[at-l] Magical Maine (was: We are 2000 milers)

[rambleon@email.unc.edu (Jeremy Reiter)]

Bogey and Slim wrote:
<snip> 
> > The highlight of the trip, other than summiting Katahdin and completing
> > 'the Trail', was the day we reached Rainbow Ledges near Rainbow Stream. It
> > was 5:30 pm when we reached the summit and took out the camera to get a
> > photo of Katahdin in the distance when all of a sudden it began to drizzle
> > and then the sun came out  behind us and a rainbow appeared across the
> > Mother Ship (Katahdin).  I quickly snapped two photos of the rare incident.
> > I titled it,  "Rainbow on Katahdin from Rainbow Ledges".  It was spiritual.
> > Kinda hard to put into words. It was like The Lord spoke and said to me,
> > "All is well". "I created all this and it is good".  "Life is good. Enjoy."
> > 
> > You all do the same,

Maine is a magical place indeed. First off, congratulations on completing the
AT! Second, this reminded me of one of the most magical moments i had on the
Trail last year. After a very cold and snowy trek through the Hundred Mile, we
went into Millinocket from Abol Bridge to make a plan for how we were going to
summit Katahdin. To make a long story short, we knew we would have to summit
from Katahdin Streams Campground, because it would have been near impossible to
do it all in one shot from Abol Bridge (this being October 29th, Baxter was
_way_ closed for overnight stays). We summited on the 29th, and on October 30th
we went back to Katahdin Streams to hike the 10 miles between Abol and K.S.,
and complete the trail. It was actually a nicer day, and the sun was shining
down as i was contemplating all of the amazing experiences i had been a part of
for the last 7 months. I started thinking how i could say that i had hiked in
just about every condition there was... extreme cold, extreme heat, fogs,
clouds, lightning storms, hard rain, light rain, cold rain, high wind, snow,
sleet, ice, hail..... then i paused. I hadn't acutally HIKED in hail, i thought
to myself. I was in a nasty hail storm in the Smokies, but i was already in the
shelter by then, so i didn't actually hike in it. Within minutes, literally, it
started hailing. It was a nice light hail... most pieces were no bigger than
gumballs. The sun was still shining, and the majority of the sky was blue. It
hailed for about 5 minutes, then stopped. You can call it a karmic coincidence,
a chance occurance, a divine signal for a skeptic, a common Maine weather
condition, whatever you'd like..... i'll just call it the magic of Maine. I
still get goosebumps. 

Walk with light,

-Rambleon-  

* From the Appalachian Trail Mailing List |  http://www.backcountry.net  *

==============================================================================