Two weeks later, Bryson is back home in Hanover, where Katz rejoins him, and they prepare to hike the final leg of the AT in Maine. During his time away, Katz has developed the notion that they should pare down what they carry and, instead of using their heavy packs, carry what they need in newspaper delivery bags. Bryson talks him out of this idea but agrees to significantly decrease what they carry. As they set out for their 10-day trek, Bryson explains that Maine’s portion of the AT is deceptive because of the state’s small size. In the state’s 283 miles of the AT, northbound hikers face 100,000 feet of climbing, which includes 99.7 miles of its famous Hundred Mile Wilderness, “the remotest section of the entire AT” (341-42). Bryson’s wife drops them 30 miles shy of Monson, the starting point of the Hundred Mile Wilderness. Immediately, it’s evident that Katz has fallen out of hiking shape—and just as he did when they began hiking months earlier—he angrily throws away many of their supplies to lighten his load.

During their first night of camping, they spot a moose nearby, and Katz later admits that he forgot how difficult hiking is. When they’re forced to ford a lagoon and both fall in, Bryson acknowledges that the Maine portion is clearly the hardest part of the AT. After three days, they finally arrive in the town of Monson and find Shaw’s, the most famous guesthouse along the AT, where they each get a room and a homemade dinner. Afterward, as they stock up on food and supplies at the local store, Katz suggests that they get some beer and asks to borrow money to purchase it. Suddenly, Bryson recalls that Katz previously borrowed $5 to begin drinking when they arrived in town. He finds this appalling, apparently because Katz has alcoholism but stopped drinking a couple of years earlier.

Because of Bryson’s unwillingness to allow Katz to drink a few beers before departing, the two have a major falling-out, and the mood between them is tense as they start hiking the Hundred Mile Wilderness. Just as others had warned them about, the trail becomes extremely difficult: They face a series of steep rock walls that they must scale in extreme heat. Their hike is just as difficult the following day, and because of the heat they constantly run out of water. At one resting point, they share the last of their water and finally discuss the tension between them. Both apologize, and Katz explains that when he returned home to work for the summer, he began drinking in small amounts because of loneliness in his life.

After their talk, Bryson tells Katz that he’ll hike ahead on a side trail to get stream water for them and filter it so that Katz can rest there a bit longer. Roughly 40 minutes later, Bryson returns to the trail with water but can’t find Katz. Bryson looks for him for hours, but still finds no sign of him. Ultimately, he decides to leave a note for him and hike ahead to the next shelter. Bryson points out that, ironically, this campsite—“the one place [he] camped without Katz” (376-77)—was the nicest he experienced anywhere on the AT, but he sleeps fitfully. He begins searching again the next morning and finds an empty cigarette pack that Katz purposely left as a marker, eventually finding him an hour later. After the harrowing experience of becoming separated, they both agree that it’s time to go home. They find an old logging road and flag down a truck; the driver gladly gives them a ride out of the wilderness.

Bryson and Katz ride in the back of the truck to the community of Milo 20 miles away. The tiny town has no motel, but they find a place called Bishop’s Boarding House, where the proprietor welcomes them “as if she had been expecting [them] for days, possibly years” (387). When they lament that they didn’t make it to Katahdin, the lady tells them that it’ll still be there “‘when you’re ready for it’” (388). They both return home, Katz to his construction job in Iowa and Bryson to his family in New Hampshire. The two speak by phone a few times after their adventure but make no further plans to finish the trail. Months later, Bryson takes out his trail log and begins to calculate how close he came to hiking the AT in full and finds that he did 870 miles, which is only 39.5% of the full trail. Bryson admits that he regrets not finishing but still treasures having “discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists” (393).