Mount Katahdin 2: Saddle and Summit

On Wednesday, September 18, Robert, Marc, and I set off for the summit using the Saddle Trail. While only 2.2 miles to the summit from Chimney Pond, this trail is mostly uphill and a good deal of it is over exposed rock above the treeline. Citing a bad knee, Marc set off a bit earlier than Robert and I, figuring we would catch up with him. As I ate breakfast, made lunch, and filled my day pack and water bottles I could feel my anticipation growing by the moment. However this kind of "future-thinking" was quickly put to rest by the nature of the trail...

It was slow going with a good deal of scrambling and clambering over rocks. We carefully picked our way up and up and as we broke the tree-line were afforded some spectacular views. I could feel my chest swell with emotion as I turned on the trail and saw, a couple of thousand feet below, the pond from which we had ascended (and we still had about a mile and a half to go to the summit).

We climbed up the moraine that leads to the Saddle, a broad and slowly ascending table-land that leads to the peak. Staying to the right of the trail blazes for surer footing and to avoid sending a shower of stones down on those coming behind we slowly made our way toward the lip/rim of the cirque. When we reached the Saddle the wind hit us full in the face. There were gusts of between 40 and 50 miles per hour up there. Robert and I stopped to rest and put on our jackets. Marc was nowhere in sight. it seemed that his knee was not slowing him down. We still had a mile to go, so it was off along the Saddle Trail toward the summit. The Saddle Trail winds its way through scrubby gasses and piles of lichened stones. Looking around one feels on top of the world with spectacular views of mountains upon mountains and a landscape dotted with lakes and ponds. The sky comes right up to your face (but does not stop there).

Closer at hand this place feels otherworldly. The lichen is an eerie, almost phosphorescent green and it covers vast fields of pink granite stones, and amid them jagged rocks that jut straight up out of the earth.

Mount Katahdin is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail (southern terminus is at Springer Mountain, Georgia). One must traverse the Knife Edge and come over the South Peak before one reaches the end. I saw one silent, but clearly jubilant "through-hiker" run up and kiss the sign at the summit. 

Knife Edge

View of South Peak from the summit. The tiny vertical forms on top are some AT through-hikers.

We had approached the summit from the other side. We passed several hikers who were on their way down, wind and sunburned, and smiling. They all had a particular look in their eyes that spoke of something newly discovered... it may have been an affirmation, or it may have been a surprise, but there was something that hinted of knowing in their gaze.

It was late morning when we at last we came over the final "stone steps" and arrived at the summit. There were several hikers there, some milling about, some eating lunch, some taking photos, some texting loved ones, or posting images to Facebook (the summit is about the only place where one might get a signal in Baxter Park). We found Marc, who apparently had been waiting for about 10 minutes. It was time for the "Summit with Sign" portraits:

Marc Ayotte

Robert Lidstone

Yours truly

In a previous post (Mount Monadnock 1: Am I a Pilgrim?) I wrote that the summit seems almost beside the point. However, on this mountain, to reach the summit seems, conversely and most definitely, the point. I don't necessarily mean the purpose. What I am getting at is that the summit is a point of stillness, a center from which one can look outward and/or inward.  

On the way to Chimney Pond with a view of the cirque forever in my eye, I was aware of the vastness of time and its emissaries; the glacier, its passage, and the great walls of stone left in its wake. Also, the depth of the forest, its history, both ancient and and more recent; old growth, through logging, and then a protected wilderness. While I didn't see all of them I was aware of the denizens of this wild place, the moose, the deer, pine marten, black bear, beaver, owls, ravens, juncoes, butterflies, dragonflies, rabbits, hawks, sparrows, coyote, and warblers. Some say that the mountain lion has returned to these high places. 

On the Saddle and at the summit something is different. There was only the present moment and its great silence. The silence was entirely interior. It contained the wind, the very few voices that the wind did not carry away, the eating of lunch, the taking of photos, the texting, the walking. There is the mountain and my sitting on it... the feel of it against my back, under my hand, its wind in my ears and against my face, the taste of it in my sandwich and the wetness in my water. In the Zen tradition of Buddhism, the position that the zen master takes before the assembly when presenting a lecture is called  the "mountain seat." I have a new understanding of this phrase. Zen does not go in for symbols. I now understand the "mountain seat" in a whole new and, possibly, more correct way. 

On Mt. Katahdin I experienced a depth to reality that is beyond utterance... I'll try... the miracle of being alive in the present moment.

After  about an hour, we headed back down from whence we came. Back across the saddle, down the moraine, and on to our camp at Chimney Pond. I said to my companions when we arrived at the lean-to, "This has been a damn good day." And it was. We spent the night at Chimney Pond and headed back to Roaring Brook and our vehicle on Thursday morning. We took our time... a leisurely amble over stones  and stones, and down and down and down. Autumn is coming and we're headed to West Branch Pond for our last night in Maine.

Here's a the GPS Drawing of the week on the mountain.