Hiking Maine

A few weeks after Bill is done hiking in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he went back home. Two weeks later, him and Katz are getting ready to hike the Maine portion of the AT. (like the state of Maine). Katz remembers carrying a big backpack was like hell for him. He doesn't want to relive that. Katz has a good idea (or so he thinks) to hike with a paper boy's pouch. It would hold pretty much everything they need and would be a lot lighter. Katz showed off this idea, and Bill turned it down. He thought of every excuse to not wear it. Some were total lies to! So they agreed that they will pack light.


They started the hike in Caratunk. This was a longer distance than just what they wanted to hike. They chose how far they wanted to hike, but they had 2 weeks to do it, so they made the walk longer. Right away, Katz starts to fall behind. About 5 miles in, Bill goes back to look for him. An hour later, he finds him. Most of the stuff was thrown out of his pack. Even water.

Maine has very thick forests. They are just about to enter the thickest stuff. Everything is big there. The trees, grass, and the animals. Bill runs into a full grown moose while trying to get some water. They are standing about 10 yards away from each other. They don't know what to do. Bill is amazed of how close he was.

Bill and Katz learned on their trip while talking to people, that Maine is very rainy in the summer. This upsets Katz very much. The rain is pissing him off a lot. He didn't think he could go any further. The next town they stop in, Katz asks for 5 bucks to get a pop. Then a few hours later, he asks for 5 more dollars. He is using the money to buy beer. A few years ago, Katz was a major alcoholic. He quit before he started the hike. But now he has no hope and nothing to look forward to. He is drinking and gets real mad at Bill for not buying him more. But the next day, they never talked about it. They went on just like nothing happened. 

A while into their trip, Bill stopped and waited for Katz to catch up like normal. But this time, he didn't show up. Bill walked back a ways, but he was not there either. Bill started to worry. He was thinking of all the bad things that might have happened to Katz. That night, it was very bad. He did not sleep at all. Just stayed awake wondering what Katz was doing right now. They did find each other later on the next day. Bill walked back toward where they started and found him sitting on a rock. 

The guys decide that they have done enough hiking of the AT. They went home. But they realized that they did walk 870 miles. That is still a long way. They didn't do all 2,200 miles of it, but they still did it. They were very proud of themselves for accomplishing what they did. They hiked the Appalachian Trail. 

THE END!!!!!

A Walk in the Woods

pg. 220-252

"Hypothermia is a gradual and insidious sort of trauma. It overtakes you literally by degrees as your body temperature falls and your natural responses grow sluggish and disordered." (Bry220). Bill had heard so may stories of the wilderness. Some good, and others bad. Some of the stories made him kind of nervous to go out in  the wilderness alone. He knew what to do in case of an emergency, but he just wanted to be safe. But he went out by himself anyway.

Like Michigan, the weather in the White Mountains (where Bill is hiking now), can change drastically in a few hours. Bill and this other guy were walking together and all of a sudden, the wind started to blow, and it started to get very cold. The guy he was hiking with wondered if they should turn back. But Bill persisted and said it was only a good half hour to the end of today. So they went on. The conditions turned hellish. Winds gusting up to 50 mph. Raining, and very cold. Bill was thinking a few times to jump off the side of the ridge they were walking on and say, "see you on the other side old buddy." But he never did that. 

A walk in the woods

pg. 190-220

The Appellation Trail is a very beautiful sight from the top of one of the peaks . People compared it to the Rhine and even the Alps over a century ago. It is very beautiful place.

In this chapter of the book, Bill states a good point. There have been many different ice ages in the last 2 million years. The last ice age carved the Great Lakes and everything around it. That is when there wasn't much water to fuel it. But now that the Great Lakes are full and with the many lakes of Canada, if we ever have another ice age (very probable we do), what will happen to the civilians? Will we bomb it with TNT, or blast it with nuclear warheads? What would the human race do? That is a good question.

While on this part of the AT, Bill swears he saw a mountain lion cross his path. It is very unexpected. A mountain lion has not been seen in the northeastern United States since 1903.

Bill is now hiking the top portion of the AT. He is in New England. Everything about the trail in New England is better than it was in Pennsylvania. The trails are nicer, the maps are a ton better, and it is just overall prettier to look at. Bill meets this guy named Chicken John. John doesn't know why everybody calls him that. His real name is Bernard. He has been walking for 5 months and has barely made it three-quarters of the way to Katahdin. (Which is not very far). He walks about 15 miles a day, but he gets lost a lot. They talked a while, then Bill pointed him the right way. Bill never did see him again.

Bill had to walk 8 more miles to get to a town where his wife was going to meet him for dinner. This was a very very hot day. Bill had walked 7 miles and he finally realized his conditions. He was drenched in sweat. His stench was so great that he could turn heads. His beard was full. He was a mountain man again. He liked this very much.

A walk in the woods

pg. 160-190
Bill and Katz's first part of their hike is almost over. Bills family met him at a hotel in the nearest town. They wore clean clothes and were clean again. It felt great to them. Katz was put on a plane and flew back home. Bill could not sit still. He had to keep walking everywhere he went. "You don't hike the Appalachian Trail and then go home and cut the grass." He wanted to walk the Harpers Ferry. Which was the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conference.

Bill Drove up to Pennsylvania to check out the AT there. He has heard it was bad. It really was when he got there too. But the AT side trails were very good. They went around lakes and beautiful nature spots. He was hiking this part of the trail, just because he could, and he was thinking that he actually missed Katz for once. It was different without him there. While on this part of the AT, Bill has a run in with a big mature white tail deer.  It didn't do anything though. Just stopped and looked, and wandered on its way. Bill was kind of nervous. It looked real intimidating and thought it might attack.

The whole time that Bill is walking, he is thinking to himself that if he really wanted to, he could quit at any time. He had nobody with him. But he enjoyed walking so much that he continued on.

Bill Tried to hike Pennsylvania with a car, but it didn't really work out. He drove 350 miles to get there, spent four days there, and barely walked 11 strait through miles. It was the last time he would hike with a car.