8-20 12:56 p.m. On the summit of Old Blue.I have come only 6.3 miles today, but I am exhausted. I have had 3 exceptionally steep climbs and 2 equally abrupt descents. And none of that has been aided by my having to stop to blow my nose every few feet, or fight off a sneeze.

The weather remains a mystery. The sun is visible enough to cast shadows, despite the thin sheet of clouds. Heavier, darker clouds drift by, and big white cumulus clouds stand on the horizons. Patches of blue appear here and there.

It sprinkled briefly last night, very lightly and very briefly. The ground was not even dampened.

I guess the weather is a mystery now because there is a battle going on here in the northern mountains. Autumn, the horse that pulls winter, is strutting in here on swirling gusts of wind and in the gray clouds. Summer, which insists it has another full month of residence, won't give up so easily, but it will lose, it always does.

I have felt this battle as early as this at home, too, when the black-gray storms appear offshore like an invasion fleet, but in August, well, it's merely a hint of what's to come. What's happening here, now, all around me, I will feel again in November down there. And by that time this spot that I'm sitting in will be under 3 feet of snow, and the little krumholz will be gone til next May.

Meanwhile, what am I to do? If I have the energy I'd like to go beyond Elephant Mtn. Lean-to tonight. It's only 3 miles from here. But then I'd have to camp in the tent beside Bemis Stream and very likely get rained on. Tomorrow night I also plan to tent, at Little Swift River Pond, where I'm told moose are always seen. If I get a wet tent tonight, that screws up tomorrow. Oh, well, we shall see.

There are moose around. Yesterday I saw droppings, today I have seen tracks, on the traverse of Sawyer Mtn.

The loons will not be seen or heard til the lake country near Katahdin, I suspect, but just a few minutes ago as I broke above tree line here, I was able to get some good photos of a spruce grouse.

I am trying very hard to ration my snacks and lunch foods. The hiker I met at Surplus Pond yesterday gave me some crackers, which will help (He's also the one who confirmed the moose droppings and also he identified a lovely blue flower as bottle gentian).

I'll see how hungry I am after tomorrow. If it looks shaky, I'll hitch into Rangely Sunday for some more food. Also I can call Kate then so she won't be worried if I don't call Sunday as I said I would. She'll probably be pissed that I'm behind "schedule" for Stratton. So it goes. I am going to be putting in some longer days now because the terrain will be getting a little easier, and the shelters are spaced that way. But if this cold persists, I'll have a hard time doing 10 miles on flat terrain!

Why now? After all those weeks of rain in Va., and all the freezing cold down in Ga. and the Smokies, why the hell do I catch cold now? Probably because "it" knows that I wouldn't quit now even if I had double pneumonia.

Time to move on to Elephant Mtn. Maybe someone behind will catch up tonight. Not that I want anyone to, but as slow as I've been going, someone ought to.

8-22 6:50 p.m. Spaulding Mtn. Lean-to, already bundled in the sleeping bag, already having eaten.

Feeling mellow, with the shelter to myself. I hope it stays that way.

It's going to be another cold night, but at least the wind has died down, at least here. Autumn in New England, and summer still has a month left. Well, if this continues, I may get to see some fall colors before I reach Katahdin. Then I will have gone through four seasons in five months. The last vestiges of winter in Georgia and the Smokies, spring in Carolina, Tennessee and Va. Summer, oh brutal summer, in the mid-Atlantic, and fall in Maine.

Actually, there is some color already. Some maple leaves have turned red and fallen, and mountain ash is going yellow. But the mountain slopes are still green, even in the hardwood sections below the spruce forests. I would love to look up one afternoon and see a wedge of geese beginning their migration. I don't even know if we're on the flyway or not.

Last night and tonight I've been drinking this spice concoction George Gross gave me back in Waynesboro. It has nutmeg and cinnamon, and I'm not sure what else. He said Emma has the recipe, and I'd like to get it. It sure hits the spot on these cold nights.

Last night the wind blew hard all night. I slept well til about 3 a.m., then awoke for well over an hour. Listening to the wind.

The winds of change. That's what they are. The change from summer to fall. The battle I wrote about earlier. The winds of change cannot be ignored, and the change is inevitable, irresistible.

Tonight will be my first night on the infamous baseball bat floors of Maine shelters. I'm very glad to have this Therma-rest mattress at times like these. No way could I sleep on this floor without it. The same is true of my campsite the last two nights. Both of them were "virgin" tent sites, and I was atop rocks and roots that would have been deadly with an ensolite or other foam pad. I was quite comfortable both nights.

I hope Kate won't be too worried when I don't call tonight. The phone in this shelter is out of order. I said earlier I'm feeling mellow tonight. Being alone is one reason. I was alone the last 2 nights, too, but with less time to kill. I got here at 4:30 this afternoon, have already eaten, and now have the leisure to sit and write and think and listen to the chatter of birds outside. I don't know these birds. They're not the maestro musicians of further south. They chatter, but not like jays. More like crickets, in fact.

This morning as I lay in my tent door boiling water just outside the tent for breakfast, a big rabbit hopped up to within a few feet of me. It stood up and sniffed, and seemed unafraid. It hopped on by, went around the tent and disappeared.

Anyway, back to feeling mellow.

The register in this shelter was all used up, so I got to leave one of my own. I asked other thru-hikers behind to do some reminiscing about the trip. The I did a little myself. Things like:

"Standing on Springer and wondering just how far 2,126 miles really was.

"The snow. All-you-can-eat lasagna at Wesser, and the stomach-ache that followed..."

etc.

Coming to the end of this trip is a little like coming to the end of a school year, only I was always much happier to see a school-year end. I'm really beginning to understand why depression follows the end of an end-to-end hike.

And it's not that I really want to keep going. My God, I'm exhausted. I am truly reaching the limits of my endurance. And I want to go home. I deeply miss Kate, and I can't wait to see Zar and Carolina's reaction when they recognize me. As I went over tree-line on Saddleback this morning in that freezing windy fog, I laughed when I realized that in a few weeks I'll be basking on my dock in the Low-country sun.

But there is a peace here that is so hard to come by. This awesome wilderness, wildness that I feel at home with, in harmony with. Birds that can make me cry, and toads that can make me laugh (I love to watch them scurry out of my way, and I always stop to cheer them on, especially when they can't hop, but have to pull themselves up over a rock. Oh, I know the feeling).

On my trip home, I found myself mostly amused at the mad rush of civilization, the self-importance of people, the airs they put on. These were things that used to anger me. Perhaps I have learned from the wildness to be amused rather than angered. It makes sense. After all, the problem is just one of priorities. What's important to me is how mountains are made, and at what altitude the hardwoods end, and where the krumholz begins, and how much food I have left.

But when I was home before it was easy to be amused. I was just an observer then. What happens when I have to start participating in all that crap again? I guess I'll just flee back to the wilderness when it all gets too much. No, not literally. In my head. There's five months and almost 2,000 miles of hard joy stamped in this puckered little brain of mine, as firmly embedded as the callouses on my feet. When I have to, I can escape, just by closing my eyes, to the holy silence of a night like this, or the bird-song nights of Va., or the crunch of frozen Georgia Trail under my boots.

This is basic living, raw life, down to the bare essentials. And it is from this that the rest of my life can be built. This is the foundation for the castles I long ago built in the air:

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." -- Thoreau, Walden.

Sept. 4 -- 6:34 p.m. In the tent beside Gulf Hagas Brook. Finally saw a moose. I can't wait to tell the Moose.

I was right behind John as we were walking on the gradual part of the descent from Chairback Mtn. into the Pleasant River Valley. Suddenly I heard John say, "Hey, look at that. Horses. What are horses doing here?"

I looked where he was looking and saw one enormous grayish animal trot off into the woods about 30 yards to our left. Right behind her was a smaller one.

"Moose," I said. "Those are moose. A cow and a calf. Hey, John, we got our moose!"

Stu and Jan missed them, but got theirs this afternoon not far from here. John and I must have barely missed them, because they came up about 20 minutes after us. Stu got pictures of a cow and her calf, right on the Trail.

It's been a great day. A spectacular red-orange sunrise greeted us, followed, naturally, by big black clouds, which have alternated all day with the blue skies and sunshine.

We had a boots off, barefoot ford of the West Branch of the Pleasant River at 10 a.m. I wore a pair of socks to let them get rinsed out. It was chilly, but not nearly as treacherous as the Kennebec.

It was another mile to the Guld Hagas Side Trail. There we ate an early lunch and then John and Stu and I set off to see Gulf Hagas. Jan, who has seen it twice, stayed behind to bathe and watch our packs.

It was beautiful. Sheer cliffs dropped straight down to the water, which ran in rapids and pools and some spectacular falls through the gorge. The cliffs had been carved by millenia of the river's erosion.

The trail brought us to the edges of the cliffs on the east bank, and at Buttermilk Falls, a side trail went down to the pool below the falls.

I shot a whole roll of film in Gulf Hagas, then we hurried back on the loop, an easy hike, and rested a long while before coming up here.

It was during that rest that we decided to make some plans for the rest of the hike. Our short day 2 days ago left us with just enough food to make Abol Bridge Thursday morning, and even that's going to be pushing. We'll have to do at least one 20-mile day, but it will probably be Wednesday, when our packs are lightest. We plan to climb Katahdin Friday morning.

Less than a week. I still find it mind boggling. There is a part of me that has been numb ever since leaving Springer five months ago. I never quite let myself say, "Well, here it is, the Appalachian Trail, and I'm going to hike the whole thing..."

Not that I ever doubted I would, but I really have made an effort to do it one day at a time. Of course, my mind often wandered forward, but, well, I never let the daydreams get out of control.

But now I'm here, 40 miles from Katahdin as the crow flies, less than 80 Trail miles, and while those miles may be day dreams still, the 2,050 behind me are not. That's what's mind-boggling. I almost take the future for granted (but not quite. There's still five full days of hiking ahead, and I'll be flat exhausted by then), but when I look at the map and realize how far I've come, trace the Trail from Georgia, through N.C. & Tenn., Virginia, my God those 500 miles of Virginia, with the rain almost daily. Then the mid-Atlantic -- rocks and heat, and finally New England, and even that's a long time ago now.

Now. Try to focus on now. The leaves turning, yellow beech leaves scattered on the forest floor, flaming red maples blazing on the green slopes. Cold nights and frigid mornings, autumn winds rushing through the trees over my head. The end indeed. It couldn't be more beautiful. Ends should always be beautiful. 

 Sept. 7 -- 5:45 a.m. Sunrise. I am still lying in my sleeping bag, looking straight out the door of my tent. The sky is peach colored on the horizon where the sun waits in the wings to make its entrance. A small, lone cloud hovers over there.

Above and behind me, the sky is blue, deep, dark blue, still the blue of night. There is a bank of clouds low on the western horizon.

The towering white pines on this little peninsula where I've pitched my tent are waving and whispering in the wind. Waves lap at the shore.

It was about 2:30 last night when I realized the rain had stopped and the moon, nearly full, was shining brightly. The wind had already dried my tent, so I raised the door fly and basked in the moonlight, drifting in and out of sleep and dreams. I heard loons laugh several times, but I haven't heard them on this dawn. Just the wind and the waves.

6:03 a.m. There it is -- they are -- Two loons just flew overhead, crying out with a quaver. The small dark clouds in the east just burst into flames. And now (6:06) the edge of the sun has appeared at the notch of a ridge.

6:11 a.m. -- There is a line of clouds, small separate clouds, just over the eastern horizon. They are passing slowly from north to south. As each one passes over the sun, it is blessed in its turn by the flaming light, and then it moves on.

9-11 -- 1:46 p.m. Aboard Delta Flight something or other between Boston and Atlanta.

I did it.

It's all over, and I did it, strapped my life on my back and walked and hopped and crawled and squeezed and waded and sloshed over 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine.

I kissed the sign at Baxter Peak, Katahdin about 11:20 yesterday morning, and John and Jan and Stu and I hugged and backslapped and handshook and whooped and wept as a group of schoolboys and their teachers looked on bewildered.

Then I went sort of numb, just pumped myself with emotional anesthetic so I could keep my eyes clear on the steep descent over the boulders of Hunt Spur and endure the confined back seat of Jan's car into Millinocket and stuff myself almost to the pain threshold on surf'n'turf and other delicacies at the Heritage Motor Inn for our celebration dinner.

The anesthetic is starting to wear off. I'm letting myself think about it again, but only in small spurts, just enough to raise little throat lumps, maybe a slight sting in the eyes. The rush will come later, when I'm alone with Kate or maybe even later than that. Maybe when this crushing exhaustion is relieved by some healthy, moderate eating and sound, steady sleeping. It may take a while.

I hardly slept at all the night before the climb. My overfull belly had me up and down several times during the night to visit the outhouse.

On each visit I would check the sky. On one side were bright stars. On the other was a gray void -- clouds. The tree tops waved and danced in the wind.

At 5:30, Jan's alarm watch went off. Nobody moved for a while, but I had a headache and finally fumbled in the dark for my medicine kit and got out the Tylenol. I tried, but couldn't swallow it without water. I had to go the the table where I had left my water bottle.

Stu stirred and yawned. That made three of us.

"Are you awake, too, John?" Jan asked.

"No," he replied firmly.

"Good," I said. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't think I've slept all night."

"Me either," John said, "but I've really enjoyed tossing around."

We were up, tossing and stowing gear and food for the climb by candlelight.

I don't know when we finally left the bunk house. We went over to the tentsite occupied by John's friends. He was already over there having breakfast with them.

And then we waited. And waited. We were trying to be patient and polite and keep in mind that they were, after all, weekenders, car camping, not used to the fast, efficient wake-up ritual of the through-hiker. But we were chomping at the bit, ready to go, pacing back and forth, stretching, glancing at the sky, which seemed bright hazy, sunny or partly so. It was breezy but warm there at 1,100 feet elevation. It told us nothing about what might be happening 4,200 feet above us.

Finally Bob and Melissa, John's friends, were ready. We took off, almost literally. It was laughable, trying to figure out why we had waited when we were out of sight of them within a minute.

There was more adrenalin than blood in our systems as we practically ran along the flat first mile. The beginning of the acsent was moderate and slowed us only a little. It took just over an hour for John and I to reach tree line, where we stopped to rest and eat some candy and look for shelter from the wind. Jan and Stu were behind, as usual. We waited for them, and started getting nervous.

The wind was howling and cold. Sunshine was not around, just fog sweeping by fast. Occasionally there would be a break that allowed us the see the top of Hunt Spur -- the Gateway -- but more often it was shrouded in thick fog.

Finally Jan and Stu reached us. We started up over the big boulders, over, under, between, using the big iron pitons sunk into the rock for handholds and footholds. The Gateway remained hidden, and the wind kept howling. We paused, talked about it and decided to return to below tree line to assess our situation.

We waited nearly an hour. We knew the chances of getting good views from Katahdin were nil. Even though over our heads the sky was mostly blue, we could still see by peering around rocks that the crest and peak were in the clouds. The thought of going down and into Millinocket for a shower and a meal and a warm bed had its obvious appeal, but we were sober enough to realize how depressed we'd be waiting until the next day to climb.

We set a 10 a.m. deadline for making a decision. The time came, and we all just looked up, saw nothing had changed, and said, "Let's go. Up."

For no reason, really. All we could hope for was to keep moving fast enough to stay warm while the cold wet gale tried to blow us into one of the lakes below and reach the summit and kiss the sign and take our pictures and FINISH THE AT.

"I want to see a moose tomorrow," I added, which brought gawks and then laughter when the others realized I meant Moose, not moose. And off we went, with some mild cheering and words of encouragement to each other, pumped by the adrenalin and a whole lot of candy sugar we ate while waiting. We leaped up the Hunt Spur, boulder to boulder, pulling ourselves up by hand and foot til our hands were red and sore from the rough faces of the granite and our knees begged for mercy, even though we weren't carrying packs.

It seemed no time and effortless, though, before we went over the gateway and started following the cairns over the Tableland plateau, over the sheer rock Trail between red and yellow and green grasses holding the mountain together. We were nearly running again now, through the clouds that shot by us from behind, drawn by the occasional glimpse of the summit when holes got torn in the clouds.

We reached Thoreau Spring, found it running, but we needed no water and hurried past, climbing again, gradually, over the pink and gray granite rockpile. Beyond the arctic flora now, it was just rock hopping again, with no idea how far the summit was, just less than a mile.

Suddenly there was a blast of sunlight. The sky went blue, the cloud ahead was gone and 50 yards ahead was the summit, with its signs and the big cairn, high enough to make the 5,267 foot mountain a full mile high, and we shouted and ran, jumping up over the rocks, to the sign with direction arrows all pointing south, past the last white blaze. The end.

Jan, Stu, George and John

We took the pictures and laughed and then sat in a little depression out of the wind, occasionally getting glimpses or hints of views -- down the Knife Edge toward South Peak, back over the lakes, back over the Tableland -- but always brief and vague, and not even photogenic. We sat and ate our candy and other goodies.

We were very quiet. John was especially bummed out. We kept mumbling, "I can't believe it's really over," but I felt we were just mouthing the words, not really feeling them, not yet, not allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by the impact of them. We sat quietly instead, reflecting and eating, and just going numb.

4:35 p.m. Atlanta Airport. Finally we stirred ourselves. The wind and cold were too much. John had to get to town before 5 p.m., because he was expecting money in the mail.

Tony McGuire and his brother reached the summit just before we left. I congratulated him and insisted he keep in touch so we can do some hiking on Cumberland this fall.

And then we descended, back down to Thoreau Spring, still nearly running, but, I at least, more tenderly on weary knees.

Across the tableland with skies clearing overhead, but glances back showed the summit still hidden. We paused to photograph the colorful low grasses of the plateau and feel the wind rip through us. We breathed in the cold air in deep draughts as we admired the rock bulk of the Owl and other mountains of the range fading into the haze.

Back through the Gateway, and again onto the boulder tumble of Hunt Spur Ridge, dropping narrowly before us over ledges to the tree line 1,500 feet below. And on the sides of the ridge, cascades of yellow gold that had mystified us when we saw them from Rainbow Ledges, but now were clearly the peak colors of autumn on the birch forest that grows all the way up to tree line.

Down and down we went, sliding over, and squeezing through and hopping onto the rocks, wondering if the wind could blow us off, and checking to see how far we'd fall if it did (Not too far, really).

Below treeline the going smoothed out. We could even walk in places. It got lower and more gradual, finally crossed Katahdin Stream on the bridge below the falls and became a wide gravel path for nearly a mile, and then it was really over. The parking lot. Jan's car. No more walking.

It started to hit us.

"I'm going to take taxis everywhere from now on," Stu joked.

Later in the car, someone, maybe I, said, "I can't believe we're not just riding into town to get groceries and do laundry, and we'll be back on the Trail tomorrow."

But now it's tomorrow, and I'm waiting to get on a plane to Savannah, and the Trail is buried under all those big white clouds I saw on the flight from Bangor and Boston.

Charlie's still out there, and Andy Coone and Mary and Florence and Hagar and Chopper and a dozen more I can't think of right now. They're sloshing and rock hopping through Maine, looking for moose and wondering how far it is to the next shelter and deciding what to have for dinner tonight and designing their next pizzas in the backs of their minds.

Someone's picking mussels at Old Antlers, and the loons' cries are echoing through the hills around Nahmakanta Lake. The maples are still turning to a dozen shades of red, and a thousand birch leaves turn yellow every minute.

It's not over.

I'm almost home, and it will be a while before I squeeze into those boots and climb another mountain, but it's not over. Even if I never set foot on the Trail or any trail ever again, this experience, this high, this achievement, accomplishment, will never end.

That's what I learned on Katahdin yesterday. There was no flash, no heavenly choir, no bombshell revelation. There was just a realization: That Katahdin was not what I came for. Katahdin only represented what I came for, and that was the journey, not the end, but the progress, the growth, the movement, the change -- from weak to strong, from naive to knowledgeable, from self-doubter to self-believer, just as I watched the seasons go from winter to fall.

I don't know what happens next. I just know it doesn't matter, as long as I keep moving, and don't be afraid, and believe that I can do whatever it is.

Because I hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, and that will always be with me.

--George Cathcart
AT, Georgia to Maine, 1982