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Post by knaight on Jun 24, 2010 9:24:38 GMT -5
I've searched but never found an FKT for the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, so I'm going to try and set the first. I'll be starting at 4 AM on Saturday, June 26, 2010 and am aiming to finish before 2 PM on Monday, June 28, 2010. The hike will be unsupported, save a necessary boat ride across the CT river. At this time of year, there is a huge amount of boat traffic where the trail crosses the river. Since the current is also swift and I'll have also hiked 25 miles at this point, it seems unsafe to swim the near 1/4 mile across. My plan is to barter a ride across from someone putting in a boat at the boat ramp where the trail ends. This way it'll be an unplanned form of "support". I'd like to propose that this hike and all future attempts be considered unsupported despite a boat ride across, simply due to the safety concerns. I set up a twitter account where I plan to send a few status updates if anyone's interested. twitter.com/MM_ChallengeThanks! -Nate Davis
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Post by Peter Bakwin on Jul 13, 2010 22:58:38 GMT -5
As indicated on his twitter page, Nate had to quit after 32 miles due to injury. The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail (M&M Trail) is a 114-mile (183 km) hiking trail that traverses the Metacomet Ridge of the Pioneer Valley region of Massachusetts and the central uplands of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Here are some links for more info: amcberkshire.org/mm-trailen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacomet-Monadnock_TrailThe FKT is currently unknown.
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Post by Mini Mart on Sept 1, 2013 17:09:46 GMT -5
How about the Westfield River crossing? Does one road walk or rubber raft across as one hker did in 2005?
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Post by Nate Davis on May 18, 2014 11:24:19 GMT -5
This is a few years after my (failed) attempt, but --
I timed this attempt so I'd be able to walk across the Westfield River. It was pretty tame and only up to my mid-thigh at the worst point. Just had to watch my footing.
I bartered my way across the CT river by giving someone a few bucks to give me a ride on their boat. However, I lost a good 20 minutes looking for the trail on the other side. I finally gave up and bushwhacked it to Route 47.
The CT river is honestly the toughest part of working out a FKT for this trail. It's pretty reasonable to just get a ride around it, because you'd be tacking on a number of extra miles to run to the nearest bridge, and then back to where the trail picks up on the other side. But do you stop your watch at that point? Because if you keep it running, that's going to bring the driving into the game, which I doubt is something anyone wants.
I'd like to try this again at some point (although I now have two little kids, so it may be a few years). If I do, I will probably swim the CT River and repeat the bushwhack (unless they've fixed the trail). Swimming would be a little risky with heavy boat traffic and different currents, so I think it'd be reasonable to have someone take a boat along next to you during your attempt, just for safety's sake. It would still be unsupported, technically, since they wouldn't be offering any assistance aside from being a visual cue that other boats will avoid.
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Post by Peter Bakwin on May 19, 2014 8:28:45 GMT -5
I don't think stopping your time for the shuttle around the river is supportable. It becomes a very fuzzy area - a person could stop the time for a significant period and rest up. Getting across or around the river is part of the game on this route, and is a challenge faced by all those who wish to do the complete trail.
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Post by clemenciacaporale on Dec 8, 2015 16:00:52 GMT -5
A Self-Supported Hike of the M & M will be attempted this December, 2015! Details to come in the next 24 hours!
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Post by clemenciacaporale on Dec 8, 2015 21:49:17 GMT -5
We (Eric Nazar & Clemencia Caporale) will be attempting a self-supported hike of the Metacomet- Monadnock Trail (M&M); starting at the CT/MA border and finishing on Wednesday Dec 16, 2015 on Mt. Monadnock, NH. We will be crossing the CT River by human power in a pack raft that will be carried the entire distance of the trail. We will be following the self-supported guidelines adopted from Matt Kirk (http://sub60.wikispaces.com/About). Clemencia Caporale will be posing to facebook (Skyisthelimit) and twitter (LimitSkyisthe). Feel free to hear about our journey and follow us as we start and end out journey.
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Post by pizzabeans on Dec 17, 2015 6:23:54 GMT -5
We finished our self-supported M&M thruhike yesterday at 11:48 AM on top of Mt. Monadnock in NH. It was a beautiful day to complete our journey. Saw about a dozen folks on the summit including Jenifer from Antioch College, one of three summit stewards. Not bad for a Wednesday in December! We started at Rising Corner in Agawam at 1:59 AM, although we first traveled south on the trail for a 100 or so yards to the MA/CT state line and neglected to restart the GPS or watch there. In any case, we did the M&M from the MA/CT state line to Monadnock (with all the new re-routes, even the ones that, ahem, Shutesbury, ahem, are not yet blazed) in less than 5 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes. Here is a link to our planning documents on Google Sheets, including section plan, food plan and gear list (click the tabs). Comments are enabled. Please share your feedback. We will be adding post-trip comments this evening. I learned a lot more about my gear this trip. And food planning too. We dropped 5 food and water caches. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WxyO5x8gsmf4NoEenMBBPWYGesOM0gXDaRoecyaojiE/edit?usp=sharingPhotos coming soon once I figure out how to share those. Is there a photo-sharing site you recommend? GPS day-by-day tracks are linked below. The last ~mile is missing from Monadnock because I accidentally stopped the tracker when I was trying to waypoint. We strongly suspect that some of the days, especially day 1, are way off on the mileage, since they do not match up with the mileage listed in the old guidebook (on sections with no or few reroutes) or section guides on the NET site or M&M site. However, other days seemed spot on. Any thoughts as to why the GPS would mis-calculate mileage more on some days than others? Anyhow, we think the mileage figures are 10-30% high for some of the days, and the elevation data seems off on some days (Day 6 Mt. Grace). Any help interpreting or parsing this data would be much appreciated. I'm going to try to put the tracks on Caltopo and share that too. Day 1 Rising Corner, Agawam to East Mountain, West Springfield: trails.io/s/nvvwh6Day 2 East Mountain to Mt. Skinner, Hadley (MHCOC Cabin): trails.io/s/k0bbdzDay 3 Mt. Skinner to Mt. Lincoln, Pelham: trails.io/s/wxykgbDay 4 Mt. Lincoln to Lake Wyola, Shutesbury: trails.io/s/7gfc31Day 5 Lake Wyola to Stratton Mtn., Northfield (RZ Cabin): trails.io/s/z5xm7zDay 6 Stratton Mtn. to Little Monadnock, Troy NH: trails.io/s/ymmahgDay 7 Little Monadnock to Monadnock (track ends ~mile from summit): trails.io/s/owkqfwEnjoy! Feedback and questions are much appreciated. Miles to go, - Pizza
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Post by pizzabeans on Dec 17, 2015 7:38:43 GMT -5
Here is the whole GPS track put together on CalTopo with rest areas, water for the first 3 days (after that it was so plentiful we stopped recording it) and shelters. It looks like on this map it did keep recording til the top of Monadnock, but started late on the last day, so I added a correction (~1k) from our rest area to where the GPS picked up on Little Monadnock. caltopo.com/m/ALK0- Pizza
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