Only 297.9 to go ...

We walked (hobbled, limped, staggered) out of the White Mountains today and are taking tomorrow off in Gorham, New Hampshire. Now we're sitting only 16 miles from the Maine border and 297.9 miles from the end of the trail atop Mount Katahdin. The Whites lived up to their reputation for being tough. We had miles of boulders and rock scrambles, but the scenery made all of it definitely worth the haul. The highest point, Mt. Washington, has the worst weather in the U.S. and is known to have some kind of a view from the top only 1 out of every 10 days. For us ... blue skies, only 30 mph winds, and 100-mile visibility from the top. Needless to say, we got lucky. In fact, all of our weather in the Whites was good.

Now, I've seen over 20 black bears along the trail in nearly every state, but have yet been able to get a good picture. Shortly after our decent off of Mount Madison (not a bit I would recommend to anyone who likes their knees and enjoys their sanity), we were taking a break when a black bear came up over a rock less than 30 feet away and walked toward us. I was able to get some good pictures before it occurred to us that the bear was approaching us rather alarmingly. We jumped up and hollered at the beautiful creature and it headed up the ridge in the other direction. We were so excited to get pictures of a bear at last even though the moose continue to elude us.

So we're on the last leg of this journey and still have some big mountains and a lot of water ahead of us in Maine. We're hoping to summit around September 28thish, but we'll just see how things go. Today actually marks 5 months on the trail for me. I'm happy to be out here, but like everyone else, I'm looking forward to finishing the trail. Southbounders we've been seeing at the beginning of their hike towards Georgia say that northbounders have a haunted look on their face. I'm sure we look a bit tired at this point.

Sorry no pictures, but this computer doesn't allow for it ... next time.