Devil's Path, NY

[Peter Bakwin]

Ben Nephew reclaimed the FKT, 4h53m45s, November 22, 2015.
Josh Burns had the FKT, 5h7m34s, June 6, 2014
Ben Nephew had the previous FKT, 5h35m32s, August 15, 2010.

The Devil's Path is a hiking trail in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Though only 24.2 miles long, the trail boasts 8,000-9,000 vertical feet of climbing, and is considered by many to be the toughest hiking trail in the Eastern US. Wikipedia and www.catskillguide.com have detailed descriptions of the trail.

Tyler Merriam ("ADK88") ran the Devil's Path in 7h25m on May 26, 2010, beating the previous FKT of 8h12m set in 2007. Merriam started with another runner named Eric, but Eric had stomach problems and had to stop early in the run. Merriam ran west-to-east. His full report is here.

Once past the highway I hit “the wall” hiking up Plateau. I seriously doubted that I would finish the hike in any sort of good time, and was ready to just hike the rest of the trail at a meandering pace. I tried to push through, though, and eventually made it to the summit (wherever that summit may be). From then on, I felt pretty darn good, and kept up a running pace on the flats and downhills, and a brisk hiking pace on the uphills. And man, were those uphills a beast! That is not an easy trail to run, my friends, as I’m sure many of you know! -- Tyler Merriam

Ben Nephew ran the Devil's Path in a then-FKT of 5h35m32s on August 15, 2010. He said: "I ran about 3:02 to route 214, took a 2-3 minute break to fill my bottles, and then ran the second half in about 2:30. I managed to finish without killing the battery on my Garmin, so I have a full file of the run. The coverage was pretty good, but I did lose the connection at times. My totals were 22.4 miles, which appears to be short, and almost 12,000' of climbing, which is definitely off! It was plenty hilly, though!" Nephew's full report is here, along with a link to his GPS track. Josh Burns beat Nephew's time by nearly 30 minutes on June 6, 2014, 5h7m34s, as reported below. Nephew reports below reclaiming the FKT with the first sub-5 hour run, on November 22, 2015, 4h53m45s.

Ben Nephew

FKT Progression Unknown, 8h12m, 2007 Tyler Merriam, 7h25m, 5/26/2010 Ben Nephew, 5h35m32s, 8/15/2010 Josh Burns, 5h7m34s, 6/4/2014 Ben Nephew, 4h53m45s, 11/22/2015 . . . . . .

[Matt]

Wow! I've hiked the DP dozens of times over the years (I grew up a few miles from the eastern trailhead) and only once managed to complete the entire trail in a day.

Ben's accomplishment here cannot be understated - an amazing feat that will stand as a challenge to others for years to come.

[Zsolt]

Anyone knows what is the roundtrip record on the Devil's Path?

[joshburns]

On Friday June 6, 2014, starting a 8:52 AM I completed the Devil's Path from Platte Clove to Spruceton Road in 5 hours 7 minutes and 34 seconds. I added the link to my GPS track below.

www.movescount.com/moves/move33176474

[philmaynard]

That is excellent. The GPS link is broken now... do you have the data somewhere else? I'd like to see how it compares to my (much slower) splits.

[enzebel]

re: roundtrips....I soloed the Devil's Path last spring and biked shuttle; the full loop took ~11 hours.

[pat-h]

Yeah, if anyone has any info on round-trip records, I'd like to know as well !

[bennephew]

Since that first link is no longer active, I'll include the gps track for the sake of comparison.


connect.garmin.com/activity/45892817


I'll also include a recent attempt where I missed the view on Indian Head, so I decided to go back when I was on the top of Twin. That cost me 48 minutes, and considering that detour, I was happy with my 5:45. The views are spectacular in the fall, but maybe I should have skipped the trip back to Indian Head...

connect.garmin.com/activity/610550165

[bennephew]

I lowered the FKT to 4:53:45 on 11/22/15.

www.strava.com/activities/437533981/overview

connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/964047559

mountainpeakfitness.com/blog/2015-devils-path-fkt-ben-nephew

[harry]

Congrats. I had the pleasure of seeing you fly down Hunter yesterday. To me it appeared you were a fine line from tripping and losing everything on the loose leaf covered shale but to a trail runner like yourself it might be a different story. Still, I can't imagine those were ideal conditions with the ice, especially on the west side of sugarloaf. You are a BA.

[bennephew]

Thanks, Harry! You are right, I was on a fine line, with a number of close calls and a couple of trips over the line. I was wearing metal spiked orienteering shoes, which probably prevented another dozen or so falls. They go through the leaves to bite into the rock, and bite into the ice as well.

[kenposner]

A couple of folks asked about times for a round-trip.  I'm not going to suggest this is a record, since it's hard to believe someone hasn't done it much faster, but I did complete the Devil's Path Double in just under 24 hours on Saturday August 6, 2016, 10 hours on the way out and 14 on the way back.  I hadn't done any Catskills trail running in several months, and even when in shape I'm middle-of-the-pack, so I'd expect someone fast could do the double in 12-14 hours.  The climbing did get exponentially tougher for me on the way back, with Plateau #2 being quite difficult on the way up and down.  And something very strange happened:  my normally reliable Suunto Ambit 3R recorded 24 miles on the way out, but 32 miles on the way back....  perhaps the forces of darkness were toying with me.  It certainly felt that way.  Blog post:  thelongbrownpath.com/2016/08/15/devils-path-double/

[treefrog]

is there any women's noted times anywhere that anyone is aware of? in either direction or RT?? thanks!

[Cat Skill]

Scott Gregor, Jay Lemos and I (Mike Siudy) completed the devils path double (out and back) on 4/29/17 in 18:15. We started at Spruceton Road around 10:30 pm Friday night, reached the Prediger Road PA around 7:10 am (which includes a 1.5mi/25min detour out to SW Hunter just for fun). We spent 35 min at Prediger eating, reorganizing ourselves, and waiting for a group of friends to arrive that were doing the DP. Around 7:45 we left and arrived back at Spruceton around 4:45 pm. Our stats were around 50 miles, 17,500 ft of climbing, and 11 peaks. The weather was relatively cooperative but a little warm and humid for spring. The trails were quite wet and muddy with just a few small patches of ice remaining from winter.

connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1705311822

[kenposner]

Nice job Scott, Jay and Mike!