I woke up in the morning at 4.30am. I ate my breakfast and packed my things and started hiking before 6am. My feelings were really mixed because this was going to be the last day on the trail. The weather forecast for today did not look too good and it showed rain showers for the whole day. We still decided to start going up so I started my climb up to Katahdin.
The first few miles were relatively easy. It was dripping rain once in a while but the weather was kind of warm. However, when I got to the treeline, the trail got pretty strenuous. I had to climb over huge boulders of rocks which were wet. Sometimes I literally had to crawl up on my knees and pull myself up with my hands because there was not any other way to get up. Also, the weather above the treeline was horrible. The wind must have been about 30-40mph and you could hardly see anything. I was pretty scared and it did not help that I had my full pack on.
I think I had hiked about 0.5 miles above the treeline when I saw Jukebox and Tennessee coming towards me. They had just checked the forecast and it said that there was a possibility of severe thunderstorms so they had made the decision to turn back and try again the next day when the weather was supposed to be clear and sunny. I considered my move for a moment and I ended up turning back too. I just did not want to risk my life and get struck by lightning and I am also really scared of thunderstorms. I also thought that it would be a lot nicer to summit on a good day so that I could really enjoy every moment on the last day. It was kind of funny that I made it 2 miles before the summit of Katahdin and then decided to turn back… However, our friends Rooster, Soulshine and Swiss Miss were ahead of us and had decided to push on despite the weather. Also Cayenne, who was behind of decided to continue.
We hiked 3 miles down back to Katahdin Stream Campground. We took a nap over there on the picnic table in a really hiker trash style while we were waiting for Jukebox’s parents to pick us up.
They arrived after 1pm and we drove to Abol Campground where we saw Soulshine, Rooster and Swiss Miss sitting at a picnic table celebrating. I thought they were such badasses because they actually summited in that horrible weather. About an hour after that also Cayenne arrived. We sat at the picnic table for a good amount of time and then drove to Millinocket where we were going to stay for the night.
I got a hotel room with Jukebox and Tennessee because we were going to summit the next day together. All of us were really tired and we just ordered pizza for dinner and went to sleep early. It was too bad that we could not really celebrate with our trail family tonight. I also had to say goodbye for them for the last time because after today I was not going to see them again. Saying goodbye was really hard because we had been together for over a 1000 miles! However, I was really happy to be in a hotel room and get a good night sleep before the big day.
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