Adirondack 46 High Peaks (NY)

[Peter Bakwin]

Jan Wellford set the record June 24-27, 2008, 3d17h14m.

The High Peaks is the name for the 46 highest summits in the Adirondacks of New York. Most are over 4,000 feet. Wikipedia has a nice description.

Climbing all 46 peaks over some time period has been a thing to do for decades. The ADK46-R Club has recorded thousands of people who have completed them all.

"Cave Dog" Ted Keizer set the speed record for climbing all 46 peaks June 24-27, 2002, 3d18h14m.

The record stood for 6 years, until it was broken by exactly 1 hour during June 24-27, 2008, by Jan Wellford, 3d17h14m. Jan's detailed splits for the trip are here. In an interview, Jan makes some interesting comments about the issue of style in the ADK46. In particular, Jan started his timing at the first trail head, rather than as the base of the first mountain as Cave Dog had done (adding roughly an hour to the time), and he originally intended to avoid private land and access roads, though ended up using some private access.

Because I was behind schedule so early on day 2 I was forced to hike some extra miles in order to make the route work. For example, it is easy to bushwhack from Dial to the Dix trail, but I wasn’t on Dial until after 9 pm, so the bushwhack would have been in the dark and the Dix Range would have been very difficult because of the late hour. I hiked about 153 miles—I initially thought I could do the entire route without private land in as little as 145 if I did it properly. -- Jan Wellford

As is always the case in mountaineering, "rules" and "style" are key questions for each climber.

Jan Wellford & Cory Delavalle have the FKT for an unsupported thru-hike of the 46 peaks, 7d14h15m starting September 7, 2009. Their route came to 196 miles with about 65,000 feet of elevation gain. The pair carried all their supplies and food, taking only water from natural sources. Delavalle's (very detailed!) report indicates that the 46 peaks had been done as a thru-hike with some resupply drops in 10+d in 2002 by Ed Bunk and Jim Kobak.


Jan Wellford, photo from adktrailrun.blogspot.com

[longranger]

I have rumblings that there will be a duathlon attempt of this, this year. Riding to the THs, then hiking. I'll forward more information when it comes to light.

[hikebikevt]

I (Jeff Mullen of Richmond, VT) recently made the first go of a self-supported (no outside help, no food caches, etc.) tour of the ADK 46ers (traveling to trailheads by bicycle) that started/finished at the same point (the Olympic Torch in Lake Placid). This was completed in 13 days, 11 hours and 45 minutes.

My hope is that this a challenge that others would like take on and was modeled after what longranger (Justin Simoni) did in Colorado last summer with that states 58 14,000' peaks. He started/finished in Golden, CO and finished his "Tour 14er" in 34 days.

Proposed rules are modeled after the rules used in the bikepacking world which require that no outside support be received (from friends, family or strangers) but commercial establishments (stores, restaurants, campgrounds, hotels, etc.) can be utilized when/where available if desired. Ideally this is a solo attempt (to minimize moral support, the temptation to draft, share food, equipment, etc.) and ideally most of the major trailheads (ADK Loj, the Garden, Ausable Club, Elk Lake, Tahawus, Corey's) are visited by bicycle. Though it is recognized that there are many different ways to skin this cat. Some requiring more biking and some require less biking (longer hikes in the backcountry to link more peaks at a time could mean that certain trailheads could be skipped).

Following is a recap of my 14 days -

Day 1 - (started at 5:45 AM on 7/21/2015) biked from Olympic Torch to Wilmington and hiked Whiteface (1) and Esther (2); biked to ADK Loj and hiked Street (3) and Nye (4) - camped at ADK Loj
Day 2 - started backpacking from ADK Loj; hiked Phelps (5), Tabletop (6), Redfield (7) and Cliff (8); camped at uphill lean-to
Day 3 - hiked Gray (9), Marcy (10), Skylight (11) and Colden (12); camped at Lake Colden
Day 4 - hiked Marshall (13), Iroquois (14), Algonquin (15) and Wright (16); camped at South Meadow just north of ADK Loj
Day 5 - biked to Cascade Lakes and hiked Cascade (17) and Porter (18); biked to Keene Valley (resupplied) and then to The Garden trailhead and backpacked 3 miles to John Brooks Lodge area; camped at campsite just south of JBL
Day 6 - hiked Haystack (19), Basin (20), Saddleback (21), Gothics (22), Armstrong (23), Upper Wolfjaw (24) and Lower Wolfjaw (25); camped at same campsite south of JBL
Day 7 - hiked Big Slide (26) and backpacked back to the trail head and biked back to Keene Valley where I resupplied, took care of a bike issue and refueled/rested; camped outside the Hostel
Day 8 - biked to St. Hubert and hiked Dial (27), Nippletop (28), Colvin (29), Blake (30) and Sawteeth (31); biked back to the Hostel where I camped again
Day 9 - biked to past St. Hubert and hiked Giant (32) and Rocky Ridge (33); biked to North Hudson; camped at private campground a few miles in on Blue Ridge road
Day 10 - biked to Elk Lake and hiked Macomb (34), South Dix (35), East Dix (36), Hough (37) and Dix (38); biked back to the same campground on Blue Ridge road
Day 11 - biked to Tahawus and hiked Allen (39); camped at trailhead parking lot
Day 12 - hiked Santanoni (40), Couchacagra (41) and Panther (42); biked to Newcomb where I camped at a private campground
Day 13 - biked to Corey's
Day 14 - hiked Seymour (43), Seward (44), Donaldson (45) and Emmons (46); biked back to Olympic Torch (arriving @ 5:30 PM on 8/3/2015)

Arranging the peaks in an optimum way is key and there are likely many different ways that this could be done.

[jwellford]

Josh Arthur is going for the supported 46 record starting tomorrow morning, October 5th. I'll be with him for some of day 1 and will edit or post again with more info on his attempt later in the week.

Day 1: Josh did Allen, Santanoni, Panther, Couchsachraga, Seymour, Seward, Donaldson and Emmons in an 18+ hour day. Right on track.

Day 2: Josh did Wright, Algonquin, Iroquois and Marshall, Colden, Cliff, Redfield, Gray, Skylight, Marcy, Table Top and Phelps. By the last two peaks a lower-leg injury from early on day 1 had caused multiple problems with his gait and slowed him down. He dropped before starting on day 3, as the slowdown had him behind schedule and he didn't want to risk further injury.