Part 1
Well, after the planning, some buying, and some worrying I finally got out for my big backpacking trip. I completed a thru-hike of the Northville-Placid Trail at the end of July. In this, the first of four parts, I will describe some of the final decisions and trip planning I did. Then I will describe the first part of the hike. Parts two through four will describe the rest of the hike. I have included photos/videos in all four parts.
In previous posts I questioned what new items I might need. In the end, most decisions were made by some measure of practicality. In general, I did not get much new equipment as what I already had worked well enough for this trip. For instance, I stuck with my SPOT satellite messenger because it works well and SPOT has been offering rebates on their SPOT Connect unit (this means to me they intend to bring out a new, improved unit soon). So I decided to wait until the new SPOT Connect comes out. Nevertheless, I did decide to bring my cellphone because it works as a camera, video camera and phone. I used all three functions on the trip. You will see how well the video camera feature works with the posted videos I took along the way. So now you might be wondering about keeping a cell phone going for 7 days on the tail. Well the answer is one of my purchases and where I added weight (didn't like that) instead of subtracting weight. After a bunch of research I purchased a portable cell phone charger that was suposed to charge the phone 2-3 times. I only needed 1 charge, but I suspect another charge would have worked too. I typically kept the phone off unless I was taking pictures as the cell phone coverage on the N-P Trail is very poor (I only got a signal in a couple of places - the trail high point in the Blue Mt Wilderness and at Lake Placid itself), The charger was a 6 oz cell phone sized unit from Energizer that was simple to use.
The other 2 purchases were a new Steripen (the lighter Adventurer; I saved about an ounce) and meals from Pack-It Gourmet. The new Steripen worked well, but it was inconvenient to basically be able to use it with only one of my water containers (more about that later). The meals were a welcome change from my previous trail food. I bought meals that could be made with cool water as I was hiking without a stove. The meals were tasty and I had variety that kept me interested in eating on the trail. My only complaint would be some meals had more food than I could easily eat as I was hiking solo. Being aware of that will be useful next time. Overall I was pleased with the meals I got and would take them again. Otherwise I bought nothing new for the trip.
The other point was changing some strategies, like which socks to wear. I tried the advice of Mike Clelland in his book to wear thin socks so they could dry out more easily. However, for my feet that didn't work as well as I hoped. I ended up getting a number of blisters around the heel area and big toe because the socks were too thin to prevent significant rubbing in the boot (probably would have been okay with a low mileage hike though). I also used BodyGlide on my feet to try to prevent problems associated with sweaty feet. Unfortunately, I misjudged the amount I would need and took too little. So that was another lesson learned. Bottom line - everyone needs to know what their own needs are rather than relying only on someone else's advice (everyone's body is a bit different so they need to do what works for them). The other strategy I tried was carrying less water. This worked well as water was generally plentiful along the trail. However, I did become picky about my water sources as I realized the lakes and ponds were warm and so were inferior to streams and springs.
The Hike
My trip started on Sunday July 22nd. I arrived at the Upper Benson trail-head after a drive to a parking spot by the Trailhead Lodge (they were nice enough to allow me to park near their establishment so to reduce the risk of vandalism) and then a short hike to the trail-head itself. Actually I was walking on the trail as it follows the roadway from Northville to Upper Benson. Anyway, I started the actual hiking at about 10AM under reasonably clear skies and warm temps. I have included the video I shot at the trail-head here.
Due to the relatively late start I hiked later in the day than usual. I expected that based on past experience. After crossing the river at Whitehouse (see video below) I eventually made a stealth camp on the hill well above the trail.This was the only time during the trip I didn't stay at an established camp site or lean-to. Part 2 of this post contains the next part of the trip and associated videos.