The Last State

It has really clicked in our heads just in the last day or so how close we are now to finishing. We have walked 1990.5 miles and just have 187.8 miles left. Right now we are in Stratton, ME, which means we just have one more town stop after this and then the 100-mile wilderness and then we will be to Mt. Katahdin. Craziness! We have our sights set for reaching Katahdin's summit around August 9th if the weather works in our favor.
The 14th state...good bye New Hampshire
Hello Maine...wonderful Maine with your unstable ladders, huge rocks, deep bogs, slick roots, and butt-kicking mountains.
Mahoosuc Notch known as the hardest or funnest mile on the whole AT. They routed the trail through a ravine that we had to work our way through for almost a mile of jumbled boulders. Most older hikers we meet think the notch is hell, but the younger ones enjoy the difficulty of it. We heard about this notch for the last 1900 miles, and I had it worked up so big in my head. I knew I was going to die here, but come to find out it wasn't that bad. We actually had fun and got through in one piece.
Ice down in the notch. In spots the ravine felt like a fridge, and there was ice in the cracks between the boulders. A few years ago a moose got herself caught in the notch. The trail maintainers could not get her out, and ended up putting her down. They still could not get her body out so hikers had to hike around the rotting moose. Here is all that is left of it now.
Some of the jumbled boulders we have to work our way through. Some are bigger than a house.
The steep cliffs on both sides of us trapping us in here. You can see the grooves where the rocks fell off the cliffs into the notch.
You can see behind me the arrows directing us through the gaps in the rocks. We only had to take our packs off twice to squeeze through spaces. You can also see the blisters on my lips from the sunburn I received in the Whites...stupid antibiotics made me so sensitive to the sun.
Us by a huge AT sign.
Beautiful Maine. Maine has a ton of lakes...
And mud slides.
A Ruffed Grouse in the fog in a tree.
Nick standing on Piazza Rock. This rock fell from a cliff and landed in this precarious manner. It was pretty cool.
Me climbing through more rocks. This was called the caves by Piazza Rock. It was on a side trail, but we thought we should go check it out. The caves turned out to be a huge pile of rocks that had fell down the mountain side.
Blue blazes directing us through the caves.
The ridge on Saddleback mountain. We didn't get very many good views on this ridge, but luckily the weather was not horrible. It seemed to be very pretty though.
Below is another view of Maine from Saddleback I believe. I was trying to beat that cloud from rolling in and blocking our view again.