Maine: the final frontier; last call for love.

Hi from the last state. Whoa.

We are in Rangeley, Maine, 220 miles from the summit of Mount Katahdin, having recently passed 1900 miles and five months on the trail. I have never been much of a numbers person. Actually, I did very well in math until it turned away from numbers and into Greek letters. But anyways, I think these numbers are pretty good.

On the 5-month anniversary of The Quest for Katahdin (so named for convenience- I am assuredly not on a quest for destination but a quest for journey), we scrambled, clambered, crawled, ducked, and squeezed our way through Mahoosuc Notch, notoriously the toughest mile of the Appalachian Trail. We had a great time climbing around and over and sometimes under boulders. On four occaisons, I needed to remove my pack and either push or pull it through a tiny opening that I thought was more of a trail router's joke than an actual trail. That pack. The Albatross. It has been hearing my jokes and scorn and commentary on our love/hate relationship-- the necessary bundle of burden has weighed me down but also kept me alive for almost 2000 miles. I grumbled at that pack all the way through Mahoosuc Notch, except for a half-second period and its thirty-second aftermath. I fell. I fell from a sloping rock face about six feet in the air when my boots--which have no grip left on them, and had to have part of the soles glued back on in Berlin-- slipped out from under me. I went hurtling backwards, momentarily thinking all sorts of bad things about cracking my skull, spine, and neck vertebrae on a rock below, only to land relatively safely, back-down atop the Albatross, which broke my fall. The tumble wedged me between two other, more vertical rocks, one of which had bruised and minorly lacerated my leg. But, I have never been so happy to have that enormous pack on. I haven't thought so poorly of it since.

Southern Maine has been very intense, but is calming a bit. We completed 17.7 miles yesterday, the longest since pre-Whites New Hampshire. We will climb Saddleback this afternoon, which allegedly has views back to Mt. Washington and north to Katahdin on a clear day. I may get to see the finish line today. It's a possibility which hits me quite forcefully. To have the end, literally, within sight, is something I have barely allowed myself to consider.

This brings me, friends, to my final order of business:
LAST CALL FOR LOVE!
We will be stopping in:

Caratunk, ME 04925 (probably next Monday[?])
and
Monson, ME 04464 before entering the final stretch: the 100-mile wilderness before Katahdin.

Drop me a written line.

Love, as always.
WindUp/Bee