Day One
26lb starting weight. Moose -> Garfield. Stealth camped near Garfield Spring. Rolled my ankle bad on Moose then hobbled all day. Downpoured on Cannon. Snow on Haystack before I ran to Flume. So cold and windy when I got back
Day Two
Owl’s Head -> Hancocks. Bushwhacked from 13 Falls to Owlshead and back. Blazing hot on the bonds. Coming down south Hancock my watch died and the whole activity disappeared. Huge bummer. Good thing my tracker worked well. Charged my watch a little then tracked to where I stealth camped in the Osceola Trailhead
Day Three
Osceolas -> Sawyer Pond. Rained off and all day then bad thunderstorm coming down Passaconaway. Wanted to keep going to Carrigain but I had to sleep in the lean to at Sawyer to dry my gear.
Day Four
Carrigain -> Jackson. Stealth camped near Mizpah. Raw cold rainy weather. Downpoured when I got to Jackson and rained all night. Slept in all my layers under a tarp worried about hypothermia.
Day Five
Pierce -> Moriah. Later start than I wanted to because I had to empty all the water from my pack and warm up at Mizpah and wait for the presis to warm up because the windchill was 20f. Cold ridge traverse then super hot on Iso. No sleeping this night.
Day 5.5
Madison -> Cabot. No sleep made for a slow day and very painful feet. Got roasted in the heat during the road walk. Finished in 5 days 16 hours 30 minutes. New women’s FKT by 43 hours. 231 miles total with 84,380 feet of gain.
In an effort to keep this short, I had a good weather window that turned to shit last minute but decided to still send it with added gear which made my base weight over 10lbs, less than ideal. For nutrition I carried 2lbs of food a day and was still hungry. Half my calories came from Precision Fuel No Carb which was perfect for carrying in my water bottle on the long out and backs to summits and when I didn't feel like eating real food. Cookies, trail mix, goldfish, Fritos, twizzlers, granola, cheerios, protein bars, protein powders were my real food. For the out and backs where I dropped my pack I used a naked belt which I had my phone, tracker and 1L water bottle with liquid calories. Also carried bear spray in it for the bushwhack to owls head. Between the bad ankle roll and weather, this trip was stressful from the start constantly refreshing weather apps to see if I could safely get across exposed areas. I planned for longer miles day three and four but was pinned from moving forward because of the weather which made for a much longer last push. Weighing in at a mighty 107lbs, the heavy pack slowed me down quite a bit especially after the first day so everything took longer than anticipated which meant more nighttime miles and less sleep. And when I did finally lay down to sleep, not much sleep happened. I also starter later than I wanted to on Sunday because of how cold the presi weather was. The last day I "ran" from 6am on Sunday until 8:36pm on Monday without any sleep which was brutal. My A-goal was 5.5 days and getting close to that goal with everything that happened feels surreal. This route is brutal in perfect conditions, add in so many weather hurdles and it was quite the adventure but I kept reminding myself how lucky I was to even be out there. Really proud of this effort and had no major issues besides the watch dying and not saving my run and the ankle roll.
https://lighterpack.com/r/qu7lf7
Please note my tracker was set to one hour so sometimes it doesn't look like I went all the way to summits if I reached them in over an hour like the Owls Head bushwhack for instance.