On July 18

Numbers for today:
Miles hiked: 7.7 miles
Time hiking: 12.5 hours
My weight: 168 pounds, 175 with clothes and boots

I hiked up Abol (pronounced A-Ball) Trail to Baxter Peak on Mt. Katahdin (pronounced Cut-AH-din (din-din, or like above the din-noise).  A very kind couple a few shelters over lent me a day-hike back-pack and let me store my pack in their car for the day so the chipmunks would not eat my food.  (I did leave my sunblock in the shelter after putting it on, and the chipmunk did chew into it.)  Here is the map, I started at Abol Campground, took Abol trail up to Hunt Trail to Baxter Peak, then took Hunt trail all the way back to Katahdin Stream Campground.

So, grandpa used to want to know how far away someplace was.  And he would not be satisfied if I told him "it took me an hour and a half to drive there" because he might drive differently than I would.  He wanted to know how many miles or kilometers away somewhere was.  Here is what I know now, on average it takes 8 hours round trip from Abol Campground to Baxter Peak and back.  Well, it is only 2.5 miles from Abol Campground to the Tablelands, then another mile to Baxter Peak.  But it took me 4.5 hours to climb the first 2.5 miles, and it took me only an hour to walk the last mile.  And then it was another five miles back down Hunt Trail, which I completed in 5.5 hours (most of which I did scooting down on my rear, which might explain why the entire back seam of my shorts is torn out-haha, I'm glad that I didn't know that until the next morning).  And then I hitched a ride from boys from Flying Moose Lodge in Katahdin Stream Campground to my shelter at Abol Stream Campground, a distance of 2 miles, in about 10 minutes.  

Before starting this trail I had multiple discussions with multiple people about how fast I could hike.  How many miles a day could I average?  And the conversation always ended with, yeah, but how slow could it really be?  We all thought that 10 miles a day was easy, a conservative guess.  Well, this day I found the answer to one end of the spectrum, the slow end.  It could take almost two hours to cross one mile!  And I wasn't even wearing my hiking pack.  That was a wake-up call.

Okay, enough prattle.  Here are some pictures from the day...

Abol Trail up.

Abol Trail, looking back where I climbed.

Abol Trail

Abol Trail in the Tableland.
See the Cairn on the left side marking the trail?

Tableland.  By far my absolute favorite part of the day.

View from Baxter Peak on Mt. Katahdin.

At the summit.

This guy, just out of college, started hiking in Georgia on
March 3 and completed the thru-hike today!

The guy on the left is the thru-hiker. He is taking a picture of his father who slack-packed him the whole way.  A crowd of people gathered and asked the guy how far he hiked, "From Georgia!!".  The father said, "Not at all!".

A group of high-school aged girls on summer camp at the summit.

The Cairn that marks the summit.

A typical sign. This is in the Tableland.  In some places the trail is
marked with strings to protect the Tableland.

The Tableland and Clouds.

These boys are from Flying Moose Lodge.  They ended up coming down the trail behind me, for which I was extremely grateful, because I felt safer.  Then they gave me a ride back to my campground at the end of the day.

Look at the Light and Clouds

I climbed DOWN that!

Easy Trail

These mushrooms are everywhere in the woods. 
Beautiful, bright colors.

Katahdin Stream Falls. At this point I was becoming very afraid that I wasn't going to get out of the woods before dark, so I took only one very quick photo.  This picture is for Charlin.

Thanks for the ride.