Miles: 2,174.4 — We were nearly out of food, so we cranked out a 20-mile day to Abol Bridge in the rain, dreaming of hot chocolate and snacks. The store was pricey but worth every bite of donuts, chocolate, and beer. That night, instead of setting up wet tents, we claimed the Abol Pines shelter, strung our gear to dry, and took in the moonlit river — knowing it was our last night in a lean-to before Baxter State Park.
When we woke up and began to eat breakfast, Miles realized he barely had enough snacks to make it one more day. We were both really low. We had planned on restocking most of our snacks at the Abol Bridge store. We were about 20 miles away from there now. The terrain was pretty flat, we could most likely make it there tonight. We had hoped to camp at the last shelter in HMW on this night to avoid paying for camping at Abol Bridge. But our stomachs got the best of us. We decided to aim for Abole and bite the bullet on the camping fee at Abol Pines. Plus, I didn’t mind supporting our public lands.
We hiked fast through the rain on this day. It was gray and foggy. I listened to a lot of podcasts on this day. Trying to distract myself from the racing thoughts I’d had all night. I didn’t want it to end I realized. But I also needed it to end. I felt like I was stuck in some kind of limbo. I didn’t know where I wanted to be. I didn’t prefer the future where I’d be building my life or my present where I was finishing a journey I’d started. I also realized that this journey of the AT was so much more than the AT itself for me. It was a journey of growth. I getting to know myself and changing the things I wasn’t happy with.
The rain subsided sometime in the afternoon. I was down to one peanut butter Clif bar and a packet of hot cocoa. We cruised on empty stomachs to the last shelter. When we arrived at the empty shelter it was almost 4pm. We sat in the shelter and boiled water. The two of us shared the last of the hot chocolate. I was so hungry. But I saved that Clif bar just in case. The hot chocolate gave me new life. We got up, hopped around to warm up, and went back to it. We hiked our way over the flat ground to the road. The Golden Road, it was called.
We walked over Abol Bridge. It wasn’t quite what I had expected. A wide dirt road, like many around my home town, and a bridge with its own snowmobile lane, again, just like home. At the store, which was a complete rip off, I got some snacks for the night and an ice cream cone. We decided we’d come back in the morning for their breakfast buffet and stock up on anything else we needed then. Donuts, a chocolate bar, RedBull for the morning, and a beer for tonight. I was a happy camper, pun intended.
We went to the store’s restaurant and got some overpriced dinner. The restaurant was filled with other hikers. Ones we’d never met. Everyone we knew had either summited or quit by now, we assumed. Miles and I sat at the bar.
Before we went to camp at Abol Pines, the cheaper alternative to Abol Bridge’s camps and cabins, I practically showered in their bathroom sink. Gosh, I was nasty. Probably the third grossest I’d ever been. It’s amazing how quickly we all got used to it. I didn’t even notice the other hikers’ smells at dinner.
We went out to the campground across the street. In the dark, we could hardly make out anything. We put some cash in an envelope and dropped it in the mailbox. We were going to set up our tents but they were wet and gross and neither of us had any energy after the big day we’d done. It had been a while since we’d pulled a big day like that. We decided to try to sleep in the shelter and hope that no one wanted to share with us. It seemed like all the other hikers were staying up at Abol. Miles and I hung our tents in the shelter, blocking the windy evening air. I was cold. But not as cold as I had been in February, I kept telling myself.
We put our sleeping pads close together and huddled up. I sat in my sleeping bag and ate my donuts. We looked out over the river in front of us, the fall leaves framing it perfectly in the moonlight. I breathed in the night time air. This was it. Our last lean-to or shelter or whatever you want to call it! Our last ‘mountain’ aside from Katahdin was behind us. Tomorrow morning we’d enter Baxter State Park. We were literally 16 miles from the finish line.
What the actual heck. I never thought I’d make it this far, in all honesty, when I’d started. I also never thought it’d feel like this. I thought I’d be surrounded by a huge tramily and we’d all be freaking out and happy and having a good time. But it was just me and Miles, calm and quiet like we always were. In reality Miles was the best tramily I could have ever hoped for. He wasn’t some big rowdy group of hiker trash, but he was exactly what I needed.
We lay next to each other as the wind whistled through the trees that night. I had a hard time sleeping. I didn’t want to let this feeling go. I didn’t want to let this place go. Sometime in the middle of the night I got up and went out to the picnic table in front of the shelter. Just like back at Jo-Mary Road, I sat out there with my jacket on and my sleeping bag around my shoulders. I lay on the table and looked up at the stars one last time. I took a big, deep breath. I couldn’t absorb it all, I knew. But I tried like hell anyway. I wanted to feel this way forever: confident, accomplished, strong, loved, happy, ready for anything, ALIVE.