Kim Hall and I started the Knobstone Hiking Trail fastest known time attempt at Knobstone mm 0 at 5:41 AM on Sunday, Oct. 13 and finished at the Morgan Monroe State Forest office building which is the official start of the Tecumseh trail on Thursday, October 17 at 5:07 PM. Trail was dry and we only saw one section hiker on the Knobstone and also two guys finishing their first thru hike of it. We ran into two other guys hiking the entire KHT southbound near Nebo ridge and also two guys doing the Tecumseh south bound.
We were able to locate the trail portion near the Frank Fisher barn. Though it did become difficult to navigate sometime between the Frank Fisher barn and the return to road walk. A lot of ATV and logging trails crossed the KHT and a creek washed out markers which cost some time to navigate.
Similarly, right after entering HNF the markings drop off and the trail becomes difficult to navigate but we were able to navigate back to the KHT and the rest of HNF was easily navigable and for the most part included KT specific markers.
This was an unsupported hike. We carried all food and gear for the entire hike and received no support of any kind. We filtered water along the way and utilized the water pump at Sparksville Park which is a trailside water pump available to all KHT hikers and included in the KHT website guide.
We were able to attain water at the more major seasonal creeks and the lakes and ponds along the way:
Day 1: The creek near New Chapel at mile 17 & Elk Lake (mileage ~32)
Day 2: The creek on the south side of Highway 56 on the Knobstone, Spurgeon Hollow Lake, Sparksville Park water pump. (Mileage ~28)
Day 3: Dry Creek, Tipton Creek (before HNF) and seasonal creeks that still had puddles in HNF (mileage ~30)
Day 4: Creek that runs near Maumee, just before Nebo Ridge trail picks up, Middle Fork Salt Creek near Elkinsville, Yellowwood Lake (mileage ~34)
Final 11 hours: Prang Pond, Bean Blossom Creek (mileage ~24)