On October 25th and 26th I connected all of the Catskill fire towers on foot, unsupported. I drove up Thursday night and stashed my bike at the base of Hunter. After a few hours of poor quality sleep I started up from the Dry Book Ridge trailhead at 3:11 am. After Balsam Lake I headed down to Red Hill where I saw my first hiker. I jogged up to the Denning Rd trailhead and cut over to the Slide trailhead. Then down the road to the Giants Ledge trailhead and over to Woodland Valley. By this point the fatigue was piling up and I had stepped awkwardly on too many rocks hidden by the freshly fallen leaves. I headed down the road to Phoenicia, then up to the Tremper tower. I made it off of Tremper before dark and then headed over to Overlook. Then I cut over to Platte Cove Rd past the Devil’s Path. There were great views of the Hudson Valley from this ridge in the dark. It seemed to take forever to get to Hunter and I had to take a couple quick naps on the side of the road. When I made it back to the road from Hunter a trail runner pulled into the parking lot to retrieve a water cache (likely from doing the Devil’s Path the day before). He saw me slowly walking into the woods to get my bike (likely thinking I was struggling to do the Devil’s Path), and said “good job, let’s get it done!”
I’ve wanted to do this for quite a while now. This style takes care of the concern of people driving dangerously between towers to try to save time. I think its also more fun than driving because of all the possible route options. I know at least one spot I could save time, but there are many possible routes/tower orders that could be good. I took a 12 liter vest with 7000 calories and 1 liter of water capacity. I filtered water from streams and I ate my last 100 calories on the descent off of Hunter. I was definitely not fully recovered from our 70 mile run the previous week, but I’m pretty sure this was my last opportunity to do this before winter conditions (trying to fit in around crazy scheduling). I basically didn’t run at all after 40 miles, and I struggled a lot during the night. I saw quite a few hikers around Slide and Giants Ledge. I saw one on Red Hill and one on Tremper, but no other hikers all day.