Warm humid day for late October, with a few days of wetness. Knew the trails would have tons of wet leaves (they did) but felt motivated to go today and I've been wanting to do this for a while. I wouldn't even attempt this on a weekend with the crazy crowds.
I know these trails pretty well as they are my home training ground, but I usually avoid Casino in Beacon and I've never gone DOWN the Breakneck climb before. I was shooting for a 3 hour or so time, I had my best climb up Breakneck and was on track when I hit Beacon base at 1:32. I bonked hard though as I underestimated the humidity and only brought minimal water with me, and there are no natural resources along this route. It was a bit of a death march back to Breakneck made more complicated by impeding darkness and thick wet leaves. I lost a few minutes at the summit too losing the white trail to go down - there are multiple false trails to lookout points, and the markers are really set up for an ascent. It was really really dark after I passed the flagpole, and I spent some time advising hikers who were coming up that maybe that wasn't the best idea.
There's a good amount of time to make up here, and I'm just not a great technical descender. I'm not sure if it's legit to run it in reverse, but that would a better flow to the route. The clouds were so beautiful tonight, I wish I had lingered longer at the view points.