Millinocket, ME

The morning dawned a cloudy day, yet almost balmy compared to the frigid mornings these few days past. Up early, with only day-packs, we climbed quickly up into those clouds. Seeing nothing but the rocks immediately surrounding us, we made our final ascent to that coveted peak, that longed-for symbol of completion: a weathered wooden sign standing awkwardly upon the boulders. There was no impediment in our minds, nor any distraction in our eyes, for there was nothing else to look at, nothing else to see. There was only a contracted world shrouded in fog but bursting with the bright glory of success. The chill, damp wind kept our celebrations shorter than one might have expected after so long a time spent in effort and anticipation, but our shouts and laughter were no less for it. We howled louder than the wind could, stood stronger than the mountain itself, for we were here; we had come to Katahdin as to a holy mountain and were found worthy by all the tests the long oddessey of the trail could throw at us. We each took our turn before the sign, standing above or kneeling before it, awash in a brew of emotions that no words nor even any tears could begin to express. We hardly understood them, knowing that time would take care of that; right then, it didn't matter. What mattered was that we were there. We were done. We were thru-hikers at last.