My dad had already checked the weather and prepared breakfast. "Great day for a hike," he said with a boyish smile. Forty five minutes later, we were on the trail, heading up Mt. Katahdin.
Prepared by a youth spent tromping around the woods and mountains of the Pacific Northwest, I felt unfazed by numerous war stories from trustifarians at Colby and Bill Brison's comical account of his tribulations in the 100 Mile Wilderness.
The "trail," consisting of a foot and half gap in the Maine woods along a compass bearing connecting our campground with a distant peak of Mt. Katahdin corrected my fantasy of briskly walking up mellow switchbacks whilst eating granola bars and casually snapping pictures with my camera. Scrambling up Igloo-cooler sized blocks of granite, we emerged from the pine and hemlock trees onto a sparse alpine environment found on only a few of New England's highest peaks.
Confused by the thin air and sparse environment, my mind bounced from place to place transcending time like a daydream. The wind whistled through rocks, rattling the small and tilting the tall signs in the same direction.
After ten hours and forty five minutes we made it back to a small bridge within shouting distance of the car. Sore from twelve miles and 3,500 feet of vertical change, I rested my feet in a cool stream. As the sun dropped below the rugged outline of Mt. Katahdin, I wiggled my toes in the runoff from winter's snow. Taking my time, I jumped from rock to rock, happy to have finished the day.
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