Bowdoin and later became a successful lawyer. A friend of Appalachian Mountain Club founder Benton MacKaye, who first proposed the AT in a 1921 article, While MacKaye had a dream, Avery helped pioneer and build the actual route.

The original plan called for the trail’s northern terminus to be Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Avery persevered in his insistence it end atop Katahdin.

When the sign demarking Katahdin as the northern terminus of the AT reached the summit, Avery is reported to have made a very brief speech. “Nail it up,” he reportedly said.

Thanks to Avery, hikers have an additional 250 rugged miles to cover through the most remote wilderness found anywhere, including Mahoosuc Notch, considered to be the AT’s toughest mile, and the renown 100-mile Wilderness, the longest section that doesn’t intersect a paved road on the entire route.

Author Bill Bryson, in his classic “A Walk in the Woods,” tips his hat to Avery. “In under seven years, using volunteer labor, he built a 2,000 mile trail through mountain wilderness,” Bryson writes. “Armies have done less.”

Sadly, despite being thin and fit from a life devoted to life in the out of doors, Myron Avery died at the young age of 53, of a heart attack.

Last weekend dawned cold with muddled clouds overhead. It's always a good sign, while bumping into Nahmakanta and Rainbow over the Jo Mary Road,  when there are actual rainbows overhead. It spit snow as we hit the trail on the old logging road that cuts into the Murphy Ponds and follows the old AT path along the north side of the Rainbow Deadwaters.

It took a couple hours, some cursing at the mud and rocks, but eventually I was standing at the Dam, the spectacular view of a snow accented Katahdin looming large across the unfrozen water.

As I lay in my 20-degree sleeping bag that night, contemplating whether to don another layer as the wind blew steady and the temperature dipped to 19, I was warm in the satisfaction that comes from fulfilling a mission I had begun two years before. Fate had conspired to keep me from this remote and beautiful place on the AT. But it did not win in the end.

The Appalachian Trail Conference doesn’t keep records; it discourages folks from trying to set them. That is because there is nothing about the Appalachian Trail experience that requires or compels one hiker to compare themselves to any other. Doing so misses the point.

In the end, whether on the trail or off, there is only one rule in life. Hike your own hike.

The colors of nature in Acadia National Park

Nahmakanta Camps an Oasis of comfort

Deep in Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness, on the Appalachian Trail's longest section without easy resupply, there is little evidence of civilization beyond a dusty network of nameless gravel woods roads and the odd logging operation or two.

But tucked up on the beach at the northern end of Nahmakanta Lake, surrounded by state and federal protected lands, there is an oasis of convenience and comfort. Nahmakanta Lake Wilderness Camps have been a mainstay to travelers in these parts for more than a century.

With few impurities and a high dissolved oxygen content the waters of Nahmakanta Lake are prime for cold water fish species such as trout and landlocked salmon. The name itself is Abenaki and means "plenty of fish."

Nearly every major structure at Nahmakanta Camps dates back to the late 1800s when the camps began catering to sportsmen. All nine cabins, which can sleep from 2-8 people each, are composed, at least in part, from sections of the original log sleeping structures. Owners Angel and Don Hibbs have worked tirelessly over their nearly three decades of stewardship at Nahmakanta and you won't find a better maintained, or cleaner, sporting camp anywhere in Maine.

All cabins have been updated, have screened-in porches, some have their own bathrooms, although you won't find electricity in any of them. Gas lights, stoves and refrigerators get the job done. All sinks have cool, clear spring water piped in.

There's a place to recharge electrical devices, and limited access to wifi in the main lodge, which sports the original dining room that features moose and deer mounts, old maps, and other memorabilia.

For cabins that don't have full bathrooms, the owners have constructed modern private toilet, sink and shower facilities in a building just steps away. Each cabin gets its own private suite. Compost toilets back in the cabins provide facilities for middle of the night bathroom needs.

Even better than the welcoming facilities themselves, is the unparalleled view. All cabins sit just up the shore with an unobstructed ten-mile view straight down the lake. There is no other sign of civilization to be seen.

To the west, Nesuntabunt Mountain, where hikers on the Appalachian Trail get their last full view of their destination, Katahdin to the north, looms straight out of the lake. Loons sing with regularity, eagles and great blue herons fly about, and even the occasional moose wanders past.

Guided moose safaris can also be arranged.

Each cabin has a cozy woodstove and well-stocked woodbox as well as a grill and a separate campfire ring outside.

Canoes, kayaks (no charge) and Lund aluminum fishing boats sit on the beaches out front at the ready. There's a dock and swimming float as well. Fishing guide services are available.

Along with the camps, Angel and Don have created a network of nature and hiking trails that connect directly from the camps to the Appalachian Trail, and the trails in the adjacent Debsconeag Lakes Wilderness. They have detailed maps of the area and can advise on how best to visit the area's stunning waterfalls, remote Pollywog Gorge, or where the best swimming spots are where the AT follows the rushing waters of Rainbow Stream. The number of hiking, bird watching, canoeing, kayaking, fishing and photography options is endless.

Families love visiting Nahmakanta because of the spectacular natural setting and traditional atmosphere. There's so much to do, including, if you so desire, doing nothing at all.

Cabins can be rented on a housekeeping basis or on the American Plan that includes meals in the rustic lodge. A modified American plan is available which includes evening dinner while you cooking breakfast or fix lunches on your own. When the dinner bell is rung at 5:30 p.m. you can count on tasty, wholesome meals, fresh-baked goods, and good fellowship in the main lodge. Accommodating any dietary requirement is never a problem.

While the camps are not accessible by road in winter, that doesn't mean their are empty. Don, a champion dog sledder with CanAm victories under his belt, offers half, full and two-day dog sled excursions out of their winter quarters in Millinocket sometimes using the camps as an overnight destination.

When it comes time to surround yourself with unbridled nature, and creature comforts, Nahmakanta is the place to go.

Reconnect with nature, and yourself, at Nicatous Lodge

When it comes to really escaping the hustle and bustle of daily life there's no better place than a spot far from where the pavement and power lines end. One such place is in a corner of Hancock County that's so remote it doesn't even have a name, just a number, – T3 ND.

That's where you'll find Nicatous Lodge at the north end of Nicatous Lake. For more than 50 years, the lodge and cabins have been a home base to a mix of visitors that can include fishermen, paddlers, hikers, hunters, ATV riders and snowmobilers. And many folks like to do nothing at all. Head down to the screened gazebo at the shore with a good book and see how fast the afternoon disappears.

The Native American name for the lake is Kiasobeak, which means "Clear Water Lake." With just a handful of private camps on the edges, the lake boasts some 34 miles of shoreline, numerous sandy beaches, and 76 islands devoid of evidence of human occupation.

Some 22,000 acres of the surrounding forest is now a preserve that allows rustic camping at established sites.

Established as a camp for boys in 1928, the lodge today features the authentic log main building containing a spacious lobby, small library, the dinning room and restaurant-quality kitchen. Out front, a broad porch sports views miles down the lake. A large field stone fireplace is the building's centerpiece. There are several guest rooms located on the second level.

Out front are the docks that service fishing boats (bring your own or you can rent one or arrange for a guide), a handful of small pleasure craft, and the lodge's fleet of canoes, kayaks, a sunfish sailboat (free for use by guests) and the swimming beach and float.

Surrounding the main lodge and nestled in the trees are nine housekeeping cabins, in a variety of configurations.

Most overlook the rushing waters of Nicatous Stream which arcs around the camp in a broad, sweeping curve where trophy trout can often be coaxed from a cool, deep eddy.

The decor is a unique blend of one part estate sale and another part L.L. Bean – with a pinch of grandma's attic. The floors creak and you can see all the pipes in the bathroom(the better to keep them from freezing in winter). Winter woodstoves are removed by summer so that the fireplaces can function.

In the cupboards are coffee cups that don't match and pots and pans that didn't begin life as part of an expensive set. What you will discover is that the sheets are crisp and clean, the blankets warm and anything you prepare in one of their vintage cast iron frying pans will be delicious – in short, utility and authenticity. There are no radios or televisions in the cabins although there is a satellite dish in the lodge.

When it comes to nightlife you'll have to settle for the calls of barded owls, the breeze whispering in the tall pines overhead and the haunting cries of loons out on the lake.

Be forewarned, however. The one thing you won't find anywhere, no matter how hard you look – is pretention.

Folks renting cabins can do their own cooking, although meals can be taken in the dining room which is also open to the public at various times of year. Electricity is provided by the camp's quiet generators that also charge a giant battery bank so no motors can be heard running at night or at times during the day.

While there are plenty of comforts at Nicatous Lodge, it's what they don't charge for that folks value the most. Waves lapping at the shore are the traditional way of marking time. Peace and solitude abound as sunlight filters through ancient pines to dance and play on the ground. At night, the brilliant arc of the Milky Way high overhead is the only bright light you'll see.

Cell phone service is spotty at best. But, for those who can't stand being off line for too long there's free wifi in the lodge.

The only guaranteed connection you'll find at Nicatous Lodge, however, will be with mother nature.

Following in his own footsteps

Carey Kish of Hall Quarry got back onto the Appalachian Trail (AT) here last week after a quick visit to Mount Desert Island. As he crested Bear Mountain and prepared to cross the Hudson River on a soaring suspension bridge, his pace was quickened by the sight of familiar ground – the friendly hills of New England, looming just 25 miles ahead in the haze.

Starting on Springer Mountain in Georgia in March, he's already walked some 1,400 miles. Everything he needs to survive in the wilds he carries in the backpack on his back.

Now, he's got just 800 miles to go to get back to the northern end of the trail in Maine. There's still Mount Washington and the rest of the Presidential Range to tackle. And Mahoosuc Notch, the AT's toughest mile, awaits just over the border from New Hampshire.

Once through the 100-mile Wilderness he'll be standing at the foot of Katahdin, the finish line in sight. That's all tough hiking. But for the 56-year-old veteran outdoorsman, hiking guide book author, and outdoor columnist it's all familiar ground. In fact, for Kish, that's doubly true. This is his second hike along the AT. He first was nearly four decades ago.

"I hiked the Appalachian Trail at age 18 and it ruined me for life," Kish jokes during a chat while back on MDI. That was in 1977 when he was fresh out of Bangor High School.

"I think the freedom of the trail, that hiking DNA, got instilled in me," he explains.

Although his older body may take longer to adjust to the insults and indignities of hiking 15 to 20 miles a day over mountaintop after mountaintop, the lightness of gear now, and its quality, is way ahead of where things were in the 1970s. "Back then there really wasn't that much available," he adds.

Preparing for this AT hike went smoothly, Kish says. "I already had most of the gear," he explains. He says it took about 20 hours of preparation. He put together an Excel spreadsheet. Reference materials such as detail section maps and the "Appalachian Trail Data Book," are indispensable aids. "Basically I sketched it all out on the back of a beer napkin," he adds.

Each year, approximately 2,500 people set out from Springer Mountain in Georgia to hike the entire AT. Around 250-300 actually finish.

The rush to get going often leads to as many as 100 people beginning on the same day. They form a fluid wave heading north, often crowding the shelters and the best tent sites. "I started on March 18," Kish says. "Lucky for me I seem to have missed most of that."

Especially on sections below New England, chances to resupply and to divert into a nearby town to rest, shower, and eat other than backpacking food, are plentiful. Kish's Facebook Page and blog "Six Moon Journey," often mentions copious consumption of food and brew, along with the progress of other hikers (all known by their trail names), the natural wonders, and how places have changed in the 38 years since he had seen them last. Still, despite eating all he can, Kish has managed to drop 30 pounds so far on his trek.

While some worry the AT is getting too crowded, Kish says there's ample opportunity to connect with nature. "There's still a lot of solitude to be found. I find it especially during the day. There's company at night around the shelters but you can always tent elsewhere if it gets to be too much," he adds.

Every year sections of trail get improved, moved away from development or rerouted. Back in 1977, as much as 200 miles of the AT involved walking along busy roads. Today that is down to less than 20 miles. "It continues to grow and improve," Kish said.

Kish, who retired from his day job with the Portland Council of Governments last year, is a well-know Appalachian Mountain Club guide book author. Among his titles are "AMC’s Best Day Hikes Along the Maine Coast."

He is editor of AMC's "Maine Mountain Guide." His hiking column appears in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. A Registered Maine Guide and wilderness first responder, Kish has also done long-distance hikes in Canada, Europe and other places in the United States.
He tried to repeat his AT trek before, both in 1989 and in 1994. Each time, he had to cut it short for various reasons.

Along with retirement that gave him the time to repeat his AT adventure, Kish credited his wife Fran for serving as support crew and understanding his need to hit the trail. "My wife has been a trooper," he says. "She's been wonderful."

According to Kish, finishing the AT a second time has been a very long term goal.

"It's been in the works since the day I finished the other one 38 years ago. It has been my major influence."

'A Walk in the Woods'

After getting back on the trail in New York, Kish posted a passage on his Facebook Page that he called "my favorite passage, from Bill Bryson's 'A Walk in the Woods,'" about the Appalachian Trail. The movie based on the book, and starring Nick Nolte and Robert Redford, is due out in September.
Bryson writes:

"Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception.

"The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret. Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really. You have no engagements, commitments, obligations, or duties; no special ambitions and only the smallest, least complicated of wants; you exist in a tranquil tedium, serenely beyond the reach of exasperation, 'far removed from the seats of strife,' as the early explorer and botanist William Bartram put it.

"All that is required of you is a willingness to trudge. There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. Every bend in the path presents a prospect indistinguishable from every other, every glimpse into the trees the same tangled mass. For all you know, your route could describe a very large, pointless circle.

" In a way, it would hardly matter... Walking for hours and miles becomes as automatic, as unremarkable, as breathing. At the end of the day you don’t think, 'Hey, I did sixteen miles today,” any more than you think, “Hey, I took eight-thousand breaths today.' It’s just what you do."

Mile-high Katahdin

Consider the time-honored quote from Shakespeare — “What’s in a name?/That which we call a rose/By another name would smell as sweet.”

That line kept popping into my mind recently as I pondered repeated references to Maine’s tallest mountain in the media as “mile-high Mount Katahdin.” Few people realize that the famous edifice’s highest point on Baxter Peak, which also just happens to be the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, is actually just short of that mark.

That fact came home to roost not too long ago when a team of University of Maine scientists re-measured the mountain using satellite and electronic technology and discovered that Katahdin is actually about seven inches higher than originally thought.

It seems that way back in 1941, the folks with good, old-fashioned surveying equipment (which didn’t need batteries, laser beams, solar arrays or a high-speed connection with the Internet) calculated that Katahdin was all of 5,267 feet high. Those of you who are familiar with measurements will note that this is exactly 13 feet shy of a mile. But even on Katahdin, man could not leave nature alone.

Legend has it that someone – perhaps a troop of industrious Boy Scouts or maybe some bored backwoods traveler in search of enlightenment, or maybe the legendary king of Katahdin rangers, Roy Dudley – piled up tons of rocks at the summit cairn to elevate Katahdin to the lofty mile-high club.

Now, while there is a pretty big pile of rocks at the top, I doubt it’s 13 feet high. But who cares? And that’s exactly my point about the most recent measurement – which added .6 of a foot (which by the way is 7.2 inches, not six inches as reported by the Associated Press) to Katahdin’s total.

I’d hate to be the guy who has to go up there and scratch the new total onto the little bronze surveyor’s benchmark.

Funny, though, driving in from Millinocket, Katahdin (That's right, not Mount Katahdin as Katahdin means "Greatest Mountain," and to say "Mount Greatest Mountain" makes no sense) does not look any bigger.

I wonder if the Native Americans who lived in the area and dare not tread on Katahdin for fear of angering evil spirits, would have cared if they knew it was really a tad taller than their ancestors thought.

For the thousands of people who trek to the top of Katahdin each year, I doubt the extra seven inches will matter. No one will throw up their hands in disgust and give up plans to climb “the mountain of the people of Maine” upon learning they will have further to go than they originally planned.

Percival Baxter, who personally assembled and donated the park that bears his name and saved Katahdin for all time, would probably, if he were alive, find the extra height interesting in an academic sense. But that would be all.

For sure, the people who each day work and play in the shadow of this magnificent mountain won’t notice much difference. Pilots flying overhead won’t have to adjust their altimeters to keep from making an abrupt final touch down on either side of the Knife Edge Trail.

Whether Katahdin is 5,267 feet or a mile high really makes no difference. Its grandeur and ability to inspire remain intact, from the early days when Thoreau described its majesty to this day and long into the future. The thrill of having climbed Maine’s highest peak, to stand at the top and look out upon what seems to be the rest of the world, will not be diminished by this recent addition to the sum of humanity’s knowledge.

According to the scientists who made the recent measurements, they will probably do it again at some time in the future if there are sufficient technological advancements which, unfortunately, there always are.

I guess all we can ask is, Why? To steal a perfectly good line from Shakespeare: “What’s in a height? That which we call Katahdin by another benchmark would be as steep.”

Corporate logos set new Appalachian Trail speed record

Ultra marathoner Scott Jurek, (Photo above from Scott Jurek Facebook) just set a new unofficial record last week for the fastest transit of the 2,200 mile-long Appalachian Trail. I have two thoughts about that.

One – Good for him.

Two – What's the point?

Notice I didn't say he hiked the trail. Far from it. He scurried from Georgia to Maine with an entourage larger than a logistics division for a platoon of Navy Seals. Their weapons of choice: cameras, laptops, cell phones and other gear to provide constant updates to legions of desk-bound followers.

They travelled in a custom van, splashed with manufacturers' logos, containers brimming with swag. He carried no pack – didn't make or break any camps. Anybody who fancies themselves as somebody, who has already exhausted their 15 minutes of fame once, twice, or even three times, seemed to jump on for the ride.

No one is allowed to advertise on the AT. Unless, of course, like Scott Jurek, you turn yourself into a human billboard. In nearly every photograph Jurek is wearing a headband with corporate logos. I guess capitalism's scarlet letters don't equate with lifting your metaphorical skirts – providing you can hide behind the fig leaf of "sponsorships."

Personally I think he would have been much more comfortable, particularly on humid days, if he had just had the logos tattooed on his forehead.

The AT was created to be a place for personal journeys. The Appalachian Trail Conference is to be congratulated for refusing to maintain speed records for the trail. They understand there's a big difference between being able to claim you've completed the Appalachian Trail and bragging you did it faster than anyone else. It's there for taking measure of yourself. Fast or slow, all at once, or in sections, how you do it is up to you.

The only clock that counts is the beating of your own heart.

When you turn a trip into a global media event supported by a cast of thousands, however, it is not only the tradition of the trail that is diminished. The inability to see that as a subversion of purpose diminishes the individual's personal accomplishment as well.

Those who actually do the Appalachian Trail adopt, find, or are bestowed with "trail names." Some bring them from past lives or adventures while others wait to discover it as part of the journey. I don't know if Jurek had one for his trip but I would like suggest one that fits – both physically and spiritually: "Been there – didn't see that."

Particularly disappointing was the disrespect shown to Baxter State Park, here in Maine, portions of which were turned into a circus by this Spandex speed record carnival. In fact, the park issued three violations notices to Jurek including drinking in public, littering and hiking with an oversize group.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this Facebook post on the park's page. Nice to see that common sense is still in ample supply in the shadow of Maine's highest mountain.

On the Maine Woods Discovery Facebook page this week, Jurek is hailed as a shining example of Northwoods spirit. I can't begin to express how disappointing it is that whoever is making those posts thinks that's the case. He's a good example, maybe, of the spirit of getting a bunch of frat guys to book a cabin, grab two kegs of beer, and scream like pantywaists while running Cribwork Rapids on a rafting trip.

But a true representative of spirit of Maine's Great Northwoods? Not so much.

Make no mistake, running some 50 miles a day for 46 days is an impressive accomplishment. He should be proud. If I met him face-to-face, I'd shake his hand. There's no way that I could do what he did, a fact several of those critical of this communication will no doubt point to in an attempt to divert attention away from the fundamental truth of these words.

Even at the top of Katahdin, Scott Jurek didn't remove the headband, undoubtedly contractually-bound to leave it there especially when cameras were present. The end result is that a man didn't make it to the top of the mountain. His 'brand" is what everyone was celebrating on top.

Last week, news stories should have announced that a headband, with prominently-placed corporate logos, set the speed record on the AT.

In selling his prime facial real estate to the highest bidders, it's obvious that those corporations own Scott Jurek. Sadly, by extension, they now own his accomplishment as well.

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