7 days Southbound on the Northville-Placid Trail... Solo

**Dirtbaghiker** · 09-20-2022, 09:30

I did it!! 143.5 miles southbound on the Northville- Placid trail thru the remote and rugged Adirondack mountains of Northeast NY. I have been wanting this adventure for several years and finally made it happen. I want to thank every northbound thru hiker and day/weekend hikers that I stopped to chat with along the way, as well as the few northbound hikers I shared a shelter with on 3 different nights. Our conversations gave me inspiration to push on every day and helped me to remember there are plenty of genuinely nice people out there!! Bob the Shuttle guy!! It was great seeing you in the Piseco and our short conversation made my my day! Thom from BPL, thankyou so much for giving me a shuttle from Northville to Lake Placid on such short notice!! You made it happen for me!! David from BPL.. just WOW!! That was amazing that we crossed paths with each other out there in West Canada Lake Wilderness area!! As we spoke on trail, you recognized me!! That was just awesome and that we met in such a magical place too.. so great!! So, I made this trip happen in 7 days, which I would NOT recommend to anyone. It was grueling, hard 7 days for sure. I only had 8 days to complete it, due to time off from work and family, so I bit the bullet and made it happen for me..it was now or never. Realistically, 10-12-14 days would have been wonderful, but I made the best of what I had and enjoyed being out there, on my own so much. I did not resupply, so I carried 8 days of food in my Bearicade Blazer. My starting pack weight was exactly 30 lbs. with the 8 days food and 2 liters of water. I started on Sunday afternoon and it began to rain on Sunday evening and continued to rain, pour on and off until Wednesday afternoon. That’s the NPT. I finished on Saturday evening.. Limping my way out with a swollen right knee and my feet blistered and destroyed. I will do a gear list/ review in another post, but I will say I used all of my usual gear, the only item I carried extra for this trip which I have never used before was the bear can, and everything I carried worked perfectly, even my MLD Vision quilt. My daily mileage was:

Day 1. 12 miles to Duck Hole #2

Day 2. 24 miles to Catalin Bay #1

Day 3. 20 miles to Stephens Pond

Day 4. 20 miles to Beaver Pond/ Cedar Lakes #2

Day 5. 18 miles to unnamed campsite

Day 6. 22.5 miles to Silver Lake

Day 7. 26.5 miles to Northville

Hopefully you enjoy the video and if you are considering thru hiking the NPT, you get something inspiring or helpful out of it. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments anytime. Even if you have no interest or intention of ever hiking the NPT, maybe you will at least get a kick out of me brutalizing myself out there for 7 consecutive days!!

**cmoulder** · 09-20-2022, 09:47

Congrats on getting it done!!

Yep, that had to have been brutal.

I think I might be able to manage it in 10 days... Seven? NFW.

You da man.

**Dirtbaghiker** · 09-20-2022, 10:42

Thanks Bob. 12 - 14 days out there would have been the sweet spot for sure. That would leave time to sleep in, hang out, hike slowly, get to camp early and kill the evening. I pretty much woke at 5:40 am every morning, packed up and hit the trail and hiked all day until about 6 pm or so...

**xMagnolia** · 09-20-2022, 15:37

That's a heavy schedule! Very impressive. That you had time and energy to film is something.
Thanks for sharing

Charlotte

**Dirtbaghiker** · 09-20-2022, 16:10

Thankyou!! I filmed what I could.. and truth be told.. many of the 143.5 miles was blasting through the woods with not much to see.. well i shouldn't say not much to see because being in the wilderness is everything to see.. but it was the usual hardwoods and pine forests of the North East..

**Crazytown3** · 09-21-2022, 13:31

Wow! I'm looking at those daily mileage totals, and there is NO way I would have been able to do that. That's an amazing feat. Congratulations!

**Dirtbaghiker** · 09-21-2022, 14:04

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Amazing feet.. lol no pun intended!! Thankyou.

**ObdewlaX** · 09-21-2022, 15:32

What a great accomplishment Dirtbag! You're quite the glutton for punishment racking up such big time mileage in 7 days... I'm good for about 12-14 mile days, so my hat's off to you. After all that, you're probably hobbling around like somebody's granddad!

Too bad you couldn't take a more leisurely pace but sometimes the timing is what it is. And like you said, racking up big miles doesn't leave you much time to soak in the sights.

I've been section hiking the Ozark Highlands Trail over the past year & hope to do it all in one shot with resupply next year.

Always enjoy your trip reports... thanks for posting.

**Dirtbaghiker** · 09-21-2022, 17:18

Thanks obdewlax. I don't mind the hi mileage too much, since I enjoy spending the day walking. Sure is nice though at about 15 miles. Yes, I only had 8 days so I did have to push extra miles in there to finish on schedule. Good luck with that Ozark trail.. I hope you get it done!! Make it happen man!!

**No-sage** · 09-21-2022, 19:23

Congratulations! That’s one heck of a trip in that amount of time.

I spend quite a bit of time in the West Canadas, it’s always an adventure. I was at Spruce Lake fishing the last week of August. Some really nice brook trout in that lake.