About a quarter mile in I started to feel guilty and I pulled out my phone to text my parents: Stay w me at Katahdin Stream tonight if ud like. I hit send and then turned off my phone to conserve the battery. I figured that they had paid for the shelter and I could tell them about my day.
The hike was hard and I proceeded almost painfully slow to prevent injury, analyzing every step before I securing my footing.
With the fierce wind and driving rain it dawned on me that the trail was set up perfectly for a rock slide and I felt it urgent to get to the top; the top which seemed always to be over the next rocky mound. I finally relaxed at the summit of Abol where the clouds were moving swiftly overhead and the sunlight that broke through the gaps highlighted the vibrant green mountainscape with its yellow wild-flower applique.
Hiking from Abol peak to the summit of Katahdin felt like walking through a mile-long wind tunnel. I hand to hunch over and focus on my steps. A few times I lost my footing due to the intense gusts of wind.
After what seemed to take forever I saw the summit signage. I pulled off the smart wool sock covering my frozen hand and managed to turn my phone on long enough to snap a picture. I had full bars and could have dialed my parents from the top but I was in go mode. Must get down before the wind really picks up, I thought.
The Hunt trail is intense sections of trail only three couch cushions wide with drop offs on either side. It was when I reached this point that my knee started to hurt; a sharp pain that radiated to my brain when pressure was applied. They say that “every extra pound you carry adds up to 3 pounds of pressure on your knee joints when you walk (http://www.realage.com/check-your-health/chronic-pain-management/bad-habits-knees-knee-injuries),” so my knees were experiencing 105lbs of extra pressure with each step.
It was then that the line from my 2011 Thru-Hikers Companion surfaced in my mind like a blinking neon sign, “every year several stubborn southbounders…insist on carrying their fully loaded packs up the AT…this results in knee injuries and aborted climbs or even entire AT hiking plans."
It was at this point that I started second guessing everything. Why would I voluntarily spend 5 months out in the woods in solitude, I thought. I envied my siblings for having established their marriages and families and their stable jobs. I was running away from all of that. I’m going to be alone. What good am I doing hiking the AT, I’m not bettering my situation. I’m still going to need to find a job when I get back. Then I started to worry about my knee; an injury that began a year before when my friend Steve and I had the bright Idea to hike the 22mile long Wapack trail in one day when we had nothing on our side but youth and determination. I started to feel guilty for the way I treated my mother on the way up, how I was so curt and how we didn’t have a proper goodbye.
That neon sign continued to blink in my mind as I experienced more pain in my knee.
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