Blitzpeak Bop: Epilogue

2024 has been a turning point year for me.  I entered into the new year bombarded with stressors, tumbling through the void cut loose from all confidence and contentment.  Despite that, this was my first journal entry of the year:

I’m alive.  This is a gift many don’t receive.  I should not squander it on worry and regret.  I should not impede living fully by doubting myself or fearing the outcome of any decision I make.

I’ve seen the coming of one more year.  I could not have predicted this with any certainty even one day ago. It’s a new month, a new week, a new day, a new hour, a new minute and a new second of life.

This is the only moment I can touch and experience—right NOW.  Regret is decay of the past.  Worry is the decay of the future.  I must not let either of them take hold or they will decay the present as well.

It was a startlingly positive entry considering my state of mind at the time, but I was channeling the change I wanted in my life.  Even as I felt myself being pulled down into the cold darkness I was crying out “I will swim!”

At the time, people were angry with me for doing my job well.  I was struggling to stay afloat financially.  Things quickly went downhill from there.  I found myself bound up with social anxiety, hardly able to drag myself off the couch and cringing at any kind of human interaction.

At the same time my professional life was full of chaos and strife I found out that the last big piece of my ancestral land will potentially be sold off and most likely it will be turned into vacation rentals serving the Red River Gorge area.  The world was coming down hard on me last winter.

I was also meditating on this passage from The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman:

"When you become fully responsible for your life, you can become fully human; once you become human, you may discover what it means to be a warrior.”  I was deciding I would take responsibility for my fate, and stop being a victim in my own life.

“…there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

~ Morpheus, The Matrix

I had known most of my years what I needed to do to live an actualized life.  I had been brave enough to do it, but too impulsive to hold true to the path.  I was too easily distracted.

“…losing all hope was freedom.” ~ Jack, Fight Club

As January wore on the weight of my despair dragged me under, and I sank into the depths and seemingly would find no bottom.  I felt myself losing the strength of will to fight to save myself.  In mere days I would turn fifty years old.  Ten years earlier I had found myself with my toes hanging over a precipice, and I was struggling with the anniversary of that, and that I had been a rock climber for thirty years.  And that my body seemed to be failing—my warranty expired and all my parts corroded.  A family secret with terrible implications…

On February 19 I wrote: “I need to find a way to make peace with all this or it’s going to eat me up.”  That is when my life truly began to change for the better.  That was the ultimate turning point.

My research in desperation kept coming back to one theme: meditation—spiritual connection—letting go of stress and negativity—taoism.  I began reading The Tao Te Ching.  I reread Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather.  And oddly, I began rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune in anticipation of the second part being released in theaters.  I also began reading Alan Watts, particularly Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: a Mountain Journal.  Interestingly I found a passage in common between Dune and Watts:

“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced” ultimately attributed to the Dutch philosopher Aart van der Leeuw.  That helped me to see the value of living in the moment over trying to analyze the past.

Then I found this:

“In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.” ~ Andrea Dykstra

That was something I struggled with.

I always love a good Willi Unsoeld quote:

“It doesn't matter what it is, you have to have something to fight. Doesn't have to be a mountain, but it has to be something. And it isn't important whether you win or lose. Only that you keep fighting.”

The whole process of learning, searching, meditating, and wrestling with the universe gave me the courage to traverse the summer spine of Pine Mountain.  That—in turn—strengthened my constitution enough to provide me passage to the summit of Cloud Peak in September and a wondrous circuit of midwestern state high points.  And all of that together set me up for the trip of a lifetime…the journey beyond healing…discovering enigma and truth…the New England state high point blitz of 2024.

I experienced the mystery of life…lost in Baxter State Park…in the quietest, darkest place I’ve ever been in my life.

Each day of your life is like a wave on the ocean. It comes in and crashes. There’s a peak and a trough, day and night, with regular frequency, and it’s totally different from one day to the next.  Each one is completely different from the one before and the one after and can never be re-created just as it is. It can only be seen as it exists, and once it’s gone, it’s nothing but a memory, and until it happens you can only guess what it might be like.

I surfed the waves of uncertainty, doubt, risk, and ruin.  I found joy in the experience.

"The Way is more than the cycle of any individual life. We rise, flourish, fail. The Way never fails. We are waves. It is the sea."

~ commentary by Ursula K. Le Guin in her translation of the Tao Te Ching

That's a profound image-that each soul is one of innumerable waves on the sea. You look out and see them all, and you can watch one rise, crest, crash, and fall and be gone. But as many as crash and fall, the waves never run out.

Without trying…without realizing what I was doing…I set myself up to step into a new chapter of my life from a place of strength.  After years of trauma and tragedy the story has taken a turn toward triumph.

It’s taken me longer than normal to chronicle this adventure because I have been wrapped up in a new job.  I took a huge step out of my comfort zone.  I broke through the barrier of things I thought I would never do.  I let go of fear.  I embraced my potential.  I stepped onto a new path leading to…potential greatness.  I could never have made this change without the strengthening of my heart and soul that’s occurred over the course of this year.  As I climbed and descended so many mountains I gathered to myself the talismans of power, the icons of strength—I armored myself against the doubt, and guilt, and shame I had lived with for a long time.  

There was a purpose to my indulgence.  I didn’t simply take a trip to tick more points on a map.  That was the vehicle for my journey, but the quest was one of the spirit, across the landscape of my soul, and into the labyrinth of my heart.  I proved to myself what I needed to prove.  I passed the test.  I found my courage.

I won’t soon forget this trip.  I’ve hung a photo of myself standing at the summit of Katadhin in my new office; I don’t usually display photos of myself.  I added a large photo of Cloud Peak behind my desk.  I brought two sparse black and white prints from photos I took on Cloudsplitter back in the spring.  I’ve surrounded myself with the pictographs of the spiritual places in my life, of the sacred mountains where I’ve gone.  And hiding in the furthest corner from my desk is one last mountain image—the Grand Teton.

And in closing, sometime during the year I read this Alan Watts quote, and I think it sums up the New England trip perfectly:

"The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

Blitzpeak Bop: Part V, The Marcy Inclination

The cold is merciless but righteous. 

~ Wim Hof

For the entire New England trip I allowed flexibility in the plan and itinerary.  Other than being thwarted in visiting Mount Washington I ticked off each destination in turn without much heartburn.  So I was delayed a day longer than I intended on Katadhin?  So my impromptu side trip to Acadia left me angry?  So Mount Mansfield taxed the connective tissues in my knees?  I did it all with a big stupid grin on my face.

When I was a little uncertain about how long I was going to be delayed in summiting Katadhin—I was never sure of the weather would cooperate—I allowed I might drop the high point in New York from the end of the trip.  And at one point early on considered dropping Katadhin hoping the weather would be more favorable the farther west (and slightly south) that I went.

I stayed true to my plan and everything worked out through the ascent of Mount Mansfield in Vermont.  As I left Stowe with a belly full of pizza and drove toward a Walmart parking lot in Ticonderoga, New York a couple hours southwest at the southern tip of Lake Champlain I pondered my options.  I’d climbed Katadhin on Tuesday—almost ten miles out and back and over 4,000’ of gain—and Mansfield Wednesday with five more miles of hiking and roughly 2,600’ of gain.  I knew Mount Marcy was going to require a solid effort with fourteen miles out and back and 3,100’ of gain.  I had enough time I could rest a day and go for Marcy on Friday and drive home Saturday, or I could go for the tight trifecta and hit Marcy the next day with no rest. My body was screaming for it, but my heart and mind were telling me to just go on, pull down a three fer, and get on back home.

I got to the Walmart early enough to buy a couple of small things which distinctly improved my car sleeping: two sets of cheap, dark pillowcases and a box of binder clips.  Once I was settled in I fell asleep quickly and soundly.

In the morning I woke and went through my routine of cleaning up and getting dressed.  I ate a bagel and an apple and moved on toward the Adirondack Loj.  It was about an hour and a half drive from Ticonderoga. 

the road to Marcy

Here’s my journal entry for that morning:

The forecast for Lake Placid has improved.  I’m going to go for Marcy.  I’m sure my knees will hate me for it, but how cool will it be to have wrapped this trip up with a three day blitz and top it off with that one?  Assuming I make it.  But I think I will.  Fingers crossed.

Time to make the donuts.

The theme of my trip out west a few weeks before had been healing and moving on from the traumas of my past.  I had a lot of alone time in the car to work through it, and I took full advantage.  The theme of the New England trip seemed more to be more about accepting of what is, being in the moment, and letting go.

Shortly before I left I read something to the effect of: “you can’t love yourself if you hate the experiences that made you.”  And of course there are numerous iterations of that out there.  I reached the point in my life where that became distinctly relevant.

The other angle I had been meditating on the whole trip was something else I’d read: don’t keep trying to be your younger self, be the person you fantasized you’d become when you were younger.  As incredible as the Western trip in September had been, I hadn’t fully felt like I had become that person. Somewhere deep in Baxter I fully realized I had become that person.  Dammit, I was him.  I am him.

Around 8:00am I went into the ranger station to pay for my day parking for Marcy.  The nice Ranger told me the forecast for the summit was a windchill of 11°.  She said microspikes shouldn’t be necessary because the snow wasn’t deep enough.  Yet.  I assured her I had the right gear.  She gave me my parking pass, and I made my way to the trailhead.  I signed in at the trail right about 8:30.  A gentleman signed in behind me, and as I shouldered my pack he spoke:

“You going to Marcy?”

“Yeah,” I replied, “You?”

“Not sure yet,” he said as we started walking down the trail.

Rick from P.A. hiked a long way with me.  We had a great conversation as we made the long, steady grade.  A couple of times Rick expressed doubt in going all the way to the summit, but he kept talking himself into going farther.

We crossed a stream on a wooden bridge at 10:15.  There was snow on the bridge.  At 10:35 we stopped for a quick rest and realized the trees above us were holding snow.  At 10:45 we crossed the line where the snow had begun sticking to the ground.  The wet stuff was heavy on everything at five til eleven.  The temperature was distinctly colder as we walked through the winter wonderland.

Finally, Rick announced he wasn’t going to go on.  We bade each other farewell, and around 11:00am I struck out alone.  The trail got steeper.  In some ways it was like a cross between the Katadhin hike and the ridiculous ascent of Mansfield but with snow.  It was a a beautiful hike, but I was feeling the days and miles and elevation pulled down in my knees and bones.  I was tired.  I was hungry.  But at that point there was nothing short of unconsciousness that would have kept me from the summit of Mount Marcy.  No doubt lingered in my mind.  I would go as far as I could go.  To the summit or to a trail too icy to traverse.

At noon I reached the final trail junction.  The sign indicated 1.2 miles left to the summit.  I took a quick rest, swapped my thin shell for my puffy jacket, and as I shouldered up to head on a young couple came from the direction of the summit.  They had ice rimming their faces, their hair white with wisps of rime.

I asked if they’d come from the summit and what were the conditions.  They said it was cold and windy.  I asked if it was doable.  The guy just grinned.  Then they moved on down the trail.  And I turned toward the summit.

Just before 1:00 I reached the base of a black wet slab, skirted by thick, wet piles of snow.  Mansfield had given me the confidence to scramble over snowy rock, so I just moved upward into the white wilderness of the high Adirondacks.  The further I went the more snow clung to the stone.  The higher I climbed the less protection there was from the wind.  I stayed warm in my jacket, and my feet stayed sure as they sought purchase on the crust of rime ice shrouding the summit.  

Approaching the summit of Mount Marcy wasn’t the singular alpine experience of my life, but it was without a doubt the most hardcore mountain experience I’d ever had.  

I was seven miles deep into the Adirondacks climbing up icy slabs, pummeled by the wind, and grinning like a fiend.  My hands and feet found every hold and I kept moving through the high grained landscape, blurred and scoured.

At 1:20 I saw an ice crusted plaque.

Cloudsplitter.  Going way back in my life…Cloudsplitter—the massive sandstone dome in the heart of the Red River Gorge—was an important place to me.  My spirit dwelt there in twilight, I visited it when I wanted to feel something deeper, I traversed it to find the depths of the unknown and my most secret places of power.

Then I took the final steps to reach the highest point in the state of New York.  Much like the summit of Katadhin, I saw Marcy as some far off dream I might reach someday.  I stood there, the fifty year old man I thought I might be someday.  And someday had finally come.  

I laughed into the howling wind.  I stood there, taking in the view that was no view, standing on frozen stone, miles and miles and days and days behind me, sixteen state high points since July, thirty total in my half century, a lifetime of adventure, and satisfying my restless soul, of love, and joy, and pain, and trauma, and working, and traveling, and fighting, and crying, and laughing, and faking it until I made it. I stood on the summit of Mount Marcy fully myself, fully in the moment, fully actualized and fully content.  Katadhin had been a spiritual peak for me.  Tahawus was the summit of my heart.  It was visceral.  I was connected to the earth through that high place, anchored through my bones, enveloped by the spirit of the wind.  When I climbed down from the summit of Marcy I was whole.

It was a long walk back into the twilight of autumn, the crisp golden dusk that comes in the north a few weeks sooner than at home.  I ached in my hips and knees.  My breath was heavy from going for days and days.  My belly grumbled for fuel.  It was time to get back to caring for my body, to stop pushing it so hard.  Despite my exhaustion, my hunger, and the distance ahead of me to return home I still had a big stupid grin on my face.

Blitzpeak Bop: Part IV, Vermoten

I’d laid out an ambitious plan to tag eight New England state high points in a week.  By the fourth full day of the trip I had bagged five.  My itinerary showed the two on day five: Mount Washington, New Hampshire and Mount Mansfield, Vermont.  It seemed a chill day, as I was just planning to drive up Mount Washington and Mansfield looked like a short (if somewhat steep) hike from a roadside trailhead.

From Katadhin Stream Trailhead I drove to Skowhegan, Maine where I got a room in the Towne Motel for the night.  It was nice to stretch out in a bed, and eat and drink plenty of water, and be on wifi for a little while.  I showered in the morning and discovered that a block away was Alice’s Restaurant (no relation), so I just had to grab breakfast there.  It was so worth it.

I rolled out of Skowhegan by 9am and pushed on toward Mount Washington.  It was just shy of three hours of driving, and when I turned south in Gorham it was overcast and dreary.  That all turned to rain before I reached the toll gate at the Mount Washington Auto Road where in a thrift of speech a gentleman informed me the road was closed due to ice and would not reopen that day.  His tone made me think the road may never open again.  Seeing as how I had no real say in the matter I made a u-turn and headed on for Mount Mansfield three more hours west.  The Presidentials were obscured by clouds and barred from being part of my road trip in any capacity save as a huge void in my experience.

The peak I seriously underestimated was Mount Mansfield.  On the map it seems innocuous.  I had a hard time finding a definitive distance for the Hellbrook Trail which I had opted for as my route to the summit.  I believe someone somewhere online recommended it as the preferred route.  After Katadhin I didn’t expect Mansfield to be hard at all.  Marcy on the other hand—the high point of New York—still kept a shadow of attention in my mind.  It’s a fourteen mile out and back.  But even that seemed doable after Katadhin.  The only hesitation I had was in relation to the weather forecast which I had paid little attention to until I was shut down at the base of Mount Washington. 

I rolled through Stowe, Vermont and easily found the Hellbrook trailhead along the road to Smugglers Notch.  I threw together a day pack, made sure I had a headlamp because I really didn’t know how long it was going to take, and I quickly changed into my thicker baselayer for pants and grabbed my rain jacket.  Within a few short minutes I was crossing the road and stepping into the woods.

I passed a sign that said “Hellbrook Trail” with no other information, and I continued up the steepening path beyond.  And steepening.  And steepening.

To take my mind off the absurdity of the climb I began texting Reynaldo.

[Unprintable]

New England: switchbacks are against our religion.

And they should be against yours too.

The closest thing I saw to a switchback was a 90 degree bend because…a boulder.

I'm surprised they didn't just make the trail go over it.

Wouldn't have been as steep.

Brutal doesn't describe this.

Sadistic comes close.

[additional unprintable statements]

It's like it was an ice climb and some donkeychonk decided it would make a good summer hike.

I'm soloing up a waterfall with blue blazes!

This is no trail.

There is a sign at the bottom that says trail.  I didn’t know the brook and the trail were one and the same.  And it’s all hell.

It's an actual criminal offense against humanity.

I believe in the death penalty for whomever planned this route.

Illegitimate New Englander raised by wild fellatio adepts!

The name of the trail is Hellbrook. Weel %#?! me. I should have known it was a slog up a steep creek.  

Dan Osman would have fallen off this b.s.

Bunch of pig headed goat [redacted] can go take long step off Chimney Top.

I made myself chuckle, which was my ultimate goal.  The climb up to gain the ridge north of Mansfield’s summit was ridiculous by any standard.

After what seemed an eternity of high-stepping and hand-grabbing I was abruptly on a flat trail.  According to my gps tracker I was almost two miles in.  I knew from the map I still had a little ways to go.  So this hike would be at least five miles out and back?  And not three and a half?  As I continued south on the ridge the landscape became distinctly more alpine, and within a few minutes the forest opened up and I could see what I believed was the summit dome of Mansfield, wreathed in a diaphanous veil of blowing snow.  I just laughed.

I had been hiking for an hour and a half, and I had about two hours until dark.  One thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to descend Hell Brook in the dark.

I felt a sense of urgency, but it wasn’t the pressure to finish this task and move onto the next one.  The urgency of the mountains tells you that for your own good you need to keep moving and not linger and let conditions deteriorate around you. I was also excited to make the climb to the summit from the ridge.  I passed the last trail junction and could see the route ahead through the swirling snow and I made my way to the base of the rocky, bulbous, summit massif.  

The first challenge was a short chimney and then the climb evolved into a more exposed and aesthetic route over easy ledges.  Despite the heavy skies, the views to the north and east were amazing.  The climbing was smooth and enjoyable.  It didn’t take long before I reached what seemed like the summit plateau.  I began striding south across the bare rock, scattered with puddles of snow.  The wind was stiff, cold, and laden with stinging snow.

And then I was at the summit.  I found a benchmark and a triangle carved into the living stone.  I looked around laughing and checked the map on my phone.  I was definitely at the summit.

I wasn’t there long when I noticed the snow had seemed to be falling lower on the route than it had been when I came up.  I couldn’t really see the route back down.  The rocks around me were starting to get wet.  And just maybe the snow was starting to stick a little bit.

With that knowledge I moved back across the summit toward the descent.  From above the route down looked much more dramatic and difficult, but I knew it was mellow.  I laughed as I began picking my way down and the snow seemed maybe to be picking up.

The rocky scrambling went easy despite an increase in moisture on the rocks.  The views were still incredible despite the…atmosphere.  Once back in the alpine trees I paused to look back at the summit and found it almost completely obscured by blowing snow.  There was distinct accumulation on the trees.  After a short pause I turned toward the car and began making my way down.  Heavy flakes fell as I began descending below the crest of the ridge.  My knees had begun to ache a little.  I consistently found good footing as I goat-stepped down the ledgy gully trying to be a trail.  I was aware that any misstep could be disastrous; considering the steepness a trip up could be catastrophic.

The descent seemed to go on forever.  When I’d gone down enough I didn’t think I could manage anymore I would look out and see the slope across the valley, the base of which is where I parked, and mark the elevation still to pass.

Light faded from the sky.  Fat snow turned to light drizzle and then fizzled out.  The ridiculousness failed to fade.  I knew from recent experience that the trail would not ease up before it terminated in asphalt.  Down and down and down.

It became a race between reaching the trailhead and having to break out the headlamp.  I’m happy to report no headlamps were harmed in the bagging of said peak.

I began to hear traffic on the road.  It was hard to hear over the rumble in my belly.  I tried to move faster, but I didn’t want to risk rolling an ankle.

And then I was back.  The trailhead was empty except for my car.  It wasn’t full dark, but it was cold and damp.  I stretched while the Jeep warmed up despite the void in my stomach.  I needed food.

Mount Mansfield was down.  It was time to move on toward Mount Marcy in New York.

Blitzpeak Bop: Part III, A Dream on Katadhin

Was my time and Baxter State Park an escape from the real world or was it an escape into the real world? Was going to Baxter waking from the dream of reality or was it a dream within reality? 

Low on the steep shoulder of Katadhin, I stopped to put on my shell against the growing wind, and to eat and drink a little. I set my pack down against a rock, and I looked out at the view and suddenly and distinctly realized where I was at in relation to the rest of my life, and I realized that not only was I in this really great place, but I was in a place that I did not expect to be for a very long time. 

I’d driven over a thousand miles, I’d bagged four high points in a day during peak fall colors. I was in Baxter State Park. I was near the end of the Appalachian Trail.  I just sat down and cried; I was overcome with emotion.

This trip had been a journey into a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at myself, and a new way of experiencing the world in that I decided to do a thing and I did it. It was much easier in planning this trip to push past the fears that it always held me back than it had been even with the trip to Wyoming a month before.  It was significantly easier than pushing through the fears that I encountered on the Pine Mountain trail in July.  And make no mistake—there were similar fears on Pine Mountain. I lost track of how much bear scat was in the trail, and I was hyper-aware there was probably a bear behind every tree just waiting for me to slow down enough to become a snack on that trail.  

When I set out from Katadhin Stream Trailhead at 6 AM on Tuesday morning in the dark—on the advice of the Ranger at the entry gate—to beat the crowd, I walked into bear and moose country alone with a dim headlamp because I’ve been unable to find my LED light.  Swiping back-and-forth as I hiked along, every shadow seeming to growl like a bear, though the murmur of the wind was not any growl or gruff.  By the time it was light enough to turn off my headlamp I had stopped looking for bears.  I had let myself focus on my foot placements and moving my legs to propel my body forward. I had awaken from my fear, and I left it behind—so far behind I wasn’t even sure where it was. 

I sat there on that shoulder and cried, the rims of my eyes cold in the wind, laughing through the tears in pure joy, crying because of the emotion I felt at overcoming so much. I had been overcoming things I never thought I would overcome. I didn’t defeat my demons through violence, but simply by turning my back and walking away.  I think I answered my own question when I realized I was not worried about waking from this dream and having to go back to the old reality because it was no dream. 

I ate a couple of handfuls of trail mix and drank deeply from my water bottle.  Then I shouldered my pack, zipped up my jacket, and I started climbing. In that moment I knew I had surpassed the trip of a lifetime with a new trip. Maybe it was a new lifetime; maybe I had transcended that old life. I had not considered the possibility of turning back from the summit that day. It wasn’t a thought or any kind of factor in my decisions in my steps as I climbed up the Hunt Trail, climbing over rocks, pushing relentlessly with my legs, slowly but surely gaining elevation, though it felt as if I were running up the trail.  I moved steadily and constantly felt as if I were miles ahead of where I had just been. 

Above that spot I got past treeline for the first time, and I traversed a ledge that switchbacked past the white blazes. I could see much more under the cloud cover, and it seemed as if the sky was beginning to part somewhat, though the world was still moody and heavy with the rain that ultimately would not come.

I got to the first section of rungs and was giddy with the exposure and the movement over the rock as only someone who has been a rock climber and has fully experienced that state of flow above the ground can be.  I didn’t feel the normal creaks in my joints as I pulled myself up and then slipped through a notch and came to the last rung which was a little bit tricky as I mantled up onto a damp down-sloping ledge.  That was the only point I noted in my mind for the return trip, hoping that it wouldn’t feel as awkward coming down as it was going up. 

After the rungs I just moved over the land, over the rock, and the mountain I passed each obstacle intuitively and fully enjoyed the movement.  I gained a broad flat area, and I could see the mountain above me. I couldn’t help but grin and laugh. Even though I knew it wasn’t the summit from having looked at the map I knew I was getting close, and I could see a significant portion of the difficulties ahead.  Instead of fear or dread I simply felt the joy of being on the mountain, being in that place and having that path before me.  When I gained the top of the shoulder and looked out across the broad tableland, the clouds had settled in, obscuring the view of the summit that I knew was off in the distance. 

The wind blew and pushed the heavy moisture across the table lands where it dropped off to the south, and it obscured the view of the rocks and the alpine tundra ahead of me and reduced visibility to an eighth of a mile.  It wasn’t cold but it was chilly.  I made my way across that broad flat area knowing that up ahead was Thoreau Springs.

I was hiking through this landscape of shadows in the mist, in the wind, and it was like something out of fantasy novel like Lord of the Rings or some fantastic story in medieval times. I expected to come up on a castle or see a dragon lumbering at me in the mist.  Maybe I had died and this was the afterlife and I was crossing over. Maybe I climbed into the sky some ascendance, it was truly a soul wrenching experience, the beauty and the peaceful mystery of that trail.

I approached Thoreau Springs and saw the first person of the day gliding out of the fog, clad in a yellow rain jacket, walking toward me from the summit. The figure reached the four-way intersection of the Hunt Trail and the Abol Trail ahead of me, murmured something, and turned down the Abol Trail without truly acknowledging me. The form disappeared into the mist like some ethereal figure, like some spectre, like some sailor castaway from a ghost ship. I shook my head and laughed and continued on toward the summit. Then I followed larger cairns through the dense cloud cover. They seem like dolmen guarding the trail. Then the mist began to lessen after five or so minutes of walking. 

Suddenly, the sky above me turned blue, and the light increased into full daylight for the first time, and I looked up and saw the broad ridge of the summit of Katadhin. I stopped and laughed again I could see figures on the summit near the sign. I knew I was close I could gauge the scale, I looked down and it was earlier than I expected to be, and I kept moving up the easy slope through the rocks and talus, and then I found myself on the summit of the highest peak in Maine the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. 

And what do you do or say or think in that moment? I was simply on top.  I had not found a wise man to convey the mysteries of life to me. I found them myself in that moment. I was the wise man on the summit. I didn’t need anyone’s counsel. I had the answers—I had woken from the dream. 

I waited until the three young men that were there when I arrived finally collected their things and moved on toward the Knife Edge, and I reverently walked up to the sign. I took my photos, and I decided I would take a video panorama of the summit to send back to everyone at home. So I positioned my feet, turned on the camera, flipped it around to selfie mode, and hit record.  The words congealed in my throat, and I couldn’t speak. My eyes watered and I shook my head at the camera and slowly panned around to show the view, thinking I would find words, and finding nothing but supreme joy and contentment, and just overwhelmed with finding myself standing on the summit of one of the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen—in the moment, fully awake, having realized… I don’t have words really to describe what I felt—what I knew in that moment. It goes beyond words and language, and is simply the energy between the atoms in my soul.

I had followed my bliss.  All of my efforts over the previous few months and years and throughout my life had led me finally to that place.  In a spiritual sense the summit of Katadhin was my Everest, my Chomolungma, and I was stunned speechless in awe of her.  I was stunned to find that to be true; it came unexpected.

I dried my eyes, and watered my tongue sitting beside the plaque mounted to a boulder near the summit.  I ate a few handfuls of food to fuel my descent, but I was in no hurry to leave.

Katadhin—the Great Mountain—had blessed me with a sapphire blue day, whispered truth to me in mist and cloud, and had held my soul in a comforting embrace as I ascended beyond the world I had known.  If my heart’s desire were fulfilled I would not have left the summit of that mountain.  I didn’t need anything else from life in that moment.

I looked up and saw a couple of women walking toward the summit from the direction I had come.  One of them called out “we made it!”  I couldn’t help but grin.  And as they collected themselves at the summit icon I stowed the remains of my snack in my backpack and took another sip of water before offering to take a photo of them with the sign.

“That would be great!” one of the replied.  “Do you do shots?”  It took a second for that to register, but then I laughed.  They’d brought a local Canadian salted caramel vodka called “Fiddle” with the to the summit.  It made sense, one of them was from New Brunswick and one was from Nova Scotia.  Andrea and Kelly said they’d come to climb Katadhin to celebrate being fifty years old.  I laughed and said I was fifty too.  Well, fifty as well.  We chatted on the summit and eventually began hiking down together for a bit—they had come up the shorter, but steeper Abol Trail—and and talked as we encountered about half a dozen other aspirants to the summit.  

Of course when we reached Thoreau Springs we parted ways and for a little while I was back in my own head, with my own thoughts, as I tried to process this experience.  But eventually I stopped trying and just went back to having the experience.  The sky was clear as I crossed back over the tableland to the top of the shoulder.  The precipitous edge came closer and closer with each step west I took.  I stopped at the top, looking down and across the majestic landscape to the northwest, across the smaller peaks and the broad, high bowl called “the Klondike” on my map.  I couldn’t see any of that on the way up for the low cloud cover.  And I could see so much more of the lakes and the autumn colors of Baxter.  I began to make my way down the shoulder, enjoying the movement and the process of descending.

As I approached the broad, flat area lower on the shoulder before it dropped down the steepest part into the trees I noticed a single figure silhouetted against the landscape beyond.  I paused to take a photo.  It was a dramatic and picturesque scene.  Then I continued on, my belly rumbling and my feet antsy to stay on the move.

On the last knoll before the final above-treeline part of the descent sat a white haired gentleman, eating from a cup and taking in the view.  We exchanged greetings and chatted for a moment, but before long we were in a full conversation.  Gary had first summited Katadhin fifty years prior on an AT trip.  At the summit clouds had socked everything in and he didn’t get the memorable view.  He had finally made it back on a trip from his home in California back east to visit family.  He had been sitting on the shoulder taking it all in but had aborted his summit attempt due to the lateness of the day.  It was about 1:30 and Gary had decided 1:00 was his turnaround time.

Gary and I had a good conversation as we descended back into the trees and down the steep and rocky trail.  We finally parted ways when he said he was going to sit down and let his tendons rest and finish eating.  We said goodbye, and I set to finishing my climb.  

The descent of Katadhin felt as timeless as the ascent.  I was outside of the rush, the press, and the demands of my normal life.  Nothing except the turning of the earth dictated my speed or sense of urgency.  It was a different feeling than what I experienced on Cloud Peak.  There had been a nagging sense of distance between every point on that Wyoming climb and the relative security of the trailhead. 

As I got closer to the trailhead in Maine my belly chimed in, and my feet began to make known their need of respite.  I looked up, and I was at the registration box.  I signed out, and continued the short distance to the parking lot.  

After stowing my pack and jacket in the Jeep I stood beside it and started stretching my legs.  I looked back across the parking lot and saw the naked stone of Katadhin high over the bottoms.  I paused in my post-effort maintenance work and walked over to get a clear view and photo of the mountain I had not yet seen from afar.

Katadhin.  The Great Mountain.

My summit journey to the high point of Maine was nearly over.  My week long trip was barely halfway done.  But my soul felt as if it were taking the first steps on a new path—as if somewhere on Katadhin I crossed over into a different life.