Letting You In on the Plan

Three years ago to the day (I did not plan this, and was pleasantly surprised to discover the matching dates), here I was, poised to step into...



Did you remember? ...the Adirondack Park. I knew the NCT maps were inadequate. I mostly found my way, but lost the trail several times, bushwhacked, backtracked, did whatever I had to to get through.

There are currently 174 miles of North Country Trail in the Adirondack Park. Here's a long shot of the area. The medium green is the 6-million acre park.

Ever since this hike, Matt Rowbotham (NCTA GIS Specialist, eg. he does the maps) and I have been trying to cook up a way to get me back there to get good tracks of the trails without my needing to pay for everything on my own.

Last year, that was a no-go. This year, I applied for and got a NCTA Field Grant. It will cover some of the expenses.

Why? Now that Mary Coffin unexpectedly died last fall, it's pretty certain that there is no one who knows the current Adirondack Route as well as I do. I could wait until the organization has enough money to fully pay for this project. But the older I get, the less likely it is that I would be able to be the one to hike all these miles again. Insert ego. I, I, want to be the one who does this.

More why? People are getting increasingly interested in the Adirondack portion of the trail, but the maps are so inaccurate they are possibly dangerous. There are no accurate GPS tracks of hardly anything. We need to fix that.

Who? Bill and I will be doing this together.



What? We will be hiking and mapping 89 miles of off-road trail. Some of this will eventually change, but hey, the NCT changes all the time. Meanwhile, people need accurate maps. Part of what we are going to do will need to be backpacked because there is no road access. We are also going to do structure inventory (bridges, puncheon, etc)

Whether they look like this, or better.



We are being spotted in our endeavor by several people. Sarah (on the left), who hiked with me for three days in 2022.



and Joyce (left) who hosted Marie (right) and me last year. And Marie (of course)



And Diane, shown here completing her Hike 100 last year.



I am highlighting all of them, because they are chosing to travel quite a long distance to help in this endeavor. Yes, it will all count as volunteer time for us and them, but it's a huge project with a lot of moving parts that have to work smoothly because the locations are so remote.

I'll also get to meet the new NCTA Vermont-New York Regional Trail Coordinator, Will Brazill, who is spotting us one day.

So, perhaps you can sense my concerns about being in good enough shape to do this. There will be 5 days of backpacking (split into two sections), and the rest is day hiking. But it will be much more continual and intense hiking than I've done since the big hike and certainly since I've been sick. I'm feeling pretty confident that I won't endanger us by being unable to complete the task, but I'm not getting younger, eh? And I'd prefer not to be in continual pain.

Just as an aside, when I backpacked with David a couple of weeks ago, I asked him who was the oldest person he knows that backpacks. I was NOT fishing for compliments. He got a funny look on his face and said, "You."

As a final reminder of the Daks, and a glorious reminder of what may be ahead (if it's not a gray day when we get there), here is the view from Jones Hill. This will be on our last day!



Only 2.5 weeks to finish preparations, do a few more conditioning hikes, and then... WOW... it will be off to New York!

See Here I Go