Hello everyone from Braintree, MA. We are currently resting comfortably at my mother and step father's house. We summited  Mt. Katahdin on Friday the 17th and ended up having beautiful weather .The forecast coming into the day was 50% chance of showers so we didn't expect much as far as views .The night before the climb we celebrated with 7 other 2010 hikers and 2 hikers from 2004 . We cooked hot dogs and had some beer and champagne. It started raining at about 8 that night and didn't stop for the rest of the night. We started our hike in the rain at about 7 in the morning. A lot of people will leave their full backpacks at the ranger station and borrow a day pack to use for the climb if they are going to return to Katahdin stream campground. Since we were meeting my father and step mother on the mountain and hiking down another trail we carried our full packs. This added a bit of a challenge on the "pull yourself up" sections. As we climbed that morning we were surprised to see the clouds beginning to move out and visibility improving. By 9 o'clock we were getting excellent views of our surroundings. Both of us were a little nervous on parts of the climb, and at times Robin was flat out terrified. In previous discussions with my father I had estimated that we would take about 3 hours to cover the 5 miles and 4000 ft of elevation gain. In reality it ended up taking us almost 5 hours to reach the summit. We both agreed that it was one of the most challenging climbs on the trail. When the summit sign came into view Robin began to sob uncontrollably as we both expected. I felt like something was wrong with me because I had a strange lack of emotion. I don't think the gravity of the moment had fully set in, and I still don't think that it has. While we were on our journey it was very difficult and stressful to think about anything past the day at hand. If you thought about mileage or time on the trail ahead of you it was very easy to get overwhelmed. I sort of feel like we are in that same mindset, and I haven't fully processed that we will not be returning to the trail in a couple of days. So far we have had absolutely no problem returning to society:) There is abundant food and water, and we no longer have to worry about the elements or shelter. Most importantly we don't have to walk if we don't want to. Anyway...... when we reached the summit the clouds were in and our so views were sporadic. We took 3 different sets of pictures with the sign, so we would be sure to have some keepers. In all we spent about an hour on top, and we consider ourselves lucky because the day before it was so cold and windy that hikers could do nothing but snap a photo and get off the mountain. We were able to have a celebratory Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in memory of Robin's father as well as a fine Black and Mild Cigar. We definitely spared no expense on this momentous occasion. We were also able to scatter some of Fred's (Robin's father) ashes that she had been carrying for the entire length of the trail. Right before she let him go the clouds broke all around the mountain and the sun began to shine. We knew that he was there with us as he had been for the whole trip. The whole day was pretty unreal and we both felt as if we were in a dream. Walking off the mountain I was still in disbelief that the hike was over. I still felt like we were just continuing on even though I knew we were going to get in the car and drive away at the base of the mountain. We didn't finish our hike until 6 that night and then drove to Sanford, ME about 3 hours south. The next morning we visited my grandmother and aunts and uncle who lived in town. It was very nice to see this side of the family again because it had been over 10 years since the last time. The next afternoon we continued our drive south to Boston where Dad and Kelly were flying out and Mom and Dave live. We spent the night watching videos that we had taken on the trail, and telling stories. We ate and drank and laughed a lot. I figured we had delayed typing the blog for long enough, so here it is. We really appreciate all of you that have been keeping up with our trip. I think we both agree that it has been the greatest journey and achievement of our lives. We both are amazed that we were able to complete the trip and have learned a lot about life. We are now confident that we can achieve any goal that we set for ourselves. Now it's time to begin looking for jobs and start our new life. The trail has taught us that everything usually works our for the best no matter how it seems at the time. We are very excited to see what will be in store for us. I guess that there won't be any more blogs until our next big adventure. Hmmmm...... PCT 2012? HaHa... only time will tell. I think we need a little break first. Once again we greatly appreciate all of your interest and support and we hope to be visiting a lot of you soon. Take care!

Hello from Monson, ME. We are currently resting at the well known Shaw's hostel which is the final stop for most north bound hikers. We got in yesterday and dodged some rain last night. Since we have set a date to summit Katahdin we are actually a little ahead of schedule. If we would have hiked out today we would have had 9 days to hike the relatively flat 110 or so final miles. Since we didn't want to carry the extra food and really had no other reason to leave we decided to stay again. Shaw's is one of the nicer hostels on the trail, so we are very comfortable. This morning we had their famous all you can eat breakfast for only $7. The way it works is you start off ordering 1,2,3, or 4. The number you say is the amount of hashbrowns, bacon, eggs, and sausage you get. After that you can have seconds if you wish. Being uncomfortably full also motivated us to stay today! It is raining again and looks like we will get a little more in our final week. I don't know why I even looked but the 10 day forecast is showing sunny with 0% chance of rain on summit day. We really hope that this is true! The going has gotten a lot easier and we have only had to climb a couple of significant mountains since the last update. We had a clear day over Moxy Bald where we unknowingly got our first glimpse of Katahdin. We thought that it was,  but weren't sure until another hiker told us later that day. As the crow flies Katahdin is only about half the distance of the trail mileage so we should be getting more good views as we continue to hike. We are still in a state of disbelief that we are so close to finishing our hike, but are anxious to see what will happen after the trail. We will update again after we hike the 100 mi wilderness and summit Katahdin. We have really appreciated all of you keeping track of our progress and encouraging us along the way, and hopefully it won't be long until we get to pay you all a visit. Until then take care.

No, not for our wedding, silly!  Hah, we have set a date to summit Katahdin...September 17th.  Moonshine's dad and step-mom, Greg and Kelly, have decided to come up and join us for our final summit, which we are very excited about!  It's been awhile since we updated, but things have been going well out here on the trail.  We're currently in Caratunk, ME at the Northern Outdoor Resort spending the day.  This is our next to last town stop, we've got 151 miles to go, and all the talk of the trail is about finishing.  The feeling that this journey is really almost over is beginning to sink in.  We are both definitely feeling physically worn out and tired of walking every day, but we are sad about the experience as a whole ending. 
Since we last updated, we have endured a variety of weather conditions.  We had some heavy rain after leaving Kathy and Dan's in South Paris, followed by some beautiful fall-like weather.  The skies were clear, it was breezy with daytime temps in the 60s and nighttime temps in the 40s.  It felt just like fall back down south!  Then came the heat wave, which we have been suffering through for almost a week...it has been in the 90s during the day and 70s at night with high humidity...definitely does not feel like we're in Maine!  The locals say they have usually had a frost by this time of year.  Last night it rained ALL night, i guess from whatever hurricane was breezing through.  We have found during this recent rain that our tent has lost it's waterproof ability, so we were fortunate to be in the shelter last night.  It was supposed to rain all day today, which is why we decided to stay in town, but it has turned out to be a beautiful day; the temps are also supposed to cool down. 
Maine has continued to be BEAUTIFUL, one of our favorite states as far as scenery goes.  The terrain has, up until a couple of days ago, continued to be very difficult.  The trails are not consistently maintained, which adds to the "wilderness" feeling.  There are knee deep mud bogs everywhere-Moonshine has gotten "bogged" once, the trail is extremely rocky, rooty, and eroded.  We have gone over a few beautiful mountains and mountain ranges, including Baldpate, the Saddleback range, and the Bigelow range, all with amazing above treeline views.  Fortunately, the weather was good over all of the major mountains, although with the heat, there has been a heavy haze in the air that severely limited our views in some places.  There are very plentiful ponds up here in Maine (ponds up here would be considered lakes down south...they are BIG, and we are still not quite sure why they are ponds and not lakes).  We have had many opportunities to swim, which we have been able and glad to take advantage of since it has been so hot!  There are also many river "fords" in Maine, although most of them are simply rock-hopping.  Perhas the most well known ford of the AT is the Kennebec River, where one thru-hiker has lost his life.  We crossed the Kennebec today, but a canoe ferry runs hikers across the river...after the heavy rains last night, we took the ferry.
Ahh, MOOSE!  We saw one together, and Moonshine has seen 2.  We were sitting by the campfire and heard something large walking around near our tent, Mooshine shined his headlamp on a moose towering over the tent, and it quickly made it's way into the woods before I could catch a glimpse of it.  Our second sighting wasn't much more exciting, we caught a glimpse of it early one morning in the woods while hiking.  I guess we scared it and it took off running-didn't know they could run that fast!  We would like to get a better sighting and be able to actually observe a moose for a few minutes, we will keep our fingers crossed but glad that we actually got to see one. We have seen more spruce grouse and a deer and tons and tons of toads.  Moonshine saw a pine martin, which is a carnivorous animal resembling a mink or other weasel-like animal.
We have had a couple of in-and-out town stops since we visited South Paris.  We stopped in Rangeley to resupply and EAT-we had been feeling super protein-deprived.  It was a nice tourist town, we packed out some hot dogs and wine and camped near the road with a couple of friends, Phantom and Blush,  that we have been hiking on and off with since the beginning.  Needless to say, a good time was had by all.  We also stopped in Stratton for a resupply. and a necesssary shower and washing of the stinky clothes.  As I mentioned, we are now in Caratunk, which happens to be home of the Kennebec River Brewing Company.  There are many hikers here reminiscing about the trip and chatting about the end of our journey, and lots of tourists here too (it's labor day weekend!).  Our last town stop of the trip will be Monson in about 3 days.  From there we will enter the "100 mile wilderness" and will be carrying a hefty load of food to last us for the last 115 miles of our trip.  We are definitely having mixed emotions about the end of our journey, but it is soon approaching!  We will attempt to update again in Monson, until then-everyone take care!  Much love!