FKT: Henry Horvath, Tim Horvath - Northville - Lake Placid Trail (NY) - 2021-03-15

FKT for the Unsupported Winter NPT Northbound:

-Unsupported

-Winter FKT

**We decided not to use a GPS because of weight and planned on using photo and the trip report for verification (the provided links are to the photos as the website would not accept them and the second link is to the photos relative to where they were taken on the trail)

*The fitbit statistics for each day are used primarily for reference and used to compare between one another with the accuracy of fitbit mileage calculations is in question

Initial Itinerary: 

• Planned on nine days (fuel, 60 oz., and food for nine days)
• Planned on an average of 15.3 miles per day aiming for lean-tos all days except for the first day which would require the use of our tent

Start Statistics:

• Weight of Tim’s pack (including water, 3 lbs, and snowshoes, 3.7 lbs, but not gear being worn): 40 lbs
• Weight of Henry’s pack (including water, 3 lbs, and snowshoes, 3.7 lbs, but not gear being worn): 38 lbs
• Tim’s weight: 188 lbs
• Henry’s weight: 130 lbs

Day by Day Breakdown and Analysis:

Day One (3/8/21) 

• Start time: 8:50 a.m (leaving from the northville parking lot) 
• Milestones: signed into the shaker mountain trail register at 10:00 a.m after hiking on the northville NPT road route, crossed the west stony creek (frozen over) at 12:15 p.m, at the West Stony Creek lean-to at 12:20 
• Perceived weather: coolish temp, sunny early on but clouded up in the afternoon, no precip, estimated 12-30 degrees
• Actual weather (archived from Latham NY): High 35, low 12, no precip
• Trail conditions: hard pact, no snowshoes, 85% of the trail was broken
• End time: 7:00 p.m
• Estimated time hiking: 9 hrs 
• Trail miles: 18.4
• End destination: Campsite at North Branch West Stony Creek
• Fitbit stats*: 2,950 feet elevation gain, 23.57 miles, 5,852 calories, 529 active minutes, 51,450 steps 

Day Two (3/9/21)

• Start time: 7:30 a.m (up at 6:15 a.m)
• Milestones: Crossing the bridge to whitehouse/whitehouse trail register at 4:20 p.m
• Perceived weather: 37 degrees, sunny, but cold night
• Actual weather (archived from Latham NY): High 49, low 29, no precip 
• Trail conditions: most of the trail conditions, softer crust requiring snowshoes most of the day
• End time: 5:30 p.m
• Estimated time hiking: 8 hrs, 30 mins
• Trail miles: 16.7 miles
• End destination: Hamilton Lake Stream lean-to
• Fitbit stats*: 1,890 feet elevation gain, 22.01 miles, 5,666 calories, 488 active minutes, 48,121 steps

Day Three (3/10/21

• Start time: 7:00 a.m (up at 6:00 a.m)
• Milestones: Phone call from Piseco at 9:30 a.m
• Perceived weather: sunny, 45 degrees
• Actual weather (from the Weather Channel): High 50, low 37, fair conditions, no precip
• Trail conditions: some trail broken, but the warm conditions required snowshoes for almost all of the day (except for Piseco road)
• End time: 4:40
• Estimated time hiking: 8 hrs, 30 mins
• Trail miles: 16.7 miles
• End destination: Spruce Lake #3 lean-to
• Fitbit stats*: 2,270 feet elevation gain, 22.32 miles, 5,890 calories, 502 active minutes, 48,712 steps
• Notes: saw moose tracks, the moose appeared to be postholing 

Day Four (3/11/21)

• Start time: 7:10 a.m (up at 6:00 a.m) 
• Milestones: crossing the footbridge between Mud lake and cat lake at 10:40 a.m, at the Cedar Lakes #1 lean-to at 1:05 p.m
• Perceived weather: 50 degrees, partly cloudy most of the day
• Actual weather (from the Weather Channel): High 54, low 35, mostly cloudy, no precip
• Trail conditions: the warm conditions caused mushy trail conditions, snowshoes all day and experienced a good amount of postholing, especially for the last five miles of the day, trail was barely broken, felt like bushwhacking in some sections
• End time: 5:15 p.m
• Estimated time hiking: 8 hrs, 30 mins
• Trail miles: 16.7 miles
• End destination: Carry Lean-to (the trail sign referred to it as “The Cedar River Flow Lean-to”)
• Fitbit stats*: 1,150 feet elevation gain, 21.95 miles, 5,703 calories, 486 active minutes, 47,910 steps

Day Five (3/12/21) 

• Start time: 7:10 a.m (up at 6:00 a.m)
• Milestones: Cedar River road trail register at 9:00 a.m, trail marker 0.6 miles from the Stephen’s Pond lean-to at 3:50 p.m
• Perceived weather: 40 degrees, sunny, cold front came in during the night, light snow and wind throughout the night with temp dropping to 10 degrees
• Actual weather (from the Weather Channel): High 41, low 12, sunny, no precip
• Trail conditions: trail was mostly not broken and was “mashed potato” like because of the warm conditions, extreme postholing (6-8 plus inches almost every step) for all of the day except for a two mile stretch on the road, snowshoes on all day, difficult eight mile stretch between wakely road and stephen’s pond took 5.5 hrs, switching who broke trail in 15 minute increments 
• End time: 4:10 p.m
• Estimated time hiking: 8 hrs
• Trail miles: 13.5 miles
• End destination: To the Stephen’s Pond lean-to 
• Fitbit stats*: 1,160 feet elevation gain, 20.41 miles, 5,480 calories, 464 active minutes, 44,547 steps
• Notes: saw a bald eagle 

Day Six (3/13/21)

• Start time: 7:50 a.m (up at 6:10 a.m)
• Milestones: lake durant trail register at 9:00 a.m, the final footbridge before blue mountain at 1:30 p.m, section on the road after crossing route 28N at 4:45 p.m
• Perceived weather: very sunny, high to mid 20s, windy up towards the shoulder of blue mountain, very windy around long lake, at night especially windy around the lake with windchill going below zero
• Actual weather (from the Weather Channel): High 28, low 18, partly cloudy, no precip
• Trail conditions: ranging from very packed trails to unbroken trails that required the use of snowshoes, used snowshoes 50% of the day and just boots for 50% of the day, overall very fast conditions
• End time: 5:45 p.m
• Estimated time hiking: 9 hrs
• Trail miles: 21 miles
• End destination: Hidden cove lean-to
• Fitbit stats*: 2,560 feet elevation gain, 24.58 miles, 6,235 calories, 556 active minutes, 53,690 steps

Day Seven (3/14/21)

• Start time: 8:10 a.m (up at 7:00 a.m) because of daylight savings
• Milestones: crossed the first bridge between Long Lake and Cold River lean-to #3 at 12:35 p.m, and the second at 12:45 p.m, at the Cold River lean-to #3 at 1:00 p.m
• Perceived weather: cold, windy day with a light snow storm for half of the day, laying down about half an inch to an inch of snow 
• Actual weather (from the Weather Channel): High 27, low 3, mostly cloudy and windy, light snow 
• Trail conditions: semi-broken trail with half an inch of powder on hard packed snow, snowshoes for 60% of the day and just boots for 40% of the day
• End time: 4:15 p.m
• Estimated time hiking: 7hrs 15mins 
• Trail miles: 16.4 miles
• End destination: Ouluska lean-to
• Fitbit stats*: 1,650 feet elevation gain, 19.95 miles, 5,437 calories, 417 active minutes, 43,540 steps
• Notes: the stove stopped working and was taken apart and reassembled by Tim which resolved the problem, Henry’s headlamp was at ⅔ power whereas Tim’s was at ⅓ power, saw a fisher run across Long Lake

Day Eight (3/15/21)

• Start time: 8:15 a.m
• Milestones: lake placid trail register at 5:15 p.m
• Perceived weather: very frigid and cold in the morning, slowly warming up but still not getting above 20 degrees
• Actual weather (from the Weather Channel): High 23, low 8, fair conditions,  no precip
• Trail conditions: Hard pact snow conditions making for relatively fast travel but still requiring snowshoes for the majority of the day, difficult to follow in spots, the trail became more packed and broken the closer we got to Lake Placid
• End time: 5:50 p.m
• Estimated time hiking: 9 hrs
• Trail miles: 19.4 miles
• End destination: historic lake placid train station (Lake Placid, NY 12946)
• Fitbit stats*: 2,580 feet elevation gain, 22.93 miles, 5,843 calories, 526 active minutes, 50,043 steps 
• Notes: the last ½ mile to the train station isn’t counted on the official NPT map but was still necessary, we touched the train station at 5:50 p.m

Actual Itinerary: 

• 7 days, nine hours (essentially seven nights and eights days)
• Averaging 17.25 miles a day

End Statistic:

• Weight of Tim’s pack (including water and snowshoes but not gear being worn): 21 lbs 12 ounces
• Base weight of Tim’s pack (without water, snowshoes, gear being worn, food, and garbage, and with the fuel bottle without fuel): 12 lbs 8 ounces
• Weight of Henry’s pack (including water and snowshoes but not gear being worn): 24 lbs 13 ounces
• Base weight of Henry’s pack (without water, snowshoes, gear being worn, food, and garbage, and with the fuel bottle without fuel): 15 lbs
• Tim’s weight: 182 lbs
• Henry’s weight: 130 lbs

Notes:

• Phone battery is best conserved using very low setting especially airplane mode and being powered on and off periodically throughout the day, cellular takes a lot of power very quickly
• Extra battery for phone charging was useful and used to recharge Tim’s phone once
• Needed the fast charging cables for best charging (had a charging cable that took longer to charge with)
• Just enough fuel for eight days, not nine (seven ounces per day for two people is accurate), 60 oz. worked
• Screws in the bottom of boots would be helpful
• Sunscreen, or at least vaseline (SPF 15)
• Ten compeed blister strips were just enough