The Yellow Deli drops us off at Rattlesnake River at about noon. We want to make it 17 miles to a shelter that we believe will be uninhabited by other thruhikers. The shelter is just beyond the border of Maine, and making it into our final state is another huge motivation.
The first ten miles are easy cruisin' and even though we're not in Maine yet I start thinking, "Ha, everyone says Maine is hard, and this is eeeasy!" Before long though, the climbs start, the trail gets relatively shittier, and I know that we're in for a struggle.
There's one major difference in this day though, and it's not the trail. It's how I feel. You see, for the last few days I've been doing a pretty significant diet change. That is, I have pretty much limited my sugar intake to less than 20 grams a day. No small feat for the real world, and an incredibly enormous feat for the trail. This means my diet is pretty restricted, and I find myself eating mostly rice, rice noodles, potato chips, and peanut butter. I know that I can't do this for the long term (because of obvious nutritional concerns), but right now I feel awesome. Awesome as in no abdominal pain, no need to evacuate, no constant threat of shitting my pants, no pressure on my intestines, no microscopic goblins hacking up the inside of my stomach with rusty pickaxes (that's how I envision my problems at this point). So I'm flying up and down mountains. I'm literally skipping down the trail listening to a playlist I made with nothing but nostalgic high school era jams. The songs are embarrassing, but I don't care. I'm dancing and singing with complete disregard for the fact that someone might hear me. It's as if an invisible force has hijacked my brain and exterminated by ability to worry and all that's left is pure undulated bliss.
This is how I feel as I make my ascent of Mount Success, the final mountain top in New Hampshire.
I'm charging up the mountain, literally yelling the words to my favorite high school jams, using my poles like drumsticks to emphasize the rhythm, and as I make my final climb, I took and look back at the sun throwing rays of light through the clouds.
Awesome. I feel awesome. Life is good. God damn.
The wind speeds on top of the mountain are crazy and they're tossing me around like a rag doll, and my sudden change in mindset interprets this as fun rather than annoying. So I do what anyone would do. I drop my bag and have an impromptu single person dance party as the sun sets on the Whites in the distance.
Before long Cheyanne catches up, gives me an eyebrow raised look as if to say, "What did I just catch you doing?" Unashamed, I run off across the bald peak still singing like a total idiot.
Before going back down into the trees, or what we affectionately call "Tree Mile" rather than "Tree Line" because of a speaking error on the part of Cheyanne, I pause.
I turn around, take one last look at the Ghost of Mountains Past. I hold my finger up in front of me, putting it on top of Mount Washington and slowly trace it over the peaks of the Presidentials and down the ridge that brought us into Pinkham Notch, then along the Wildcats and down into Rattlesnake River. I turn back around, looking off into the distance or, "The Mountains Yet to Come". Beyond them somewhere is Katahdin. I feel its presence pulsing gently in my chest, pulling me like a magnet.
Here, on this peak, looking back at where we've been and where we're going, a warmth pushes the anxiety inducing pull of Katahdin to the side and I realize the warmth is pride. We walked here. Over those mountains, over mountains beyond those, over mountains beyond those! And I can physically see what we've done! A sentiment comes to mind, one that would echo in my subconscious for many days to come. Henry David Thoreau, in describing his ascent of Katahdin, once said, "I stand in awe of my body."
Sometimes it feels like it's killing me. Sometimes it feels like I can spread wings and fly to the fucking moon. Sometimes it's eh. But always, it is there, taking punishment and providing me with input. It's always there. And it's a beautiful feeling, the feeling of BEING a BODY. I am my body, and my body is capable of so much. And so in this moment that I realize what I've subjected myself to and survived, I take a step back (metaphorically) and just cherish the vehicle that allows me to experience.
My body, and all of its amazing abilities. The ability to see, and feel, and run, and climb, and move, and maybe most importantly, to suffer.
I stand in awe of my body.
And like that, we're in Maine.
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