Mount Marcy ascent FKT, 8/19/2026
I had been thinking about trying this one for a while, and the timing lined up well for this day. It was a weekday, so I was hoping it wouldn't be too crowded.
It was nice and cool, in the low 50s at the start (around 7 am). It wasn't too muddy until getting up high; there were some pretty big mud pits and slippery log pathways the last 1 or 1.5 miles. That probably didn't take too much time out of the effort, though. I found the least ideal part, in terms of conditions, to be how washed out some of the sections of steep trail higher up were. It made moving fast feel very inefficient. Not sure if the trail is always like that (no solid ground/dirt, but big rocks up high and little rocks/big bits of gravel below) or if that was from recent storms this summer.
I went with my tried-and-true method (for every distance under 50k haha): go out super hard, blow up, and hold on! I made up a lot of time up to the dam, and then was just about on pace with the previous FKT, but lost some time on the last push up Marcy Dome. (legs were gone). But still managed to hold on to some of the time I banked.
All in all, I'm very happy with the effort and, in my current fitness, don't think I could have gone significantly faster. Maybe could have cut another 10-20 seconds off if I was more familiar with the route and didn't hesitate at a couple of intersections.