The Belknap Range grid was so much fun for me! There was no intention to set an FKT, but then I saw it was a thing! I did set a goal for myself to do it in less than a year from the start.
Many of my friends joined me on hikes and I was lucky enough to do very little of this solo. I did several single day traverses, but there were months I broke it up also. January being the highest with 4 individual hikes/runs. In July I missed Mack and had to go back the next day. That was frustrating, but it was my error as the signal on my phone was poor. March was a major challenge. It was all slush and what was going to be a single day traverse turned into us bailing out early and skipping Piper and Whiteface. I again went back the next day to get them. Other than those 2 months the rest were pretty smooth.
I added some of my favorite pictures from the experience. The plane crash, my friends, I clearly really like the Anna sign (not sure why, but I do) and my favorite new hiking buddy Tucker, he made it for the last 2 months!
I don't drink a lot of water. There were days I did close to 20 miles with less than 8 oz. I don't recommend this at all. There was one hike I ran out and had to use iodine tabs and water from round pond. It was not as bad as a thought it would be. And I had no ill affects from it. I did purchase a filter bottle shortly after to ensure that did not happen again. Which I used on many run/hikes to keep my pack as light as possible. I also don't eat much during activity. Many of these hikes were fueled by apple sauce, slim jims and a handful of trail mix.
I loved watching how the landscape of the range changed as the months went by and how quiet it was in the winter.