FKT: Mike Robinson - Carter Moriah Range Traverse (NH) - 2014-08-25

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Standard route
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Male
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Total time
5h 40m 0s
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A little over a month ago I did the Carter Moriah Traverse from North to South.  I finished in over 9 hours.  I started the day with no sleep and intended on bringing my bike to ride up rt 16 to the Carter Moriah Trail head in Gorham.  When I parked at Glen Ellis Falls I realized I had left my front Tire in my driveway.  So, I attempted to hitch but did not get picked up until Dolly Cop.  Then I fell between Moriah and North Carter lightly bruising my ribs and hip.  I went on, got trashed, and was faced with great temptation as I passed the running Tram after the summit of Wildcat D, I did not take it and endured the final, brutal descent.  Once at the bottom I was elated to be finished.

I went home wondering why I hadn't started at Wildcat.  I was also curious to know if there where any documented FKT's for this Range.
This is all I could find:

1) runsuerun.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html
This was Sue Johnsons' 5 day attempt/success on all 48 4kers, the time was 8 hours 40 minutes, South to North in wet and muddy conditions.

2)  In one of Alex Mcphalls' blogs he suggest that the Carter Moriah Range can be done in 8-9 hours inclueding a bike ride, from the Moriah Trail head to Glen Ellis Falls Parking lot it is 11.4 miles of mostly down hill along rt 16, I figure an average biker could easily do this at 10mph which would take them a little over an hour of biking making the estimated time of 8 to 9 hours, subtracted by 1 hour of downhill biking still in excess 7 to 8 hours to hike the Range.

3)  www.thedogteam.com/Whites-Web_Pages/Whites_48/Whites-index-frame.html
This is the current report of Ted Keizers' new record on doing all 48 4kers, his time on the Carter Moriah Range was also over 8 hours.

I followed the same trail as both #1 and #3, 
I started my GPS at the Wildcat Trail head after crossing the water as I felt that the crossing could really effect the time depending on the height of the water.
I took Carter Dome Trail to Zeta pass and did not Summit Mt Height, this is also how Ted Keizer and Sue Johnson did their Traverse of the Carter Moriah Range.

My time was 5 hours 40 minutes as verified by GPS

connect.garmin.com/activity/573834617

* On Strava there are a few other attempts of the same Traverse, the next fastest total time for a single range attempt is 6 hours 23 minutes run by Lars Blackmore:
www.strava.com/activities/184960799/segments/4331077747
(I originally thought his time was 7 hours plus based on the Strava page but I contacted him via email and his actual time was the 6 hour 23 minutes above)    

He starts at rt 16 and thus ran an additional .4 miles on relatively flat trail to start.