Fastpacking On the High Peaks

print email

Erik Schlimmer tells the story of how he learned to fastpack the Adirondacks, a grueling 110 miles and 19,000 vertical feet of climbing, in five days with only 11 pounds on his back.

In September 1994 I participated in a Wilderness Education Association leadership course, a 30-day trip through the Adirondack High Peaks. Designed to mold average citizenry into hardened outdoor leaders, the WEA's credo concerning packing lists was: "It is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it."

When I laced up my boots on day one of that trip, all the things I "needed" totaled a base load of approximately 40 pounds. When three quarts of water and 10 days worth of food topped off my 5,500-cubic-inch pack, I carried 98 pounds of gear and rations.

Due to my pack's ridiculous dimensions and weight—standing more than three feet tall and pushing scales nearly into the triple digits—my campmates dubbed it "The Patriot." But, despite its unwieldy size, none of my colleagues could argue that toting a 98-pound pack made me look like I was on my way up Mount Everest. Wearing a pack that was bigger than life itself was just plain cool. Or was it?

In the 1990s there were only a few lightweight backpackers roaming the forests. One of them was a gentleman named Ray Jardine. Formerly a rocket scientist, Jardine retired and went "the Ray Way." Going fast and light, comfortable and progressive, he turned the traditional packing list on its head: "If I need it and I don't have it, then I don't need it."

Though a handful of Northeast hikers have gone the Ray Way or found their own enlightening change over the past decade, overall we are still the tortoises of the hiking world. While it seems everyone out West is cooking on homemade alcohol stoves and sleeping under one-pound tarps, we're cooking on stoves that put out enough BTUs to bend iron beams and hunkering in tents designed to survive a year pitched on K2. It may be high time we all take a lesson from our brothers and sisters out West. for in this fastpacking fairy tale the hare always wins.

High Peaks Traverse, Take Two

There I stood in a trailhead parking lot in September 2007 13 years after my Wilderness Education Association adventure. The Elk Lake trailhead located at the end of a five-mile-long dead end dirt road marked the start point of my Adirondack fastpacking trip. It was a lonely morning. The trailhead was empty. The sky was azure from horizon-to-horizon while nearby leaves painted with pale reds hinted of an approaching fall.

Over the past decade I had learned a lot about going light. Not from Jardine but from hiking and bringing less equipment each time. Through trial and error I eventually trimmed my gear list to what it is today: 11.0 pounds of equipment, dropping to 8.9 when the bear-resistant food canister is not needed.

My plan was to hike an enormous figure eight-shaped circuit around the 192,000-acre High Peaks Wilderness Area, the largest wilderness in the East. It was a formidable challenge: 110 miles and 19,000 vertical feet of climbing. But it was also an enticing route, including the highest peak and rock face in the state, a section of the Northville Placid Trail, 12 bodies of water, a slide climb and hikes of two 4,000-foot summits. If I was successful in my High Peaks hike I'd reenter the trailhead five days later. 

After lacing up my sneakers, donning my streamlined pack and grabbing my trekking poles I headed west. Soon enough I started a 2,400-vertical-foot grind up Elk Lake-Marcy Trail to the shoulder of Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York. But what goes up must come down. After reaching a height of land on the shoulder of this massive peak, I descended, cruising past Lake Colden and Flowed Lands, later following Calamity Brook Trail to the southern mouth of Indian Pass.

By this point I had covered more than 20 miles and my destination, Duck Hole, still stood five miles away. At that point, I carried the most food  I would on the entire trip, which slowed me down hour after hour. But good things come to those who hike fast: just as I started to climb towards Duck Hole a brand new lean-to not shown on my map greeted me 22 miles from my start point. Though I like to hike until dusk, this spot was too good to pass up at 5 p.m.

Fastpacking lesson #1: Think big and go big

In the early 90s it would have taken me two days to hike Mount Marcy. Now I was past this peak by lunchtime. As the writer Arthur Clarke said, "The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."

With a handful of miles behind me by 8 a.m. day two seemed perfect. Hardwoods and evergreens again framed a blue sky. In the 45-degree air I worked my way past Preston Ponds to Duck Hole, a small body of water nestled among silent forests. The area only got better when I turned onto the Northville-Placid Trail, New York's first long-distance path, and headed south along the Cold River, following it downstream. By the end of day two I again covered 22 miles, this time in a very remote region—I saw only two people during 10 hours of hiking.