Project 100. The 100 Adirondack Highest Peaks in One Winter.

Preamble 1

Foreword by Tom Haskins 2

Introduction 4

December 22. Day One. Moose, McKenzie, and Pitchoff. 8

January 3. Donaldson, Emmons, Seward, Seymour. 10

The Importance of Hiking Partners and the Use of Social Media 15

January 4. Avalanche Mountain. Peak number 21. 17

The Mental Game, the Mental Strain. 19

January 19-21. Calamity, Adams, Cheney Cobble (and not North River), Wallface and McNaughton. 21

How I trained for Project-100 25

January 27. An easy hike of Green, Giant and Rocky Peak Ridge that ended with a rescue. 27

Meeting nutritional requirements 32

February 2-3. The Sawtooth Range - Turning point of Project-100. 34

Map of Sawtooth Range with routes drawn from memory (not a GPS tracklog). Resolution improves with magnification. 35

February 24th Haystack, Basin and Saddleback (#’s 77-79). Pictorial Essay. 42

photo: Mudrat 45

If you are thinking of doing a big hiking project..... 51

Low moments and tough hikes. Sentinel Mountain (# 95) and North River (#97). 53

February 25th. Allen (#80) and a swim in Skylight Brook 58

February 17-18 and March 3-4. The Wakely Dam-Moose River Plains-Perkins Clearing peaks. 61

March 18. Kilburn Mountain. Birthday Hike and Number 100. 74

Retrospection and random musings. 75

The Future? My Next Project? 78

Appendix One. Peaks and People. 79

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Appendix Two. People and Peaks. 80

Appendix Three. Gear List. 82

Preamble

The wind came at us from the east. It pushed us around and brought horizontal rain that froze on our clothing and packs. Visibility was an issue as we ascended the summit cone of Mount Marcy. Plodding through sticky snow that balled up under our snowshoes we had already done two peaks; Gray and Skylight. Now Marcy loomed above us in the gloom. After a short pause in the lee of the summit rock we descended the north side in zero visibility, wild winds and driving rain. My anxiety was tinged with a buoyant feeling born of a knowledge that I was living at the edge of experience.

I had been hiking for 20 hours over two days and I still had the toughest summit of the five in the trailless Sawtooth Range and many more hours of hiking ahead of me. We were standing at the head of a gully in some open woods. In the dying light of day the snow glowed with a soft yellow hue. In our exposed position we were chilled by wind that sawed at us relentlessly. I looked over my shoulder at Sawtooth Two, which was well above us and I noted that we had a lot of climbing yet to do. The slope was extremely steep; ascending it was excruciatingly difficult in the soft, knee-deep snow. The summit bloc came into view and looked out of reach. The trees far above us swayed to and fro in the wind. The snow offered no purchase for our snowshoes. We swapped leads often to share the burden. I knew I could never do this alone.

I very gingerly lowered my cramponned foot onto a four-inch tree that angled out of steep ice. I must not miss that step or I would go sailing down the steep and icy slope of Giant Mountain. At that moment a woman who was just ahead of me and who was wearing snowshoes on the glare ice lost her footing. She was instantly rocketing down the mountain right before my eyes and when she hit a lip in the ice she was projected into the air, flipped over and flew out of sight into the woods below the trail. I listened to her terrified screams and to the sounds of trees being slammed into and then all was deadly quiet.

With eight miles still to go I was crossing Skylight Brook on my way out from Allen Mountain when the ice caved in and I found myself on my side with freezing water gushing over me. I stood up in thigh deep water and very carefully made my way to dry land. I would now have to undress completely and put on dry clothing.

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Foreword by Tom Haskins

“Tom, I’m thinking of doing another project, and I’d like your input.” Oh, great. Here he goes again. Neil and I first met on the ADKHighpeaks forum, and had our first “date” in February of 2006, when we hiked Lyon Mtn and Averill Peak. We really hit it off, and since then have enjoyed untold adventures together, primarily in the Adirondack High Peaks region. In the winter of 2014 Neil turned his efforts towards fundraising for preservation of the Adirondacks, with intensely challenging goals requiring months of training and meticulous planning. In response to Neil’s generous requests for my participation, I opted to offer my experiences to the planning and logistics aspects of the projects, allowing Neil to focus mainly on training. It would prove to be a good fit to our respective strengths.

“I’m in. How can I help, and what have you dreamed up this time?” I never knew what Neil’s next scheme would be, but I did know that it would be intense, unconventional, and borderline insane. For example, Neil’s second project, “Project Full Deck”, was a two week wanderfest through the High Peaks, stringing together 52 peaks that, by all appearances, Neil had picked out of a hat. To this day I’ve no idea how he picked those peaks. Perhaps he had demons to conquer? Perhaps they were his favorites? Or maybe they were indeed picked randomly. I don’t ask. I just offer to help. It’s easier that way.

“I’ll be attempting to climb all the ADK Highest 100 peaks in a single winter. I’m calling it ‘P-100,’ short for ‘Project 100’.” Well, now there’s something I can understand. Back in the winter of ’01-’02, I had tackled a similar project, teaming up with Alain Chevrette (“Pinpin”) for more than half of the peaks. My goal was to climb, in a single winter, the lower 54 peaks (I was already a “winter 46er”), plus as many of the upper 46 peaks as possible. I finished that season having climbed 94 peaks, including all the lower 54 and 40 of the upper 46 peaks.

“Yes, P for Project, Neil. I get it. I’m still in. But be forewarned, this one’s going to be extremely difficult.” The problem wasn’t so much climbing the 100 peaks in 13 weeks. Both Neil and I were perfectly capable of that. The problem would be the conditions. Weather, snow depth, and snowpack consistency. In the winter of ’01-’02, when Pinpin and I had achieved our respective goals, the snow conditions were uncharacteristically favorable. Snowfalls were generally 2”-6” per storm, with no storms of 12” or more. By late January a deep and well-consolidated snowpack had developed, allowing us to travel with relative ease over the tangle of scrub and blowdown that typically cover the ground in the mountains. We both agreed that in a “normal” winter we likely would have fallen short of our goals.

“Well, my plan is to involve, through the ADKHighpeaks forum and other social media, as many fellow hikers as possible to pre-pack the trails, and/or to accompany me on my hikes. I’m also fine with the idea of asking snowmobilers, where legal, to transport me part way in to some of the most remote peaks.” Social media? Hiking in groups of more than two or three? Snowmobiles?!!! This was inconceivable (not to mention impure) to me, but I know myself, and I also know that for Neil and a great many other hikers these concepts are part of everyday life. Maybe, just maybe, the guy could actually pull this off. He would need all the advantages he could stack in his favor. Oh, for the record, I often bust on Neil about his

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“impure” ideas. I get away with it because we both understand that each of us hikes his own hike. His project, his rules. Not a problem at all.

“One more thing, Tom. Do you mind if I sleep in your gear room all winter?” I knew this one was coming. And Neil knew that my response would be an unconditional “Of course!”So began the latest of a continuing series of “adventures with Neil.” Months later, after countless iterations of peak groupings, ordering and re-ordering of groupings, contingency planning, hearing about Neil’s training regimen, coercing (err, inviting) friends to join Neil on the hikes, and just having a generally fun time, winter finally arrived. And what a winter it would prove to be. I’ll leave that part of the story to Neil.

Tom HaskinsNYS Licensed Guide (retired)Keene, NY

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On the Summit of Wright Peak

Introduction

photo: Luc Labarre

My name is Neil Luckhurst. During the winter of 2017-18 I hiked the Adirondack Hundred Highest list of peaks*. This was by far the most intense and difficult thing I have ever done in my life. I was assailed by doubts throughout my preparations and these doubts only increased once I began the project. But you cannot win without stepping onto the field and taking a chance at getting beaned

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in the face. I was relatively inexperienced at winter bushwhacking and wondered how I would cover so many miles in unconsolidated snow while pushing through snow-covered spruce trees. I knew that I didn't really know what to expect. It was only after I had climbed 50 peaks that I thought I had a chance at succeeding.

As far as I know, only one person has ever done a single season winter Hundred Highest and just five or six other people have completed the Hundred Highest in winter. In order to succeed I had to draw far deeper from the well than I would ever have imagined possible and do so in the face of my uncertainty. I also had to have a lot of friends to help me because there was no way I could have done it on my own. In retrospect, my success also hinged on doing most things right and not too many wrong. What follows is my account of the entire project from its conception to the very happy ending on my 62nd birthday on Kilburn.

But first, a bit of my Adirondack hiking background.

I began hiking in the Adirondacks 12 years ago and my hiking progression has been more or less as follows:

● doing some of the most scenic high peaks about once a month● learning about the 46● hiking more often with completing the 46 as a goal● hiking McNaughton and learning of the ADK-100 highest list● bushwhacking Sawtooth One with Spencer Morrissey and friends.● finishing the 46 after having already done 15 of the “Lower 54”● co-founding the ADK High Peaks Foundation● completing the HH list● bushwhacking the 46 as part of a self-concocted 130 peak list● friction-climbing 50 different slides● two back-to-back single season winter 46's● completion of my 130 peak list on North River. (all peaks bushwhacked)● winter round of the 46 in 10 days raising $15,000 for the Foundation● Project Full Deck, which was a 15 day backpack mixing trailed and trail-less

hiking.● Project-100

I like to think that every hike is a project. On my 30-minute walk to and from the subway on my way to work I think about hiking projects, both big and small. During these walks I'm either thinking about my next planned hike or I'm dreaming one up. In early 2017, I was casting about, trying to think up a new project. A single season Hundred Highest attempt, which I had already thought about, slowly took root. I knew that Alain Chevrette (PinPin) had done this in the winter of 2001-02 and that Tom Haskins had partnered with him. Tom did the Lower 54 that winter along with most of the 46. Ominously, he said the excellent snow conditions they enjoyed have never re-occurred and that he didn't think it would be possible to succeed without such conditions. He also told me that his single season winter Lower 54 was his greatest hiking achievement, ever, in spite of having completed the 46 list of High Peaks in every month of the year (i.e. The Grid) this put the magnitude of what I was contemplating into an intimidating perspective.

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The Mighty Beckhorn

Knee problem

Gradually, I began to consider doing this project, but I had a serious problem. In training for and executing Project Full Deck I had irritated a long-standing knee issue (patello-femoral syndrome) to the point of having to stop hiking. I had already side-lined myself for three full months and the pain was not getting any better. December 21, 2017 was now 10 months away and serious training would have to begin in just four months (June 21, 2017). I knew I had to do something. An associate doctor in my (chiropractic) clinic examined me and it was clear to him that my knee issue was related to weaknesses in my various hip muscle groups. My patella was not tracking correctly due to improper steering of the knee from the hip and this was perpetuating my pain. Why I didn't get him to check me out earlier is a good question.

I joined a gym and began doing the difficult rehab exercises. I trained religiously three times a week for 3-4 months and we tweaked my exercise program as I progressed. I augmented the rehab with a series of trunk muscle exercises and for flexibility and balance, I added several yoga poses. I also walked 30-40 miles every week. I could walk hard and fast without irritating my knee if I refrained from going up or down steep hills. Progress was slow and I found the workouts boring but I had a very specific goal and was extremely motivated.

Speaking of being motivated, the project was increasingly inhabiting my thoughts. In fact, I came to think about it nearly all the time and I began to burn with ambition and drive. As I trained and watched my June 21st deadline approach, I continued to research the Hundred Highest list. I consulted with Spencer Morrissey and Tom Haskins with respect to logistics, potential routes, peak groupings and permissions. I especially fretted over the peaks that are usually accessed from Wakely Dam and the Moose River Plains Road, which are closed in

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winter and thus would involve long road-walks. These logistics and permission requests were time consuming and required trying multiple avenues of approach. Spencer is a great source of knowledge and has many contacts to whom he introduced me. I plugged away and gradually began to develop a sense of ownership over the project.

Fund RaisingAfter some hesitation, I decided to make the Project a fundraiser, which had an important implication as I would be putting myself and the project into the public eye. Because there was a good chance of failure I had to get a grip on how I would feel about failing publicly. I finally decided I didn't really care because I knew I would give it everything I had, in which case there would be no need to feel bad if I failed. ADK High Peaks Foundation President Jack Coleman said he would handle the fundraising arm of the project. Craig Scholl volunteered to work the social media angle, which would be essential for raising funds. I held off on announcing my intentions to the online hiking public until late November, which gave me time to test the limits of my knee and to bow out quietly if necessary.

Training Parallel to this preparation I brushed up on exercise physiology by re-reading (again!) the excellent book Training for the New Alpinism, which is the last word in scientific training methods for uphill endurance sports. On June 21st, with bated breath, I began to train and test my knee. I started with a four-week transition phase that combined aerobic conditioning with a new set of tougher, hiking-specific gym exercises. I was amazed and dismayed at how difficult this phase was. In spite of the extensive flat-land walking I had been doing, it was pitiful when I tried doing the same hill-climbs I had done when preparing for my previous projects. I wrote to one of the authors of the book and explained my disheartening experience. He was extremely helpful in explaining the physiology behind my experience. I adjusted my training and got on track. The four weeks flew by and I was confident I could begin serious training.

During my 6 months of training I hiked on nearly every weekend regardless of the weather. During our summer vacation together my wife Sylvie and I hiked nearly every day in Quebec (Chic-chocs and Saguenay Fjords). I hiked all of the southern bushwhack peaks on the list, which I hadn’t hiked in nearly 10 years. I combined the bushwhacking with trailed hiking, each of which were different with respect to the physical demands they each imposed. One memorable training hike took place on a very hot day in September. I did Sawteeth, descended to Upper Ausable Lake then hiked up and over Haystack and back down to Upper Lake. With the afternoon sun cooking me I finally hiked back up over Sawteeth on my way out.

As December 21st drew near I loaded my pack with gallon jugs of water and hiked 1000 steep feet up the Leach trail with a 30 pound pack. Before descending I dumped out the water. I repeated this four times. So, with solar winter rapidly approaching I had the machine all revved up and had gotten many people involved in various ways. This included “Giving Tuesday” on November 27th when in a single day we solicited $1000 in pledges. There was no turning back! My knee was doing fine and my training was humming along perfectly. Project-100 was in my brain full-time. With only a couple of weeks to go I ate, slept, and

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breathed it 24/7, which is what you have to do if you want projects like this to be successful.I was ready for a tapering period and the beginning of Project-100.

*I substituted Wilmington for Dun Brook.

December 22. Day One. Moose, McKenzie, and Pitchoff.

A very snowy day in the woods

I will never forget this day. There was so much snow on the trees that it often formed a continuous shield that ran from tree-to-tree. I couldn't imagine bushwhacking through anything like it. The day began with me getting us lost among the properties on the shore of Lake Placid as we searched for the public trail. David Gomlak was busting on me. “Great organization, Neil!” he yelled as we wandered in snowshoes across people's driveways. I had hiked the lightly traveled and sparsely marked trail between Moose and McKenzie both ways in late fall and had recorded a tracklog. I knew that under a deep mantle of snow it would be pretty much like a bushwhack and as such I was ready for a long and difficult day of breaking trail. With David Gomlak, Joe Bogardus and Glen Bladholm I had an all-star team lined up and ready to go. However, I received a message from PinPin the evening beforehand that he and his girlfriend had just broken out the entire trail as a nod and a wink to my project. What a gift! Following their broken trail, we first ascended Moose from the shores of Lake Placid and then proceeded to McKenzie. I will never forget arriving on top of Moose and saying to the guys, “Well that's one peak done, another 99 to go”. At that moment, I felt the project was hopeless, but in order to get to 100 you have no choice but to get past one. It was a chilly day, about 5F and there were already five inches of new snow on top of PinPin's trail. Thanks to PinPin’s efforts we were done by 2 p.m.

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The boys in the band on McKenzie

David noted that I had enough time to tackle another peak that same day and I suggested to Glen (mastergrasshopper by his forum name) that we hike Pitchoff. This brought home to me that it was “game on” and that from here on to the one hundredth peak I would be pushing relentlessly. Pitchoff kicked our butts; we made a wrong turn and found ourselves looking up a cliff face in falling darkness before we backtracked to the trail.

We finished the two-day start of P-100 by doing Whiteface, Esther, and Morgan in the rain. I drove home for Christmas the next day with six peaks behind me, 94 in front of me.

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January 3. Donaldson, Emmons, Seward, Seymour.

Seward from Donaldson. One of my favorite views in the Adirondacks.

Joe Bogardus picked me up at 6am at the Loft and at 7:15 we were on our way up the trail. It was going to be a long, cold day and Joe gracefully allowed me to be the pacesetter. I set a 100 peak pace and we tramped along in our snowshoes and warmed up. The ascent of Calkins went by quicker than I expected and we were on Donaldson a mere 3 hours out.

photo: Joe BogardusDonaldson. First peak of the day.

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The trail was in perfect condition, which aided and abetted us on our mission. The out and back to Emmons was a 75 minute formality under bluebird skies with finely etched, far-away views. The views from Donaldson were to die for but we refrained.

photo: Joe BogardusHeading over to Seward on the perfect trail was pure joy especially once we arrived at the waterfall and turned around to take in the expansive views. High up on Seward the trees were plastered with a thick layer of extremely hard rime. The only colors were the whitest possible white and the deepest blue you can imagine. Temps were low so we kept a move on through the majesty of our surroundings.

Joe in the “tunnel of white”.

Past the summit of Seward the game changed drastically in two feet of

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unconsolidated snow. The trail was not obvious but Joe’s acumen got us over to the cliff wall just in time and then we dropped in. We sank two feet into structure-less powder snow and were surrounded by trees encased completely in a thick layer of white. Trail-side, trees that stood two feet apart were conjoined by a thick wall of snow that forbade travel in any other direction but down the steep chutes that in summer are slimy rock. We carefully plunge-stepped endlessly downwards and I was both exhilarated and awed by it all. I knew that this was a pinnacle of experience and was exactly why I was doing Project-100. I was also appreciative of the previous 6 months of hard training that kept my quads from crapping out.The lower Seward-North trail was a never-ending drag and it was nice to take a 20-minute break at the Ward Brook Lean-to. It was cold and I put my down parka on over my shell as I ate and drank for the first time that day. Joe and I were both chilled when we started out from the L-T and we hustled for a good 15 minutes before feeling the heat return. Seymour as usual was a steep grind but every time we turned around and looked out over the Sawtooth Range we could see that the sunset views were going to be incredible. We made the summit in 90 minutes and I swear I could not have shaved off even one. As expected, everywhere the eye fell was stunningly beautiful yet linger in the cold we did not.

Macintyre Range from Seymour.

During our quick descent of Seymour I forced myself to stop and take pictures until quite suddenly the shades of red and yellow became browns and greys. Back at the lean-to we readied ourselves for the five mile tramp out. Over and over again I thanked my lucky stars that we did not have a three mile road walk on top of the five miles of trail.

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Lighting on Seymour late in the day.

Seward from Viewing Rock on Seymour.

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Whiteface behind Sawtooth Range Peaks from Seymour

Santanoni Range with Couchsachraga in shade on far right.

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The Importance of Hiking Partners and the Use of Social Mediaphoto: Marie-Josée Ouellet

You know you're getting old when you keep observing how much everything has changed. Hiking is no different. When I was in my 20's and 30's we planned our adventures, did them and once we were back home that was pretty much it. Nowadays it seems like if you don't post about it or upload pictures or data from a device to social media it never really happened.

Not being one to buck the trend I decided that this endeavor would be a very social one. Among my goals was to draw in a large number of people and create a buzz for three particular reasons:

1. to promote a feeling of community2. to entice people into donating to the ADK High Peaks Foundation3. to have a large number of potential hiking partners

When I did Project-46 in February of 2014 internet forums were still popular and the project was a huge online community event. The threads on ADK High Peaks and FousdeRando are still there and bear testimony to the superiority of web forums for certain subjects. Nevertheless, for Project-100 it was obvious that our primary target audience would be on Facebook with the forums running a close second. The central location for everything related to the project would be my blog. In order to free my time for organizing the hiking, Craig Scholl volunteered to handle social media. I would send him raw text trip reports and Tom Haskins would upload my pictures directly to Dropbox at the end of every hiking day. Craig would format it all and post links to the blog on various FB pages and on the forum.

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Private Facebook GroupWhile the project was still in the planning stages I created a private FB group and added about 60 people to it. I added anyone who I thought might partner with me and friends who I knew would appreciate a behind the scenes view of the project as it unfolded. I knew that the odds of really good off-trail snow conditions were slim so I stacked the deck in my favor. I lined up a who's who list of the Adirondack's finest hikers including Joe Bogardus, Cory Delavalle, David Gomlak, Glen “mastergrasshopper” Bladholm, Luc Labarre, Nancy “High On Life” LaBaff, and Alistair Fraser and so on. From Quebec I had some extremely strong hikers who played key roles in the Project. Jean Roy, Marie-Josée Ouellet, and Gérald Léveillé in particular come to mind.

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January 4. Avalanche Mountain. Peak number 21. Toughest hike ever?

photo: Julie ChevalierBusting through a wall of snow

The day before tackling this “little” bushwhack peak, Joe Bogardus and I hiked the four Sewards on a chilly and gorgeous day. I had hiked Avalanche four or five times by the very same route I had planned. My partner was Julie Chevalier. Julie and her husband Jean-Sebastien have done hundreds of bushwhacks including a great many more in winter than I. She was extremely helpful with both the macro and micro management of our route and she broke her share of trail. We conferred frequently on our exact whereabouts and watched our progress very closely (we used altimeter, GPS, map and compass pretty much equally at first). Just before 1000 meters elevation we made a turn that showed us gaining the summit ridge through the fattest contour intervals. The GPS indicated that we were 400 meters from the summit when we made the turn at roughly 975 meters. One hour and forty-five minutes had elapsed since we left the trail. The next 400 meters took us 2 hours 30 minutes.

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The snow was beyond anything I would have imagined. It was deep and structure-less and the open spaces between the trees were filled in with walls of snow. Sometimes we found a narrow passageway, but often it was easier to simply bash the snow walls down. Over and over again lumpy showers of snow rained down from above upon our heads and shoulders. Our backs were soaked and chunks of ice formed on the inside of our pack belts and the back panels of our backpacks. Progress was slow (duh!) and navigation was simplified to studying the GPS screen to determine the fattest possible contour intervals, projecting a

compass bearing and following that.

As we ascended, the snow became increasingly deeper and heavier. What flabbergasted me was that I recalled having passed more or less through the same route up to the ridge effortlessly twice before, only 18 months ago. The ridge itself had been fairly easy to bushwhack, but now only 200 meters from the summit, every meter gained came with huge efforts. I couldn't help but wonder how on earth I was going to get through this project. I tried to visualize the woods along our route without snow, but it was as if we were on a completely different mountain. We were now using our hands to sweep away the snow in front of us in

order to be able to lift our snowshoes up onto the next placement. But, as rough as it sounds we were laughing and joking most of the way. We had plenty of time available and knew that the return trip would be very quick and easy. At one point Julie looked at me and said, “I guess the other bushwhacks will have to wait”.

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The Mental Game, the Mental Strain.

Frozen eyelids and intense wind chill on Gothics

While the purely physical demands of this project were extreme, they pale in comparison to the mental stress. The training was mechanical and repetitive, but I had to mentally drive myself to get out the door and do it, rain or shine. At the gym, every repeat of a given exercise required volitional brain energy to drive my muscles to contract at the uppermost limits of their power output. The endless weighted hill-climbs, with my leg muscles straining to the limit of their endurance could not have happened without sufficient mental drive. With each step-up in the gym, with 110 pounds of load, I would grit my teeth and think that in x months I would be glad I had done this.

Mental energy had to be deployed continuously. From organizing and reorganizing the peaks; getting on the phone and writing for permissions; figuring out what I was going to eat all winter; shopping for food; spending hours in the kitchen preparing it; organizing route data on my computer; studying Training for the New Alpinism; following as best I could a six month training program; setting up the blog; posting on Facebook and the forums; going on weekend trips to the Adirondacks researching bushwhack routes and training; and worrying about the progression of my fitness all sucked up massive amounts of mental bandwidth. I loved it all even if it taxed the power of my will and was tremendously hard mental work.

But, all of that work is a hill of beans compared to steering the project successfully through all 100 peaks.

There were weekends where nothing went my way. The freeway entrances would be closed off; there would be a long line-up at the border; or my alarm didn't go off. It was -30F at the trailhead; the trail wasn't broken out; or the bushwhack seemed impossibly tough. Perhaps I only got five hours sleep or my food didn't interest me. The summit eluded us, or the hike out to the car was never-ending etc. etc.

Structuring each weekend of hiking often felt like a monumental undertaking on

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its own. Each weekend's plan was the result of studying and fretting continuously over the weather forecast, trying to prognosticate the snow conditions and most importantly, organizing the potential line-up of available hiking partners. I often felt like the performer on the Ed Sullivan show who could keep a number of plates spinning on sticks.

During my hiking stints there was no letting up and no goofing off. It was all business, all the time. From the time my eyes first opened in the morning to when I lay down that night I was 100% “on”. I could be tired later. Mental drive was required for getting out of bed so early in the morning and closely watching the clock so as to be ready on time, driving to the trailhead, and dealing with the unexpected, realizing the plan should be modified – again and communicating with my partners.

When I was finally hiking, the conditions were often brutal. The winter threw everything it had in my path. Extreme cold, heavy snow, intense ice, rain, flooding, sticky snow...you name it I had to deal with it. None of the above was nearly as problematic physically as it was mentally. So many of the hikes turned out to be much harder than I had anticipated or had ever experienced before. There was a sense of having to continually up my game. The constant mental effort of one puny human attempting to pit himself against difficult odds was intensely demanding. But once again, I loved it all and developed a sort of immunity to the stress of it. My “field of vision” was squeezed down to a narrow and intense focus. I had so much invested in the project that I was able just to suck it up and concentrate on the present task. I frequently reminded myself that there was a finite number of steps (physical and metaphorical) between myself and the next goal. I wanted to do this project; it didn't matter what I had to overcome next or how late I got back to the trailhead. Unrelenting forward progress made it so that once an individual hike was underway it would just roll, no matter the conditions, and carry the project along with it.

January 19-21. Calamity, Adams, Cheney Cobble (and not North River), Wallface and McNaughton.

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photo Brian Merriam

A happy crew on Calamity Mountain

I quickly learned that it was best to start each weekend with a moderate day. I received reports of supportive crust off-trail so I decided to ease my way into the bushwhacks. Calamity made sense in that it was a fairly short whack. It was also close to Cheney Cobble, which I hoped to do with North River the very next day. The conditions would be similar. If I remember correctly it took us (Brian Merriam and Christina Nash were my partners) two hours hiking on the Calamity Brook Trail to arrive at the ideal jump-off spot. This spot was determined on a trip 12 years ago when Tom Haskins and I did a Calamity-Adams through-hike on a five-foot snowpack. I have bushwhacked four times from Calamity to Adams in non-winter and each route I explored has been very difficult. I was sure the snow pack was not deep enough to attempt a through-hike on this day.

We hiked off-trail for about 50 feet and dropped our packs. Throughout the Project I dropped my pack whenever I could and greatly appreciated the advantages of not wearing one. We swapped leads at every 100 feet of elevation gain as determined by my Suunto Altimeter. We deviated around cliffs and away from drainages and after each deviation I used the GPS to “reset” our compass bearing. I also used the GPS map to steer away from the tightest contour lines, which indicated steeper terrain.

Above 3200 feet there was a thin layer of blue ice under an inch of snow and this supported us beautifully. The hike was straightforward and we were on top after about two hours of bushwhacking.

Back at the trailhead Brian and I said good-bye to Christina and drove over to the East River Trailhead. I changed into a complete set of dry clothes and we headed up the trail to Adams. I was now even fitter than at the beginning of the project and it felt like I was floating effortlessly towards the summit. The round-trip

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moving time was two hours thirty minutes.

Looking straight down from Mount Adams Fire Tower

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Cheney Cobble. Nemesis.

photo: Marie-Josée OuelletLooking for a way off the summit of Cheney Cobble

I spent a lot of time researching Cheney to North River and had hiked them both in August, 2017 from the Boreas Ponds. After conferring with Tom Haskins, I decided to take advantage of the Macintyre Purchase and approach these difficult peaks from the north. An approach from the south via Boreas Ponds involved too many unplowed road miles. Departing from the East River trailhead, just after seven, Jean Roy, Marie-Josée Ouellet and I spent three hours breaking trail in six inches of light snow to the beginning of the bushwhack. After crossing the Opalescent River along the “Allen Trail” we followed an abandoned logging road along the north side of Dudley Brook to a well-maintained road that we followed for another mile or so.

The bushwhack went quite well at lower elevations with open hardwoods and firm crust. That changed abruptly as the slope became very steep and the vegetation grew much thicker. In short order we were soaking wet and exposed to a relentless wind. It was cold and getting colder as we gained elevation. My idea was to aim for the saddle just to the west of the summit. We could drop our packs and do an out and back. We would also benefit from scouting the best route from below for the return descent.It didn't work out that way because we kept getting pushed to the left, towards the summit. Finally, we decided to aim directly for it. It was killer steep and there were cliffs smeared with tannin-stained ice everywhere. It was very cold and the

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wind was fierce. We clawed our way up an icy chute and found the summit. I wanted to get out of there immediately and we began probing for a better route down. As we descended, we went too far to the left (my fault) and got cliffed out. We had no choice but to turn around and climb back up and try another way. With no visibility and a dead GPS, we navigated using map and compass, which is more time-consuming. Marie-Josée had a mapping app running on her iPhone and I kept revising our position and desired heading by combining her app with the map and compass. North River now had a question mark hanging over it. We were going slowly and the frequent navigational checks prevented us from generating decent body heat. The blank greyness gave the hike a sinister feeling, all the while the wind cutting at us and adding to the cold. Our mental energy was definitely taking a hit, but with self-imposed discipline we ignored the cold as best we could, although Jean's hands were freezing and gave him grief.

Up ahead we knew there was a line of cliffs, which we absolutely had to avoid. I knew roughly where to make a 30 degree turn to the north and we did so successfully. We only came out to one set of cliffs that we easily deviated around. The time of day was advancing rapidly and what little we could discern through the clouds of our next goal – North River- appeared far away. Even the col directly below us seemed far away.

I had ascended the exact same slopes with Taras Dejneka (trail boss on the hiking forum) less than five months previously and the route had been “soul-destroying,” according to him. Now, we were counting on descending easily atop the same crust as we had found on Cheney (and me on Calamity yesterday), but our hopes were dashed by fickle Mother Nature. The snow on this side of the mountain was deep and completely unconsolidated. The aforementioned soul-destroying vegetation lurked just beneath the surface.

Jean Roy struggles through thick brush

We fell continuously into spruce traps getting out of which sucked up our energy as we floundered and flailed. Otherwise, the footing was treacherous and

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descending the slope required tremendous muscle power. I watched the clock. It was 2:30 and were were still well above the col. Our physical and mental resources were dwindling rapidly, as was the remaining daylight. We were at a critical juncture, but making the turn away from North River down towards our in-bound track 600 vertical feet below us was easy to do. I knew I had just burned an eleven hour day and would have to return, but safety was our top priority. Getting down those 600 feet turned out to be a struggle through thick woods and soft snow. Had we made better time and done North River this exit would have been a lot more difficult in the dark with accumulated fatigue. Earlier on, while dodging cliffs on CC, I had said, “if we do NR, I’m not doing Wallface tomorrow”. This exemplifies how the shifting mosaic pieces of each hike influences every subsequent hike.

We got back to the trailhead and we all felt quite good. Between Lake Jimmy (gorgeous views!) and the Hudson River crossing I had remarked that this was not a death march. Nevertheless it had been an eleven hour day. Before parting ways we sat in my car and drank beer, ate chips, and reveling in the heat and basking in the companionship of the trail. It had been a good fight. Leaving off North River would enable me to do both Wallface and McNaughton the next day. I hustled back to the Loft and contacted my partners for the morrow to fill them in on the plan.

How I trained for Project-100My training was comprised of aerobic conditioning, strength training in a gym, weighted hill-climbs and some flexibility exercises. (More discussion of training and fueling for endurance hiking can be found here.)

Aerobic power is the most important element of fitness that enables a hiker to resist fatigue and to endure long, arduous consecutive days. All my training was geared to endurance by way of developing an aerobic base. Speed was not a consideration. The road to this aerobic base was paved by spending 15-30 hours a week training at the upper limit of Zone 1 (of the five intensity zones). In addition, I spent about 2-4 hours weekly in Zone 3 or higher and another 3-4 hours every week doing weighted hill climbs. I also did an endurance-based workout in the gym 1-3 times a week.

I did most of my aerobic base training in the mountains. Initially, I also did some running for more intense workouts, but this was a poor choice for me. In order to get my heart rate up into intensity Zone 3 I had to run very fast. One-hour runs, three time a week in Zone 3 threatened to destroy my hips and knees so I stopped. I folded some of the upper zone aerobic work into the weighted hill climbs, which I modified from the recommendations. The remainder I got in while....hiking, of course!

I determined my Zone 1 limit on a treadmill using the nose-breathing test as outlined here. In my case, it was exactly 132 beats per minute (bpm). Above that heart rate I could no longer breath through my nose. I extrapolated my other zones from there and considered a HR above 140 to be Zone 3 or above. In the mountains, I used a basic heart rate monitor and an altimeter as my tech tools. I combined my heart rate data with my ascent rate and my perception of effort to get information regarding my progress as I went through the training protocol.

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As I mentioned previously, I was not interested in hiking rapidly. My primary concern was to develop a massive well of endurance so I could hike 30-40 hours, with tens of thousands of feet of elevation change, across three or four consecutive days, in winter, week in-week out for 13 weeks. Of interest is that one's Z1 can be “expanded” through training. This means that the more and better you train, the harder and faster you can hike at higher heart rates (ie. at higher power outputs) while remaining continuously in Z1, which preserves one’s muscle glycogen by preferentially using fat for fuel.

In the gymIn addition to training for aerobic endurance, I worked out in a gym. I espoused the philosophy of Scott Johnson of Uphill Athlete, who I quote:

Strength training builds a more functional, faster, injury-proof endurance athlete. And as mountain endurance athletes, we cannot afford to gain strength at the expense of adding appreciable muscle mass. After all, you’ll have to haul that weight up the trail, mountain, or crag. We promise that these methodologies won’t add bulk or weight to your body.

Remember: An athlete strength trains either to improve performance in their event or for injury prevention, not to become stronger at a certain gym exercise. The gym is not our sport. This is especially true for endurance athletes.

I did three series of five reps of various leg exercises with one arm exercise (for poling). By trial and error I determined the load that would lead to failure after six reps but I always stopped at five. This technique was used to further increase my endurance, through the neurological phenomenon of motor unit recruitment, without causing muscle hypertrophy. It is important to rest for four minutes between exercises, so during that time I mixed in trunk muscle exercises and stretches.

Weighted hill climbs are normally done with a heavy enough load to make the muscles the limiting factor in one's rate of ascent, and not one's breathing. Heart rates are low and a feeling of muscle fatigue is high. I was worried about irritating my patello-femoral syndrome so I used lower loads than recommended. Muscle fatigue was still my limiting factor, but my heart rates usually soared well into Zones 3 and 4. For these climbs, I used a rugged 200-foot vertical gully on Mount Royal near downtown Montreal. I went up and down this gully ten times per session, twice a week. The slope was quite rubbly and I carried rocks uphill in my hands and dropped them at the top before descending. I always carried a ten-pound weight in my pack so with the added rocks I usually ascended with 20 pounds and descended with ten.

Throughout the training program I followed these principles:● Continuity in training● Gradual increase of the training load● Modulation of the load from hard to easy over the weeks

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Basin with Amphitheatre from Hoffman

Giant Mountain from Big Slide

January 27. An easy hike of Green, Giant and Rocky Peak Ridge that ended with a rescue.

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Splinted and ready for evacuation

I had the easiest bushwhack route up Green dialed in. Tom Dubois showed me the way and Glen Bladholm and I went out in the fall and nailed it on the descent after having hiked Green's East Ridge from Owl's Head Lookout.

A bluebird day with mild temperatures was in store when Alistair and I crunched up the trail in our boots (no spikes, just boots) in total darkness. We broke the height of land below the Owl’s Head lookout as the sun was rising. This was a huge wow factor and the views of Rocky Peak Ridge were to die for. It seemed to take us a long time to cover the five miles to where we dropped our packs and put our snowshoes on. We debated whether to wear crampons or snowshoes but it was impossible to know how deep the snow would be higher up on the mountain, so snowshoes it was.

We climbed the moderate slopes easily in very little snow. The sun was intense and we enjoyed excellent views of Giant's north slide across the valley. We were back at our packs in no time and I had my 45 th peak in the rear-view with two more to come that day. I had pondered our next move ever since Glen and I had scouted it. We could either go back to the car and drive around to the Giant Ridge Trail trailhead or climb Giant via the North Trail. The latter choice was much more appealing, but we knew the North Trail received no winter traffic and were worried about sinking into deep snow with every step. We decided to hike the mile to the junction and start up it...

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Giant from Rocky Peak Ridge

The snow was deep, but very supportive so we kept going. I think we would have stuck with it no matter what the conditions were because we were now six miles from the car. In comparison, we were only 1.2 miles away from Giant's summit via the North Trail. I was feeling the effects of a difficult hike of Lost Pond Peak the day before followed by Cascade-Porter that same evening. We settled into a slow and steady 100-peak pace that felt effortless and sustainable “forever”. That pace brought us to the summit in very reasonable time and we quickly headed to the Rocky Peak junction and switched from snowshoes to K-10 crampons and dropped our packs. The return trip from Rocky was uneventful and the descent of the Ridge trail was quick and easy. At higher elevations, the firmly packed snow layer over a hard ice foundation allowed us to make excellent time. Our crampons bit into the ice wonderfully. Gradually, the snow layer gave way to glare ice and the trail became a river of it, but the K-10’s continued to kick butt. I was glad not to be wearing microspikes or Hillsounds. In the snow, higher up on the mountain I had noticed MSR snowshoe tracks that were headed down and I shuddered inwardly at the thought of negotiating the steep ice in those.

After so many difficult days of hiking I was glad to be having such an easy day! We would be out by four and I was really looking forward to visiting with my friends who had rented a cabin nearby. I could already taste the beer!

And then, as they say, all hell broke loose.

Just below the lower end of a series of switchbacks I saw a massive and steep ice flow, which gave me pause. Alistair was about five minutes ahead of me because I kept stopping to take pictures. I decided to use a protruding and angled tree as a step and very carefully began lowering my foot down on to it. It was a bit of a stretch for me and I knew I must not miss the four-inch trunk or I’d go sailing down the mountain.

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There were two young women on the other side of the flow, maybe 15 feet away. One was wearing the MSRs whose tracks I had noticed previously. They were descending extremely delicately and were about 10-15 feet above the actual trail having traversed the ice flow. The one lower down wore microspikes. Just as I was lowering myself onto that trunk the one in the MSR snowshoes lost her footing. She fell and began to slide. She was instantly moving as if she had been shot out of a cannon. It was a terrible sight to witness. She shot across the trail, became airborne, flipped over and disappeared from sight. The sounds of her hurtling through the woods and screaming were horrifying. And then, all was deadly quiet. Fearing something very bad I moved across the trail until I was directly above her and she was lying perfectly still, head uphill, face down. Then she lifted her head and I could see she was shaking and crying softly.

I instructed her friend to remain on the trail and using trees I carefully lowered myself to where she lay. I crouched beside her and began asking questions. She was fully conscious and after I introduced myself, I explained that I was a chiropractor with wilderness first aid training.

The only pain she reported was in her left ankle. What a miracle! I got her pack off and handed it to Alistair who had bushwhacked up and across from the trail. Luckily, he was within earshot when it happened. I removed her snowshoes and in a difficult setting, summarily evaluated the ankle. It looked like a grade two sprain of the ligament(s) on the outside of the joint. However, besides pain when I passively stretched those ligaments she had pain on resisted eversion and extreme tenderness over the end of her fibula. She might have had a fracture.

I informed her of what I was finding, but was also shooting the breeze about where she went to school, how many peaks she had done etc. and she was obviously 100% functioning at the brain level. In such a setting, my favorite combined neurological and orthopedic test is to instruct the victim to get up. This she did and I put her snowshoes back on for stability. I informed her that depending upon her ability to bear weight we had various options that ranged from our assisting her to walk out (assisted self-evacuation), to being flown off the mountain.

It took five minutes to go ten feet. In order to keep her left ankle in eversion when she bore weight I had her place the outside of the snowshoe decking on top of my foot. This helped keep the damaged ligaments slack. Whenever she bore weight with the ligaments under even moderate tension she winced in great pain. At this point a walk-out was looking impossible so Alistair and I discussed deploying the SOS function on my Spot device. I went down to a flat area next to the trail where the victim’s friend was now waiting and Alistair took over in walking the injured hiker down towards us. Daylight was fading.

I was about to push the SOS button when I saw the friend was looking at her phone! This would be much, much better and I called 911, got patched through to the DEC dispatch and was able to explain the situation in detail. Help was on its way! I then phoned my wife and Tom Haskins to let them each know why my Spot track would not be moving for a while.

I told the friend to put all her warm clothes on before she got cold and went back

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up to help Alistair who was doing a fantastic job. We got the victim down and sat her on a big fallen tree and got busy gathering birch bark, dry pine snaps and pieces of dry wood. I cleared away a few inches of slushy snow down to the ice layer and placed several pieces of wood down for a dry foundation. The girls had dryer lint and I had several pieces of the same mixed with paraffin. Between that and the birch bark we soon had a cheerful and warm fire going. While scrounging for firewood Alistair found a 16’x3’ piece of durable plastic with bubbles like bubble-wrap at a clandestine campsite. The girls were sitting on it, the victim with her foot elevated. The fire required a lot of attention to keep going and threatened to go out a few times, but we kept it burning brightly and nice and hot.

It took about 90 minutes from the time of the 911 call for a New York State Ranger to arrive and she of course was extremely competent. After about 30 minutes she had the victim in a splint and an improvised harness of climbing webbing and she wore a similar set-up that she hooked to a carabiner that was attached to the rig on the victim. She wanted to get down to the Giant’s Washbowl and she decided to use the tarp as a sled (brilliant idea!). So we folded it up and sat the victim down on it. The ranger, behind the “sled” and attached to the victim, acted as the brakes. I had a thin rope looped around a fold at the front end and I steered, pulled, and cajoled the contraption as necessary. Alistair, wearing two packs, walked alongside and pushed, pulled, and guided us as required. It was hard work, but effective. The victim was able to help maneuver herself over and through the steeper rocky sections with her arms and hands. At this point it was raining and the wind had picked up. It had grown dark well before the ranger had arrived.

Just as we arrived at the Washbowl a team of four more rangers came up from the trailhead. What a welcome sight! They had more gear and a real sled. They wrapped the victim in a full body hot pack and prepared to evacuate her down to Route 73, which was a mile away and down some gnarly and steep trail. Alistair and I escorted the friend out and upon arriving at his truck realized just how tired and worn out we were.

We drove around to the 9N trail-head and retrieved my vehicle and headed back to Tom and Doreen’s and recounted our adventure to them. Finally, we went to bed thinking of what had gone before and what kind of ice we would find on Noonmark and Blue Mountain the next day.

The Noonmark Trail was like this for the entire hike

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Meeting nutritional requirementsEach weekend, I estimate I burned between 25,000 and 35,000 calories and required close to a kilogram of protein.

On some hikes I ate conscientiously and on others I was negligent. However, I failed to observe a relationship between my fueling (or lack of) and my energy levels. On some days I didn't eat anything later than 2pm even though the hike continued well into the night. I don't understand these “results” because according to what I have read only 50% of my calories (at my pace and fitness level) would have been derived from body fat. The other half would have had to come from on-board glycogen stores (very limited) and what I consumed. This leaves a gap of roughly 4,000 calories to be obtained while hiking. From carbohydrate this equates to a kilogram of glucose. I definitely didn't consumed anywhere near that quantity of food and I never came close to bonking. I often wondered where the energy was coming from. Perhaps I was extremely fat-adapted. I also wondered how much of what I have read about fueling for endurance sports pertains to hiking.

As I proceeded through the project I attempted to fulfill my nutritional requirements as a function of:

● single day-hikes ● 3-4 day weekends of hiking● individual weeks● the entire three months of the project

On any given day-hike there was no way I could eat as many calories as I burned, including during the hike as well as before and after. Here is what I typically ate on a given hiking day:

In the morning I would eat four pieces of white toast with butter and honey and a large bowl of sugared cereal (Frosted Flakes, muesli). On the trail I ate carb-rich food I had prepared at home during the months leading up to the project. Sweet dollar-sized pancakes smeared with Nutella, confectioned nuts, and yeasty cinnamon rolls made up the bulk of my food. When that began to run out I augmented it with Snickers bars, Ritters chocolate, Pop-Tarts, store-bought or Doreen's homemade cookies, and store-bought mixed nuts. I never ate energy or protein bars. On many of the hikes, at strategic moments, I consumed a 100 calorie coffee-flavored GU packet with 100mg of caffeine. What worked best was bringing with me whatever food I thought I would eat. Back at the Loft I would eat a modest dinner and drink one or two beers before turning in.

As for hydrating, I averaged about half a Nalgene per hike. I drank several cups of coffee in the morning and sipped water while driving to the trailhead so I started out well-hydrated. Even if I didn't drink for six hours, my urine remained a pale color.

Over the course of a 3-4 day weekend I always built up a significant calorie deficit

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and returned home looking a little gaunt. That left the 3-4 days until the next weekend to catch up. I ate constantly and everything in sight. I often woke up hungry in the middle of the night even after a large dinner and a hefty bedtime snack.

It seemed that as long as I was getting enough to eat overall that I was able to keep cranking out the big days, day in-day out, week after week. What I ate on the actual days that I hiked didn't appear to be critically important. I noticed that my hiking partner Joe Bogardus, who is an alert student of all things related to hiking, ate or drank very little on our hikes of the four Sewards, the five Dixes and our 13-hour day in the Sawtooths. Perhaps nutrition and hydration are topics that get over-hyped. It's possible that performance issues that are blamed on inadequate hydration or nutrition are in fact related to training shortcomings. Maybe Joe and I will design a study.....

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February 2-3. The Sawtooth Range - Turning point of Project-100.If anyone knows the difficulties of the Sawtooth Range it's me. I have done three rounds of the 11 Sawtooth peaks on the northeast 3,000 footer list, countless rounds of the five peaks on the ADK-Hundred Highest list, including all five in a single day, twice. So, I knew full well what I would be faced with in that range. It was clear that I would pair Four with Two and Three with Five. I saw One as a “pivot peak” and it could be done with either pair.

Sawtooth Day One: Four and Two.Joe Bogardus and I began the hike from Averyville on the Pine Pond Road. We wore trail crampons and booted it at a good pace. It was cold and would not get above 0F all day. The bushwhack towards Sawtooth Four is easy, but long. It traverses open beech-maple forests, crosses brooks and tributary streams and gains elevation very gradually. The route takes you into a cirque-shaped valley whose western wall is made up of Sawtooth Four and its north ridge. To the east is the Sawtooth Two-Two North ridge.

Joe descends steep and icy terrain below Sawtooth#4

We followed the drainage through open woods and then we opted to walk directly on its frozen surface, which made for easy travelling. At 3100′ the slope becomes quite steep and there we dropped our packs. I have a string of waypoints for the final ascent of Four and whenever I follow it, the route is surprisingly easy. Whenever I don’t follow it the route is a difficult time and energy sink. I kept calling out the bearing changes to Joe who would stop and dial the new bearing into his compass and follow it for five minutes until I called out the next bearing.

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Map of Sawtooth Range with routes drawn from memory (not a GPS tracklog). Resolution improves with magnification.

It took us six hours to make it from the car to the summit of Four and I said to Joe that my best time was 4h30. Even when the traveling is easy, winter bushwhacking is a slow business.

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Covered in snow beside the summit marker tape on Sawtooth #4

We returned quickly to our packs and side-sloped to the col between Four and Two. I have camped at this col three times and it's my favorite spot in the High Peaks wilderness. I showed Joe where I usually put up my tarp as we walked by without stopping. By now it was obvious that we would not be doing One, which took off a lot of pressure. Nevertheless, as usual on a bushwhack, time was moving along quickly and darkness would come early. Had we done One first we would have had no choice but to do Four no matter how late in the day. Otherwise I would be “splitting” the range and Four would become an outlier. I had also reflected that this would have made Three-Five an awkward pair of peaks due to the distance between their best entry points and the potential complication of spotting cars. I had no exit route from Two in my GPS, but I knew which way I wanted to go. I had used this route with Tom Haskins and Mark Lowell more than 10 years ago and it had been easy. Joe and I enjoyed a beautiful descent with perfect snow conditions through hardwood forests as darkness gradually swallowed us. Our in-bound tracks were 2.5 miles distant as the crow flies and we trudged steadfastly towards them. I would look at the paper map, pull out the GPS and project the cursor on the screen to obtain a bearing and then we dialed it into our compasses to hike in a straight line. It wasn’t pitch dark yet, so we could also use the surrounding ridges as landmarks for another half-hour. We had open woods the entire way and the headlamps easily picked out the open lanes. Whoever was in front checked his compass nearly every minute and I would check the GPS and map every 10 minutes or so.

We were happy to (finally!) step onto our inbound tracks and turn our navigating

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brains to the off position. We still had another two hours of hiking in front of us. It was -9F back at the car. Total time was 13 hours and change. I did not open my pack once all day. I didn’t change any of my clothes, did not drink any water at all and only ate the food I had placed in my jacket pocket that morning. I never felt thirsty all day long.

When I arrived back at the Loft my new partners, Jean and Marie-Josée were waiting. The laptop was open at my Spot page and they had been watching our progress. I shoveled food, drank water, swigged beer, changed clothing and discussed the plan for the next day – all at the same time! I tossed my damp clothes into the dryer and we set our alarms for 4:30. I fell asleep immediately and awoke at 3:45.

By now I had my morning routine choreographed and I was munching toast and studying the weather forecast when I heard Marie-Josée begin to stir. Another chilly day was in store.

photo: Marie-Josée Ouellet

Sawtooth Day Two. Three, Five and One.

Our day began easily. We followed the Northville Placid Trail (NPT) seven miles southbound for more than three hours. South of the Moose Pond lean-to we lost the trail on numerous occasions, but the snow conditions were supportive so it didn't really matter whether we were off or on the trail. We left the NPT where Moose Creek becomes a placid river that winds lazily through swamps. We walked on the frozen surface for a half-mile and marveled at the beauty of the landscape. Then the rubber hit the road. The 1500-foot ascent of Three proved to be difficult due to degrading snow conditions and thick woods. Initially, I wanted to proceed further to the north into a col before turning west, but the terrain directly above us was so inviting we couldn't resist. Knowing that the terrain would have been much easier to climb through I regretted not having insisted

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that we continue another 200 meters into the col. However, at noon we were on top of Three and thinking only about Five, the lowest of them all at 3450 feet (One is just shy of 3900).

We didn’t linger on the summit, which was a new one for Jean who has done more than 600 summits from the 3,000 footer list. Route-finding off of Three down the 1000 foot drop was a constant challenge and all three of us participated whether we were in the lead position or at the back. Once we were off the mountain we enjoyed an interlude across fields of beautiful open grassland intersected by a winding drainage. Jean and I had once camped nearby and we identified the exact spot where we had set up the tarp. The ascent of Five entailed only 600 feet of elevation gain, but it was steep and the snow was not at all firm. I was feeling the effects of the difficult hiking I had been doing since the morning before. We lingered on top for 10 minutes for food and pictures, but I grew cold so quickly that I had to get going and move as fast as possible through the deep snow.

photo: Marie-Josée OuelletJust a little dishevelled on Sawtooth #5. Second peak of the day

My shell pants had frozen hard like stove pipes. Just before our departure from Five Jean said it was 2:30 pm. We had been hoping for 2:00. Sawtooth One was still a mile-and-a-half away. It would be getting dark when we summited.

After passing the lowest point we found a drainage we could walk in and it was going our way so we followed it until it became too narrow. After what seemed like a long time we finally entered the open vly at the 2-1 col and walked along the east side.

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Late in the day in the open Sawtooth 1-2 col

I was now checking the GPS frequently and calling out compass bearings. It was crucial that we avoid the cliffs that line the west and south sides of the summit bloc route, which would be solid ice. We also had to thread our route so as to avoid the “evil gully,” which is choked with blowdown and cripple-bush. The gully lies due west of the summit so we continued north and then curled towards the east in an ascending arc that grew very steep. (See map above)

When we arrived at the head of the evil gully we looked across at the impressive cliffs we had successfully avoided. I had Marie-Josée, who was leading at that moment, side-hill until we were past the gully and then the rubber really hit the road. We could see the summit bloc in the last of the daylight and with the wind raking the knoll we stood upon, it felt as though it was blowing right through us. We looked way, way up and saw snow-encased trees waving to and fro. The climb ahead looked to be straight up, and according to our instruments the summit was another 300 vertical feet away, but at that time of day it looked like 3,000 feet. The steep slopes were caked in ice, but the small rock faces were interwoven with channels of snow. We could climb the snow, but only with great difficulty. When leading, Marie-Josée had resorted to punching hers arms in up to her shoulders and using them as an anchor to pull herself up. It was intimidatingly steep and the cold wind sawed at us relentlessly. The sunset was spectacular and I paused to look out behind us at wild and rugged Sawtooth Two as we slowly drew even with it. But the task at hand, with now more than 20 hours of off-trail hiking in my legs, was so daunting that I didn't care how beautiful it was. Now, while I write this and conjure up the memory, I see it as both beautiful and intimidating.

Long story short, the slope began to relent and we made it to the summit. M-J took a group selfie of us next to the sign and then we got out of there. Following our tracks we got down the steepest section to our exit point in no time. It was

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about there that the battery case of my GPS sprung open and the unit itself went flying into the snow while the battery cover dangled uselessly at the end of the lanyard. I found the unit without its (white) batteries and Jean had a fresh set of lithium batteries out in less than a minute.

photo: Marie-Josée OuelletSawtooth #1. Let’s get outta here ASAP!

Then it was down, down, down through open woods and soft snow along a bearing that would serve us well for hours to come. The headlamps in the not-quite-totally-dark woods picked out the openings and we made excellent time until we hit wall after wall of thick woods. I had used this exact route, or so I thought, a couple of years earlier and had no recollection of encountering any difficulties. I was mystified, but there was nothing to be done. We tried deviating around it in the pitch dark, but finally we decided to push through along our compass bearing. After 30 slow minutes we hit open woods again, which we followed all the way out to Joe and my trail on the Old Woods Road from the night before. The night was jet black, but we could just barely discern near-by treetops looming out of the sky.

Back at the car I couldn’t believe it when I saw the time. We had been out for 14 hours, stopping only for 10 minutes on Sawtooth Five, never sitting down and fighting the cold continuously while expending massive amounts of energy. When I finally lay my body down to rest and my head hit the pillow, relief and contentment passed through me like a wave.

Hiking the five peaks in 27 hours over two back-to-back days made the Sawtooths an important milestone in the Project. I knew now that I could do anything that Project-100 put in my path. Nothing, I thought, would be as tough as the Sawtooths. I would come to learn that because of the Sawtooths my fitness had declined from its peak level. It would stabilize at a lower level and not recover to its former height. To me that signifies that in order to do the Sawtooth Range I had dipped into the capital of my fitness for the first time.

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February 24th Haystack, Basin and Saddleback (#’s 77-79). Pictorial Essay. Thank you Mudrat and Alan for letting me use your pictures!

A well-laden Mudrat and Alan en route for Haystack

photo: MudratOn Haystack. The lighting changed continuously.

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photo: MudratDescending Little Haystack. Dicey spot!

photo: MudratLooking for some grip

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Kevin dry tooling

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Clouds roll in. Almost at the top!

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photo: Mudrat

photo: Mudrat

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photo: MudratWell-earned repose and fellowship on the summit of Haystack

Kevin (Mudrat) MacKenzie easily ascends the icy flanks of Basin

photo: Mudrat

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River of iceIt wasn’t a day for hiking poles

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photo: Mudrat

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Topping out on Saddleback

photo: Alan WechslerSo, you’re sure you don’t want to do Allen with me tomorrow?

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If you are thinking of doing a big hiking project.....It would be presumptuous of me to tell anybody what to do because everyone is different. Nevertheless, I present this as a how-to guide and have integrated what has worked for me and what I thought led others to abandon their projects.

● Get started early● Be ready to work hard and put in the time● Research● Understand what “mountain” fitness is● Figure out what works and what doesn't long before the start● Hike, hike, and hike some more● Own it● Get all the help you can● Want it● Give yourself a fighting chance● Take good care of yourself

Get an early start.I usually give myself a six-month preparation period, which I use to thoroughly familiarize myself with the trails and mountains I will be tackling. For instance, for Project-46 I integrated nearly a full round of the 46 into my physical training. For Project-100, it had been years since I had done the southern peaks so I spent a few weekends bushwhacking all of the trailless ones. (It turns out I am only 3 peaks away from a 3rd round of the Lower 54!) Also, a six-month training plan is the minimum I require to develop my aerobic base and for what I call “tissue toughness” to develop. You have to be careful not to try and improve too quickly or you increase the risk of overuse injury. There are no shortcuts to aerobic power.

Be ready to work hard. Time takes time.I devoted 20-30 hours a week (and more as the start date loomed close) just with hiking and training. I also spent time online and on the phone. I was able to do this because I only work two days a week and the Adirondacks are only two-and-a-half hours from my house.

Research it to death! Then research some more.In the case of the Lower 54, I hiked approximately 15 trailless peaks in order to get them into my head. During the project I benefited tremendously from fore-knowledge and was better prepared for the difficulties and knowing the various access points and approaches to the peaks. As for the 46, I felt confident that I knew the trail system well enough that little time was spent on researching. Nevertheless, I did one research hike from trailless Green to Giant via the North trail to refresh my memory. Also during the project, before doing Marcy in what I thought would be a whiteout, Tom Haskins and I spent at least an hour researching the details of the route and loading it into not one, but two GPS units.

What works and what doesn't. Find out before the project starts.I am referring to footwear, gear, pack, socks, mittens and gloves etc. The most important is your footwear. You want to be absolutely certain that your feet will be comfortable, warm, and pain-free. This might be tricky if you train in one

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season and your project takes place in a different one. For the severe cold snap at the beginning of P-100 I was never cold, including my hands and feet. By then I knew exactly what to wear. Where I had trouble was on bushwhacks in damp conditions and with temps in the 20s and 30s. Eventually, I took to wearing a rain jacket and carrying a breathable shell in my pack.

Own your project. After all, it's yours!If you embark on a big hiking project you have to assume ownership of it from beginning to end. You and you alone are responsible for its success or failure and the safety of you and your partners. You will be making all of the decisions. That doesn't mean to ignore the next heading.

Get help. Lots of help. Involve a whole community.Don't be shy when it comes to asking for advice and opinions from people more experienced and more knowledgeable than yourself. Also, don't go it alone. No matter what the nature of your project, you will increase your chances of success if you enlist other hikers to help you. It's easy to lose motivation when you are alone out there in bad weather, tired, mentally fatigued etc. And, you will experience all of that.

Mountain Fitness is unique. Hiking 10-12 hours a day for days in a row with as much as 8,000 feet of elevation gain (and loss) requires its own particular type of fitness. You have to hit the trails, hard and often. Don't think you can wing it and get fit during your project or get ready by jogging three times a week in your neighborhood. You have to get out there and pound the trails on consecutive 12-hour days. Mental fatigue results from physical fatigue, which feeds back into the physical fatigue. It's a pernicious feedback loop and if your fitness is lacking you will experience this and it will shackle you.

Want it bad. You can't coach desire.Your project should inspire you so much that you are positively burning with desire. You should feel an overwhelming ambition to succeed. This will help when you start getting sick of the training and organizing. A friend of mine always says, if you didn't get it you didn't want it bad enough.

Give yourself a decent chance of succeeding.Don't set yourself up for failure. The project's size and complexity should fit you. Depending on your life situation and experience you will want to tackle something that is hard enough to be a serious challenge, but not so difficult that you will almost certainly fail.

On the trailYou have to take care of yourself. This usually means stopping when you don't want to and attending to something like changing your socks, removing vapor barriers, digging out more food, or putting on an extra layer. Also, I tried not to think too much about the days (or hours) to come. I stayed focused on the present moment and enjoyed it as much as I could. On certain seemingly endless walks out to the trailhead in the dark I let my mind go wherever it wanted to and avoided (as much as I could) looking for certain landmarks or wondering how far it still was to the car.

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photo: Sean CarpenterJust before heading off to peak #99. Fishing Brook-1

With Mélanie Bergeron, Marie-Josée Ouellet, Jean-François Lebeau and Éric Morris

Low moments and tough hikes. Sentinel Mountain (# 95) and North River (#97).It there is one hike I wish I could do over it would be Stewart-Sentinel. I got off to a bad start by incorrectly setting an alarm and sleeping in to 6:30. The meet-up time was supposed to be at 7 and I had nothing ready; all of my gear was spread out on the floor and I had no food prepared. But I had to keep my cool and slowly and methodically go about my preparations knowing my partners (Jean Roy and David Gomlak) would be wondering where I was. I initially thought I would have a big team lined up, but as the hike drew near most of my potential partners had dropped out.

On the previous day I spent 13 hours with Glen Bladholm (and Bill Brizzell for part of the day) breaking out the Santanoni Direct Trail in deep powdery snow as a warm-up to a 4.5 mile bushwhack to Little Santanoni and back. I got to bed late after that tough day and lost Glen as a partner, who said he felt too tired for another hike the next day.

Once we got underway Jean, David and I had an easy ascent of Stewart, but things began to unravel from there on. After the summit our next goal was a col 500 vertical feet below moderate slopes with the occasional steep drop. It did not go well even though the appearance of the terrain suggested it should have. There was a hard crust of ice under ball-bearing snow and we took turns going sprawling. Getting a grip (pun intended) was difficult. I began to reconsider my route to Sentinel, which involved a mile of steep side-hilling on the SE side of Sentinel’s NW ridge.

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I have drawn my originally intended route on this map.

I had done this same side-hilling in the opposite direction in summer and I remembered it as being very steep. Just as we began to round the ridge I conferred with Jean and we decided to go up onto the crest of the ridge and take our chances with it. On the map it looks like a good route, but in reality I knew it could be bad. Up on the crest we were exposed to icy cold and insistent winds. Throughout much of the distance the woods were fairly open, but the tight areas were extremely thick and our progress was snail-paced. We were cold and wet and the wind blew bitterly cold. In spite of having dry changes of clothing in our packs we didn’t want stop and change because doing so would have meant exposing ourselves to the wind. So, we kept pressing on. If you were in the lead the effort of breaking trail kept you ahead of feeling hypothermic but in second and third positions it was a lot colder. We had to stop often to verify our navigation and make route choices (the ridge is not an obvious knife-edge) and ensure that we were taking the best lines. At these times we immediately began shivering hard, too hard, but we preferred pushing on at the edge of hypothermia to changing our clothes. In retrospect, this unwillingness to stop and change was a key error because it needlessly conferred a sense of urgency to our hike that at times bordered on desperate.

Throughout this long, slow, and tedious ridge-hike I kept a sharp eye on myself and my mental faculties and asked Jean how he was doing regularly. David, whenever I checked him seemed to be his usual self. We were aiming for a mini-col to the immediate NW of Sentinel. Near the col the woods opened right up and being in the lead, I charged through at high speed. But, when I stopped and verified my compass I saw I had unwittingly veered about 150 degrees off-course in less than five minutes! I believe it when I read that there is no such thing as a “sense of direction”. We had no choice but to turn towards the thick woods and tangled blowdown and expose ourselves yet again to those bitter winds. And the wind was strong now as it funneled through the col. The final couple hundred yards were absolutely brutal in the deep snow and they required intense focus, steel-nerved patience, and hard work through hallmark ADK cripplebrush. David asked me if this was in my top ten of difficult hikes. I was so focused that I didn’t respond, but had long since considered it to be the toughest hike I had ever done in my life.

We saw the summit sign, but did not break stride, and just kept a move on through woods that were now wide open. The wind was much calmer and at our backs. I moved rapidly, generating as much heat as I could muster. I was afraid of dropping off the ridge and erroneously led us too far to the south. We descended something wicked steep and David nearly bought the farm. I called out, “don’t go down there!” as he was lying on his back sliding, feet downhill towards a 10-foot vertical drop and yelling back to me, “I’m trying REAL HARD not too”. He recovered well, but watching him struggle mightily due to my poor planning and route-finding was a low-point in the entire project for me. In fact I was kicking myself for not having loaded this bail-out option into my GPS. Luc Labarre and I had totally nailed this descent off of Sentinel only a few months previously and I had recorded a tracklog. However, the day's plan called for us to include Kilburn as our third peak. Our planned exit point and waiting vehicle were at Monument Falls, not Bartlett road to where we were now headed.

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Further ahead I knew we would run into cliffs, so I led us downhill to the south and then curled northward under the cliffs and set us up to descend towards the ridge that leads to the Cobble. The slope was steep and when the tree I placed my hand against snapped off I became airborne. Flying like superman I was headed for a downed tree-trunk and instinctively extended my arms for protection. I absorbed all of the impact with my left arm, which recoiled violently. I regained my feet and noted some stiffness in my triceps muscle, but nothing else. Close call! I could just as easily have smashed my face into the tree. I then curled too far to the north and we ended up descending the valley to the immediate north of the Cobble ridge. This turned out for the best (once the guys got me to accept it) and we had about two miles of easy trudging through wide open hardwoods sloping gently downhill to Bartlett Road. When we paused to put our headlamps on I finally changed into a dry base layer shirt, put on my puffy jacket, a dry shell, new mitts and shell mitts and one more hat. It felt incredibly good and I mentally castigated myself for not having done so two hours earlier.

David’s presence of mind and two bars of cell signal resulted in his wife Tmax picking us up on Bartlett Road and delivering us to our vehicles. Where I had intended to lead us out the road was not plowed! I privately mused that I had five peaks still to do with my March 21st deadline rapidly approaching.

March 16 North River

A lot of snow had fallen prior to my final weekend. All of my remaining peaks were bushwhacks. I had left North River as a straggler after an 11-hour day (see Cheney Cobble) and it was now or never. Being a Friday, it was difficult to recruit hiking partners, but Alistair and Gérald were on-board. However, the night before Gérald didn’t show up at Mercy cabin. This was cause for major concern because two people would yield a difficult and long day and I had a large and capable team assembled for an even longer hike on Saturday for the two Fishing Brook peaks. Mentally juggling my remaining peaks and days I decided that Alistair and I would at least break out a trail to within the final mile of North River and I would return, perhaps alone, before my March 21st deadline.

On the freeway, as we were approaching a rest area, I called out at the last minute for Alistair to pull in. We parked next to a car with Quebec plates and who should it be but Gérald who couldn’t find Mercy cabin the night before. He figured we would stop at the rest area so he had pulled in early after sleeping in his vehicle the night before. He was behind the wheel eating a bowl of cereal!

At the East River Trailhead Alistair and I were all set, wearing our skis when Gérald pulled in. We started off without him and began to break trail in two feet of fresh snow. He would catch us easily, gliding effortlessly on our broken trail. We spent 3:30 trudging slowly along the trail and to our discomfiture Gérald never caught up to us. What could have gone wrong? We were back to considering doing the best we could, breaking trail part-way to the summit. I was counting the hours until the next morning’s hike and determining our turnaround time when Gérald showed up just as we were preparing for the bushwhack! Gérald’s presence changed everything and like shifting mosaic pieces my remaining peaks

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rearranged themselves once again.

My plan was to first ascend into the col that separates North River from Cheney Cobble. From there we would aim for the summit. My route involved ascending gently at an angle to the fall-line to intersect then climb in the drainage that descended from the col. Before long there was some tension. We were swapping leads and my partners were continuously pulled uphill by the allure of both open woods and elevation gain. In vain I tried to convince them of the error of their ways. The summit was at a 90 degree angle to my direction of travel and to many bushwhacking peakbaggers this is anathema. The most direct line is usually preferred. Gérald showed me his GPS and with some impatience pointed out that we were heading directly towards Cheney Cobble. I mollified him when I pulled out the map and patiently explained that between us and the summit there was a very steep sub-summit and ridge. I also explained that I had read reports that travel via this route was overwhelmingly thick and I wished to avoid it at all costs. I took over the lead and because we had climbed too high already I proceeded to lead us on a descending traverse under very steep terrain and cliff walls.

We were approaching the drainage, but were hung up on steep slopes 200 feet above it. Immediately below us was nothing but air and treetops. We could not descend without getting hung up on cliffs. The snow was hip-deep and without support. Spruce traps alternated with blowdown and our progress came to a near standstill. We were working much too hard for the measly progress we were making. I was inwardly furious and losing heart. I felt lower than I had yet on the entire project. As usual the clock was ticking. I was ready to backtrack, lose 200 feet of elevation and enter the drainage from below, but Alistair encouraged me to keep going, “just to that big tree up ahead, it looks more open after that”. Knowing that the drainage was ascending as we converged upon, it I gave it a go. Sure enough, we were then able to angle downwards and reach the more open woods and gentler terrain alongside it.

We were 400 yards from the height of land and I knew there were no obstacles in our immediate path. The snow was soft and deep and we fell into a few spruce traps along the way, but our progress was encouraging. We crossed the height of land and I had us continue downhill towards Boreas Ponds for 100 feet of elevation loss to clear an intervening ridge. Only then was it time to turn towards the summit. We were 1000 yards from it. In summer it is an easy bushwhack. On this day, in the deep snow we would pay dearly. When the terrain grew steeper there was more tension between myself and my partners. My plan was to follow the gentlest slopes possible to a min-col 200 yards north of the summit. My partners preferred the most direct route to the summit. I considered the pitches above us too steep and a waste of energy. When I was leading I sought out gentler terrain to our right. This did not go over well with my partners and our ascent route was a bit zig-zaggy. Being outnumbered, I finally relented and said OK let’s make a beeline for the top. I also considered the sacrifice my partners were making for me by taking part in this incredibly difficult hike simply to help me reach my 100 summit goal.

It was incredibly hard and slow. Alistair asked me often to look at the GPS and tell him how far we were from the top. This produced more discouragement than the

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opposite as the numbers seemed to remain stationary for long periods of time while we deployed tremendous amounts of effort with hearts pounding, chests heaving and legs a-fire. I kept a watchful eye on the clock, which seemed to have sped up every time I looked at it. I had considered 4pm as a good turnaround time but with only 200 yards left to go turning back seemed perverse. Resolutely, we pressed on. At this point and in spite of the time of day, the now insignificant conflicts, the tough conditions and the effort, I was at peace and felt resigned to my fate. I had been in enough difficult situations throughout the project to shrug it all off.

Before us towered a steep knoll beyond which the slope eased off and led to what we thought was the summit. It befell me to take the lead and I have no idea how I managed to ascend those 30 vertical feet. My arm, trunk, and leg muscles strained to the very limits of their capacity as I used trees to haul myself up in the deep sugary snow. Bent over double at the top I asked Gérald to take over the lead position.

Now the terrain was nearly flat and my GPS indicated only 60 feet remained but something felt wrong. This was my third time on this summit and everything was totally unfamiliar. We stepped out into a clearing and Alistair fell to his waste in a spruce trap and began wallowing. I skirted the trap and saw that we were on a tiny summit island and the true summit was indeed 60 feet to our south. A cliff band lay at my feet and I had to deviate widely off-course before finding a steep ramp to descend. Alistair had turned back after the spruce trap encounter, fearful of breaking his snowshoes and feeling satisfied with what he decided was “his” summit. A steep slope lay ahead of Gérald and I. We had no choice but to dig deeply one more time and climb it. I finally recognized the true summit, but a massive spruce branch, exposed to the winds and completely encrusted with rime ice blocked my path. I fell to my hands and knees and crawled under it, stood and took the final three steps to the highest point. It was 5pm and I immediately turned around. The return trip to our skis went quickly and easily downhill over our packed trail and we back on our skis before dark. The trip out with the skis was also easy although we were all quite tired. My thoughts were focused to the Fishing Brook Range, which had the potential to be just as hard as North River. We left the trailhead in Alistair’s truck at 10:00 and had an hour’s drive back to Mercy cabin.

February 25th. Allen (#80) and a swim in Skylight Brook

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The Slide of AllenWhen I pulled into the empty parking lot at the East River trailhead for my 3rd consecutive day of hiking and my 80th peak a part of me didn’t want to get going. (I had hiked Boreas, Wolf Pond and Sunrise on the first day followed by Haystack, Basin and Saddleback on the 2nd.) It took me more than 30 minutes to get organized. Getting my boots on, putting in my contact lenses, organizing my pack - all of these little chores dragged on. I think it was being alone in winter for one of the most remote of the High Peaks that played upon me. Then I realized I had left my jacket with my camera and hiking food in the pockets back at the Loft. It was snowing lightly but steadily and the temperature was close to freezing. Luckily, I had tossed a soft-shell into my car before leaving Montreal and it was still there. This was the only time all winter I had brought it! Phew! How lucky is that? I put it on thinking it would get soaked but it was a lot better than nothing.

My original plan had been to ski as far as possible along the many miles of trail that would take me to the the base of the mountain. However, the day before (Haystack, Basin and Saddleback) the trails had been nothing but ice so I left the skis behind. Tom had suggested I take them and try them on the first few hundred feet of trail. “You can always turn around if it’s bad and switch to snowshoes.” And within those few hundred feet it was obvious that skis would have been absolutely perfect. I should have listened to Tom! As the falling snow (icy pellets more like) fell and bounced off my soft-shell I tried not to think of how swiftly and effortlessly I could be gliding along the trail as I nevertheless booted it quickly in micro-spikes. I had snowshoes and crampons loaded on the outside of my pack.

I was hustling and making excellent time and greatly enjoyed listening to music on my smart phone, something I very rarely do when hiking. When I arrived at Skylight Brook it was a roaring torrent. I spent some time scouting a safe crossing and made it over on some big rocks relatively easily. Still cruising along quickly I

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hoofed it until the trail veered up Allen Brook. I switched over from microspikes to crampons and under a layer of new snow the treadway was just visible. The trail was steep and ascending was hard work. It was at this point that I began to feel intimidated by Allen, a peak I have hiked numerous times before and in all seasons. My pace felt quite slow in spite of my efforts. The narrow and steep-walled cut that Allen Brook flows through was both intimidating and beautiful. This cleft has always felt sinister and malevolent to me. The ascent is steep, wild, and rugged. After the long miles of approach the sensation I had was one of loneliness and foreboding surroundings. The snow kept falling and I wore my solitude like a cloak of vulnerability. I kept looking upwards at the ever-steepening slope and dug deeper into my psyche, repelling emotional fears with rational arguments.

As the trail climbs the mountain it comes to an opening - the infamous Allen “slide”, which is a zone of bare rock. At this point the slope became strikingly steep and icy. I was using my ice ax and kicking hard with my crampons into the hardened surface. I kept to the side where there was enough snow to kick into. All I could think about was how difficult and dangerous the descent would be. To put my mind at ease I turned around and descended 30 feet - to my relief I had no problem with it. Above the slide the slope remained steep but I could hang onto trees and pull myself up. There were a couple of tricky icy sections that I studied well for descending purposes. All this time I felt like I was getting a royal butt kicking it was so hard. I was worn down from the previous days of hiking and every step was an effort until I reached the gently sloped ridge that runs between the two summit bumps - the Devil Horns as some people refer to them.

When I reached the summit sign I turned around immediately and focused on the coming descent. I was acutely aware of the vulnerability of my position so far from help and so alone. I concentrated on each step and made sure that every foot placement was made securely. In retrospect I don’t think it was all that difficult or risky. I made use of one hiking pole and my ax and was both amazed and relieved at how quickly I reached the bottom of the slide. There the slope eased off and I made excellent time taking giant steps and went plunging down the mountain. All of my confidence returned and my spirits soared.

Before long I was back at the roaring Skylight Brook. I decided that instead of deviating upstream to my earlier crossing I could go directly across on a patch of ice that was underlain by a tree trunk. I was halfway across when the ice collapsed and I went sprawling sideways into the freezing and swift flowing water. I was immediately aware of being soaked from mid-torso to the tips of my toes and I could feel the current pulling at me. I was able to get onto my feet in the thigh deep water and I carefully stepped across to the far side. Inwardly, I was swearing to make a sailor blush. Why didn’t I use my earlier crossing? Why was I so overconfident? Why was I so stupid? These questions were pointless so I assessed the situation and thought out my moves. I quickly removed my pack and lay my spare clothing out in the order I would put it on. I removed my traction devices and boots, my socks (two pairs), shell pants, long underwear, and finally my underwear. Standing on my soaked footbeds for insulation from the snow I put on two new pair of socks, plastic bags and my synthetic puffy pants. With a fresh pair of dry footbeds inserted I pulled on and laced up my boots. The plastic bags would prevent my wet boots from soaking my socks. I wrung out my wet stuff as best I could and shoved it all into a plastic bag. I put on an extra wool hat and took off up to a height of land that lay two hundred feet above the brook.

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I kept my soaked jacket and base layer shirt on thinking that I had often worn them just as wet when bushwhacking and this turned out to be OK. It was not very cold and the trail was going uphill, which enabled me to generate body heat. Also in my pack but not used I had another base layer shirt, a puffy jacket, a synthetic parka and other mitts and hats. All of this extra gear was inside a rolled up and tightly cinched dry bag inside my pack.

The hike out was difficult because the freshly fallen snow (two inches deep) was extremely sticky. It balled up under my crampons so I switched to microspikes which were no better. I decided to try my snowshoes and this was terrible. Finally, with my snowshoes, crampons and spikes on my pack I walked in bare boots. The footing was squishy and my feet tended to slip around and progress was a slow energy sink. What worked the best was to jog and this I did for at least two hours with my heavily laden pack that bounced around on my back unless I cinched the straps extra tight.

When I arrived at my car I noted that I had done the trip in under 9 hours including the dunking in Skylight Brook. This was a very fast time for me. I thought about how hard and slow it had felt climbing the steep slopes of Allen. I reflected that a peak like Allen would always feel difficult no matter how fit I was because I would exert myself to the edge of my limits. I had hiked 60 miles over the past three days and was feeling beat up. I decided the Project would benefit more from me having an extra day of recovery than by advancing by two more peaks. Street and Nye had been planned for the next day, day four of the weekend and could be done later.

Allen Mountain in soft morning light

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February 17-18 and March 3-4. The Wakely Dam-Moose River Plains-Perkins Clearing peaks.Panther, Buell, and Brown Pond. Little Moose, Cellar, Wakely. Pillsbury and Blue Ridge 56. Eight peaks, three hikes. 8% of the project.

Ed and Nick Lascala of the Indian Lake Snowariors with MJO

I expended an incredible amount of mental energy thinking, scheming, and worrying about these peaks. In winter, the seasonal access roads are unplowed and used as snowmobile trails. By my rough estimate, the road-walking in and out to the bases of the peaks would come to about 40 miles. Initially, I thought of setting up a winter camp near Wakely Dam and doing Little Moose and Cellar on day one, Wakely on day two, and Buell, Panther, and Brown Pond on day three. My idea was to get taken in by snowmobile with gear (including a full change of clothes for each day), quickly set up camp then continue to the base of Little Moose by snowmobile. After Little Moose I would walk the road back to camp doing Cellar on the way. Day two would be a shorter day doing Wakely only and day three would be the grand finale: Buell, Panther, and Brown Pond. The problem was time. Winter camping is an incredible time sink. Also, I was having no luck lining up a snowmobile ride. Skiing in towing a gear-ladened sled was looking like a possibility. Also, finding partners who winter camp, who could take a Friday off and get home late on a Sunday night, and who were ready to do a lot of bushwhacking and trail breaking was not going to be easy.

Well into the project, but while I was still focused on the High Peaks Region, Tom Haskins pointed out that there was a road that began on the Cedar River Road and which would take us to the height of land between Panther and Brown Pond. “It's a day hike”, he said. The only problem was crossing the Deer Valley Club's private lease-hold. I found the club's website and sent an email requesting permission to cross their land, but got no response so I sent another. Still no response. I always say that if you send two messages and get no reply that's a message. I found the club president's phone number and left him a message. No

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reply. And then, upon returning from a hiking weekend my wife says to me, “you have a phone message from Fred Lamy in Indian Lake. He returned your call”. It turned out the club's email doesn't work and Fred was way up in northern Quebec sledding. It also turned that Fred was very friendly and happy to chat. Permission was granted!

So, on February 17th, a perfect bluebird day, Bill Brizzell, Brian Meriam, and I began an easy four-mile walk on the rock-hard road.

I had done Snowy and Puffer on my own the day before. On Puffer, I sank 18 inches with every step in spite of wearing 30-inch snowshoes, so I was glad to have a long and easy warm-up. We had views of Panther from afar and slowly but surely drew even with it. We gained more than 1000 feet of elevation on the road, most of it during the final mile. Thanks to much colder temperatures overnight we enjoyed a perfect, easy day in sunshine with open woods and firm snow.

photo: Brian MerriamIn particular, the route between Panther and Buell was gorgeous and the ascent of Brown Pond involved many zig-zags around ice-caked cliffs. We were back at Brian's vehicle by 5 pm.

The boys on top of Buell

photo: Bill Brizzell

I did Blue Ridges 90 and 99 the following uneventful, but highly satisfying day with Cory Delavalle, Butch Braun, and Mike Spranger.

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photo: Butch Braun

However, time was running out for the five remaining “road-walk” peaks.

I scoured the internet some more and found the Indian Lake Snow Warriors club. Crossing my fingers, I sent an email off to the president, Ed LaScala. Ed's quick reply was positive in the extreme and along the lines of, “whatever you need to get the job done we are there for you.”

I quickly fired back with, how's this, and how much will the fee be?

● Day one, Saturday : meet us at 7 a.m. at the end of the plowed portion of Cedar River Road and drive us (three hikers) and our gear 10 miles into Moose River Plains. Return at 7 p.m. to the Wakely Mtn. trailhead to pick us up and drive us back out to our vehicle.

● Day two, Sunday : meet at Mason Lake Road and Rte. 30 at 8 a.m. and drive us to Perkins Clearing. Return at 6 p.m. Ed's reply was along the lines of, “consider it done – gratis!”

As if I hadn't experienced enough anxiety Ed wrote back later that all of the roads were currently closed to snowmobile traffic due to a lack of snow. The roads were rivers of ice. So, I watched the forecast and to my joy snow was predicted! I hoped there would be just enough to open the roads, but not too much for breaking trail with only three hikers. Luck was definitely on our side because that was exactly what we got.

On day one at the Loft in Keene, Jean, Marie-Josée and I were up at 4 a.m. for our 7 a.m. meet-up at the end of the plowed Cedar River Road. Ed and his son, Nick, were there with two machines and a sled for our gear. They ferried two of us 10 miles down the roller coaster road and all I could think of was how happy I was to

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not be walking this section. Marie-Josée and I started the hike to Little Moose while Ed and Nick returned for Jean. This involved 20 miles of driving per snow machine if they went back in the second time with both machines.

Gear all Nice and Snug for a Rough Ride

Jean and I are ready to Rock and Roll! photo: Marie-Josée Ouellet

That day we started off with Little Moose Mountain, returned to the MRP road then walked two miles on the road to the Cellar Pond trail. The following images are all from the hike of Little Moose.

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Three peaks in the Cedar River Flow region. The red tracing represent the 10 mile snowmobile ride that took us to the base of Little Moose Mountain (blue tracing). We walked the Moose River Plains Road towards Cellar Road and hiked Cellar and Wakely Peaks (green tracing). All tracings are hand drawn from memory.

Sketchy crossing on an old beaver dam across the Moose River

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2800 feet on Little Moose. Steep. Note emptiness behind Marie-Josée.

Bent over double working hard. Her back is parallel to the slope.

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Yours truly looks way up at the photographer (Marie-Josée Ouellet)

Near the summit of Little Moose. Open Woods!

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Game of Thrones in the Little Moose Wilderness Unit (Marie-Josée Ouellet)

Drawing Water from Silver Run (Marie-Josée Ouellet)

As we walked the road several groups of snowmobiles whizzed by us at high speeds. Below a thin layer of snow there was glare ice and we all fell and almost fell several times. Without our packs we hiked up the steep north side of Cellar and back down in about an hour. After Cellar we continued along the Cellar Pond trail to the pond itself and from there we bushwhacked up Wakely in falling darkness. Instead of following a direct line to the summit, I recommended that we deviate off that course in order to ascend what looked like a really nice ramp with widely spaced contour intervals. This ramp turned out to be miserable. The woods were incredibly thick and there was massive blowdown. I wanted to abandon it

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altogether and drop back down into the valley below us, losing precious elevation. Jean held on to the hope that it would improve and he was a bull breaking trail through what looked like impossible terrain. It required massive outputs of energy to progress at a snail's pace.

Just when the woods were opening up nicely we found ourselves at the foot of a steep hill. It was only 100 feet high and according to my GPS the climbing would nearly be over. To our right were cliffs. Straight above us the woods looked impenetrable and the slope was incredibly steep. However, on my GPS screen, further to the left the contour lines were smeared together in a dark blurr. So, we plowed directly uphill and I recall it was a monumental struggle that seemed to go on forever. It was getting dark when we topped out. We were now 600 yards from the summit and the woods were wide open. With growing impatience we climbed and descended a number of bumps and at one point I looked over to my right and saw an opening. It was the helicopter landing pad. We looked all over for the hiking trail and could not find it. In the dark and featureless greyness sleet was falling and the wind cut at us. We spent 15 minutes walking within the closed circle of the highest contour line but saw no trail markers, no fire tower, no cabin. Returning to the pad, it was now fully dark. Marie-Josée explored an opening and called out, “a trail marker!” That was a happy moment! We passed the tower and I went up to the cabin and tried the door, which was unlocked. Inside it was an abominable mess but we were out of the wind and able to change into dry clothing.

Inside the Wakely cabin. Our jackets are soaked! (Marie-Josée Ouellet)Warm and dry, out the door we went, but could not find the junction between the helicopter pad and the trail down. More wandering until finally we found it. The hike out was difficult and steep at first with fresh snow over ice. After 1000 feet of elevation loss the trail became broad, straight, and sloped gently downhill – an old

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logging road. We no longer sank in at all and the walk, while feeling long after 12 hours of non-stop hiking, was very pleasant with our headlamps picking out the markers 100 yards distant.

I checked the GPS and told Jean we were only 400 yards from the Cedar River Road. He said, “We’re out” and I replied, “No, we still have to walk those 400 yards”. His retort: “Yeah, but now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel”.

And at that very moment I saw a flash of light on the trail 50 feet ahead. But when I looked again I saw nothing. I must have been tired to have hallucinated that light, but then a minute later we both saw it. It was our ride! The guys had followed the trail a short ways up! They had been following us all day over the internet thanks to my satellite tracking device. Ed and Nick had not two but three sleds. They had driven in on two, left one then returned for the third sled. This enabled us to drive out in one trip, thus saving time. It fell upon me to drive the third machine and Ed made sure I was in the middle. I had driven a snowmobile regularly all one winter when working in a Lodge seven miles up a fire road off the trans-Canada highway in the Canadian Rockies. It came back to me surprisingly quickly nearly 40 years later. Back at the cars Ed called out to me, “Nice driving!”

We drove back to Keene, 90 minutes away, but had we been prepared to do so we would have gladly accepted Ed's generous offer to stay overnight at his place in Indian Lake. The next morning at 8 o'clock we met up at the Mason Lake Road, but due to parking issues we had to enter with the sleds on the Jessup River Road and pick up Jean and Marie-Josée who waited at Mason Lake. This time, with three machines, the entry was easier. I was surprised when Ed, who barely knew me, handed me the key to one of the sleds and said, “Here, take this” and he and Nick took off leaving the third sled on the side of the road.

Blue Ridge #56 and Pillsbury Mtn We hiked these two peaks in such fast conditions that we got out early. So, we shuttled ourselves and our gear closer to the highway and sat down to wait. It didn't take long for Ed and Darren, the webmaster of Indian Lake Snow, to show up (Nick had to get back to school) and ferry us back out.

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photo: Marie-Josée OuelletPillsbury Traihead. Jean and I were always ready to obey Marie-Josée

Back at the highway we said our goodbyes. The relief I felt at having completed the Wakely/Pillsbury peaks was so intense! I now had 85 peaks under my belt and it was March 4th. I could not believe my good fortune in having met and befriended such generous people. The Indian Lake Snow Warriors definitely rock!

Beautiful off-trail hiking on the approach to Blue Ridge #56

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Happy Crew on Blue Ridge

As a gesture of thanks I offered to Ed that once my project was finished I could come to Indian Lake and make an in-depth presentation of Project-100. With his usual enthusiasm he was on board with the idea right away. So, Ed and Nick, if you are reading this I'll be seeing you soon it looks like!

March 18. Kilburn Mountain. Birthday Hike and Number 100.

From Armstrong all the way to Wallface from Kilburn

Sunday March 18th. My 62nd birthday. I had compared this project to an endlessly shifting mosaic with 100 pieces. The remaining pieces changed shape continuously and their ideal placement varied from hike to hike. As the project progressed, the number of pieces left over dwindled until by March 16th only four pieces remained. And even then the final outcome was undetermined. In fact,

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the placement of North River and the grand finale changed twice, during the hike.

But after North River and with a little help (more like a lot of help!) from Sean Carpenter, Marie-Josée Ouellet, Jean-François Lebeau, Éric Morris, and Mélanie Bergeron who were of inestimable aid in getting me up and down the two Fishing Brook peaks there remained but one mountain, one final piece of the mosaic to click into place.

Prior to this final weekend, with the clock counting down the final days before my March 21st deadline, there was a huge dump of snow. Just another difficulty, one out of many with the exception that this was a big barrier. And then who should step up to the plate and break out Kilburn for me but Sam Perkins, who I had first met by pure happenstance when the two of us found ourselves on Catamount Peak last spring. I had told him about my as-then unrevealed project and said I would appreciate his help.

My request did not fall upon deaf ears and on Thursday, March 15th he texted me as he was breaking out Kilburn! It took him 9h30m to make it to the top and 2h30 m to get back down. Thanks to Sam’s incredible effort (it must have been so hard!) Kilburn lay waiting for me on a silver platter.

And then Sam went a step further. The Monument Falls parking area was under a deep layer of snow. Sam knew that for my finale I would have a lot of hiking partners. So, he used his connections and saw to it that the lot was plowed out by the weekend. How do you like them apples?

And so, on a chilly but bluebird day at the leisurely hour of 9:30 there was a party going on at Monument Falls! The talking and bonhomie would have continued until noon, so, finally I crossed the highway and started up the mountain. What followed was one of the coolest hikes I’ve ever done. I was bowled over by Sam’s work and I loved the route he had followed - so much so that I fired up my GPS and recorded it. With every step I got closer to my goal - as uncertain a goal as I have ever conceived of and chased. And now it was firmly in my grasp.

Jean walked out first onto the summit area. I watched him stomp it down flat and then we embraced. The one hundredth mosaic piece had just clicked into its awaited position!

Project 100 was a success!

And then began the best party I have been to in a long while.

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Retrospection and random musings.

At the time of this writing the Project is well behind me. Now that I have returned to a conventional lifestyle I can’t believe it truly was me who hiked those 100 peaks in a single winter. It seems now as if it was someone else, someone in a different life from mine.

Among the reasons why the project was a success is that I chose it well. With the Single Winter HH I struck upon a goal that was within my grasp. It was all-absorbing and taxed me to the limit but was nevertheless a very good fit. My winter bushwhacking experience was meagre but I had already done the Lower 54 list of peaks, many of them more than once. I had also done multiple rounds of the winter 46, including 3 single seasons and Project 46. Furthermore, I could dovetail the project into my life without major disruption or having to travel to a distant country. Nor was my work interrupted significantly - no leave of absence was required. I was able to profit from my current situation in that I only worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which enabled me to train and focus appropriately. The execution was mostly over a series of long weekends. I was able to profit from having gained experience from my two previous hiking projects. Finally, I felt confident that I had built up a reputation among my hiking friends for putting together interesting projects and that this enabled me to recruit the hiking partners I knew I needed.

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I don’t feel that the project has changed me. I am the same person I was prior to thinking it up in the beginning. However, within the confines of hiking I have more knowledge of what I am capable of doing. I am more confident in my abilities at organizing, planning and preparing a complex project.

An unsolved mystery is motivation. Motivation is the key to all we do, whether it be getting out of a soft warm bed into a cold house or shoveling the driveway. I keep wondering, what motivated me? Why did I do it?

From the Oxford online dictionary:

A reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way.Escape can be a strong motivation for travelDesire or willingness to do something; enthusiasm.Keep staff up to date and maintain interest and motivation

The best I can come up with is that the project brought about an intersection of many of my desires and interests. I had a strong desire to live an intense experience. Also to escape from my day to day life. A sort of prolonged vacation from the usual cares, concerns, and tasks that are lacking in excitement but which keep our lives on track. The necessity of focusing so narrowly and with such intensity lifted me completely out of my routine life. I think alpinists, triathletes, extreme skiers, gamblers, substance abusers and spectators at sporting events share a common desire, which is a compulsion to escape daily existence. Perhaps we do this out of a desire for what neuroscience has identified as a dopamine high. Block its dopamine receptors and even a nematode worm doesn’t bother to feed. No motivation. There was also an interest in exploring my body’s ability to respond to intense and prolonged physical training. The fun of observing exercise physiology applied to myself - an experiment of one. But perhaps the keystone was a desire to experience the simple and innocent pleasure of hiking. Of being out of doors in a wild and natural setting, being self-propelled moving through varied and beautiful landscapes and snowscapes. All of this combined with my desire to experience and enjoy the satisfaction of reaching a complex and difficult goal.

What I have learned from this project is that if you know what truly motivates you and can pursue it then you will probably be happy.

I look back onto the more difficult and discouraging hikes I did and ask myself why I didn’t quit. In fact, quitting never crossed my mind. My motivation always drove me to continue. This brings to mind a famous quote by Gandhi and underscores the unfathomable mystery of the human mind: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it”.

I have to agree with him.

Of Human Bonding and the Fellowship of the Hike.I have done a great deal of hiking alone and I enjoy the experience greatly. However, for Project-100 I wanted to be with people as much as I could. There

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were so many hikes when I could not have imagined being alone.

I suspect that our brain activity is significantly different depending upon whether we are alone or in the company of others. Whether that is true or not I greatly preferred to be hiking with friends during this project as opposed to being alone. The fellowship and selfless partnership I experienced during this project was wonderful and is something I will cherish forever. I often felt that I was being buoyed up by my hiking partners who shared my project with me on some extremely difficult hikes.

The Future? My Next Project?This is the question I get asked the most. 12 years ago I conceived of skiing 700 miles from the southern end of Lake Manitoba, northward through Lake Winnipegosis to Cedar Lake. From there I would continue to Lake Winnipeg’s most northerly point before turning around and heading south all the way to where the Assiniboine River empties itself into the Red River.

Here is a map of my projected route.

I spent a lot of time researching all of the aspects of this trip and had it planned to include media coverage, video uplinks, and sponsorship - the whole 9 yards when my son died and the project fell by the wayside.

Now I plan on waiting until I retire and doing this trip during the winter of 2021.

Last but not least I’d like to acknowledge my friends who hosted me and Project 100. I don’t see how I could have done the project without having the use of their home. Tom Haskins and Doreen Heer, owners of Randomscoots Cabins not only opened their home but also their hearts to me as I prepared and executed the project. I set a camp cot up downstairs in their gear room and they cleared away their own stuff to make room for mine. I would walk in the door to a friendly hello and a hug from Doreen before going to the stove and serving myself a hot meal. I was able to pick Tom’s brain for route ideas and summit groupings. They loaned me gear, repaired my snowshoes, put my partners up for the night (on their kitchen floor) and shared my joy, suffering, angst and success. With them on my side I was never alone in the project - they were the home team cheering section. When I got home and if they weren’t already in bed (there were a number of days that I left before they were up and did not get back until after their bedtime) we would discuss my day’s route, conditions and times. They followed my tracking device and Tom was excellent at following the track and interpreting my on-the-ground decisions and how well or poorly things had gone that day. The evening’s debriefing over adult beverages was a highlight for all of us. We would look at the day’s pictures on their giant TV screen, which was a source of great pleasure and interest.

Appendix One. Peaks and People.Dec. 22. Moose & McKenzie. David Gomlak, Joe Bogardus, Glen Bladholm.Dec. 22. Pitchoff. Glen Bladholm.

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Dec. 23. Whiteface, Esther. Glen BladholmDec. 23. Morgan. Glen BladholmDec. 27. Saddleback-Jay. Luc La Barre, Thomas Penders, Brian Merriam.Dec. 28. LWJ, UWJ, Armstrong, Gothics, Sawteeth. autochromatica.Dec. 29. Phelps, Tabletop, TR. Luc La Barre.Jan. 3. Donaldson, Emmons, Seward, Seymour. Joe Bogardus.Jan. 4. Avalanche Peak. Julie Chevalier. 21Jan. 7. 24 Cliff, Redfield, Colden. Joe Bogardus, Alistair Fraser.Jan. 8. 25 Lyon Mtn. Solo.Jan. 12. 27 Averill Peak. Adam Crofoot. Hurricane. SoloJan. 13. 31 DNCB. Glen BladholmJan. 14. 36 Dix Range. Joe Bogardus, Bill BrizzellJan. 19. Calamity. Christina Nash, Brian Merriam.Jan. 19. 38 Adams. Brian MerriamJan. 20. Cheney Cobble. Jean Roy MJ OuelletJan. 21. Wallface, McNaughton. Luc La Barre, Sean Carpenter.Jan. 26. Lost Pond Peak. Joe Bogardus, Nancy Labaff, Brian Merriam.Jan. 26. Cascade, Porter. Solo.Jan. 27. Green, Giant, Rocky Peak Ridge. Alistair Fraser.Jan. 28. Noonmark. Alistair Fraser.Jan. 28. Blue Mountain. Alistair Fraser, Bill Brizzell.Jan. 29. 50 Big Slide. Solo.Feb. 02. Sawtooth #4 & #2. Joe Bogardus.Feb. 02. 55 Sawtooth # 3, #5 & #1. Jean Roy and Marie-Josée Ouellet.Feb. 09. 59 Wright, Algonquin, Iroquois, Marshall. Alistair Fraser (WAI), Glen Bladholm, Matt Marsh.Feb.10. Henderson, Panther, Couchsachraga. Alistair Fraser, Jean Roy, Glen Bladholm (Panther-Couch).Feb. 11. 65 Marcy, Skylight, Gray. Marie-Josée Ouellet, MaudeFeb. 16. Snowy. Solo.Feb. 16. Puffer. Solo.Feb. 17. 70 Panther, Buell, Brown Pond. Bill Brizzell, Brian Merriam.Feb. 18. Blue Ridge 90 and Blue Ridge 99. Cory Delavalle, Butch Braun, Mike Spranger.Feb. 19. Slide. Joe BogardusFeb. 23. 76 Boreas, Wolf Pond, Sunrise. Nancy LabaffFeb. 24. Haystack, Basin, Saddleback. Kevin MacKenzie, Alan Wechsler. Kevin Campbell (Haystack).Feb. 25. 80 Allen. Solo.Mar. 03. Little Moose, Cellar, Wakely. Jean Roy, Marie-Josée OuelletMar. 04. Blue Ridge 56 and Pillsbury. Jean Roy, Marie-Josée OuelletMar. 05. Street and Nye. Solo.Mar. 06. Blue Ridge, Hoffman. Cory DelavalleMar. 07. 91 Lewey and Gore. SoloMar. 09. 93 Santanoni & Little Santanoni. Bill Brizzell (part-way), Glen Bladholm.Mar. 10. 95 Stewart, Sentinel. Jean Roy, David Gomlak.Mar. 12. 96 Wilmington. Solo.Mar. 16. 97 North River. Alistair Fraser, Gérald Léveillé.Mar. 17. 99 Fishing Brooks 1 & 2. Sean Carpenter (FB2), Marie-Josée Ouellet, Éric Morris, Mélanie Bergeron, Jean-François Lebeau.Mar. 18. 100 Kilburn. Marie-Josée Ouellet, Jean Roy, Nathalie Ménard, Spencer Crispe, Cory Delavalle,

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Gérald Léveillé, Éric Morris, Brian Merriam, Nicolas Gallant, Pierre-Léandre Paradis

Appendix Two. People and Peaks.

Joe Bogardus: 18 peaks.Moose, McKenzie, Donaldson, Emmons, Seward, Seymour, Cliff, Redfield, Colden, McComb, South Dix, Grace, Hough, Dix, Lost Pond Peak, Sawtooths Four and Two, Slide.

Glen Bladholm: 18 peaks.Moose, McKenzie, Pitchoff, Whiteface, Esther, Morgan, Dial, Nippletop, Colvin, Blake, Wright, Algonquin, Iroquois, Marshall, Panther, Couchsachraga, Santanoni, Little Santanoni.

Marie-Josée Ouellet: 15 peaks.Cheney Cobble, Sawtooths Three, Five and One, Marcy, Skylight, Gray, Little Moose, Cellar, Wakely, Blue Ridge #56, Pillsbury, Fishing Brooks One and Two, Kilburn.

Jean Roy: 15 peaks.Cheney Cobble, Sawtooths Three, Five and One, Henderson, Panther, Couchsachraga, Little Moose, Cellar, Wakely, Blue Ridge #56, Pillsbury, Stewart, Sentinel, Kilburn.

Alistair Fraser: 14 peaks.Cliff, Redfield, Green, Giant, Rocky Peak Ridge, Noonmark, Blue Wright, Algonquin, Iroquois, Henderson, Panther, Couchsachraga, North River.

Bill Brizzell: 10 peaks.McComb, South Dix, Grace, Hough, Dix, Blue, Panther, Buell, Brown Pond, Santanoni (almost!)

Brian Merriam: 9 peaks. Saddleback, Jay, Calamity, Adams, Lost Pond Peak, Panther, Buell, Brown Pond, Kilburn

Sean Carpenter: 8 peaks.Lower and Upper Wolf Jaw, Armstrong, Gothics, Saddleback, Wallface, McNaughton, Fishing Brook Two.

Luc Labarre: 7 peaks. Saddleback, Jay, Phelps, Tabletop, TR Mountain, Wallface, McNaughton.

Cory Delavalle: 5 peaks. Blue Ridge 90 and 99, Hoffman, Blue Ridge, Kilburn.

Nancy Labaff: 4 peaks. Lost Pond Peak, Boreas, Wolf Pond, Sunrise.

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David Gomlak: 4 peaks. Moose, McKenzie, Stewart, Sentinel.

Matt Marsh: 4 peaks. Wright, Algonquin, Iroquois, Marshall.

Kevin Mackenzie: 3 peaks. Haystack, Basin, Saddleback.

Alan Wechsler: 3 peaks. Haystack, Basin, Saddleback.

Maude Langlois: 3 peaks. Gray, Skylight, Marcy

Éric Morris: 3 peaks. Fishing Brooks One and Two, Kilburn.

Thomas Penders: 2 peaks. Saddleback, Jay.

Butch Braun: 2 peaks. Blue Ridge 90 and 99.

Mike Spranger: 2 peaks. Blue Ridge 90 and 99.

Gérald Léveillé: 2 peaks.North River, Kilburn.

Jean-François Lebeau et Mélanie Bergeron (les Verdies): 2 peaks. Fishing Brooks One and Two.

Christina Nash: Calamity.

Julie Chevalier: Avalanche.

Adam Crofoot: Averill.

Nathalie Ménard: Kilburn.

Spencer Crispe: Kilburn.

Nicolas Gallant: Kilburn.

Pierre-Léandre Paradis: Kilburn.

Kevin Campbell: Haystack.

Solo: 13 peaks: Lyon, Hurricane, Cascade, Porter, Big Slide, Snowy, Puffer, Allen, Street, Nye, Lewey, Gore, Wilmington.

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Appendix Three. Gear List.On me:OR windstopper balaclava: one light, one heavy, hand knit toque. Worn singly, in combinations, or all three depending on the weather.Neoprene face mask (not carried on all trips).Base layer shirt.Compass around neck. I always put this on first when waking up in the morning.Hard shell (with hood).Surgical gloves, 2 pr. hand knit wool mitts, shell mitts. Patagonia underwear, MEC long underwear, OR Cirque pants. Rab shell pants instead of Cirque pants (or over all of the above if cold). 2 pair wool socks.Keene Summit County boots (one full size too big to accommodate the extra socks and no restriction of circulation).MSR Evo ascent snowshoes.Black Diamond hiking poles with 15 degree angled handles.SPOT tracking device in plastic case on pack shoulder strap.GPS device (on bushwhacks).Packs: Osprey Exos 48 for trailed hikes. Black Diamond Speed 40 for bushwhacks. I like a roomy pack for easy stuffing when in the field.In pack:GPS (not usually carried on trailed hikes)Map(s)Patagonia Puff pantsRain jacket (on bushwhacks) Wool socks and vapor barrier linersSynthetic booties with 2 pairs of felt insoles. (Only on the coldest days -just in case)Waterproof knee-high overboooties on cold days. Marmot Baffin down parka.Spare wool mitts (one thin, one thick). BD Revel Shell mitts.Hand-knit balaclava.Extra base layer shirt. Sometimes two.Rab puffy jacket.Cuban fiber ditty bag with: 3 headlamps (new model BD spot with rechargeable batteries, older model BD Spot with lithium batteries as backup, BD Ion as spare backup), small 1st aid kit. Extra compass (one or two).2nd ditty with Body Glide, TP and alcohol.Spare glasses in protective case (in case I lose a contact lens).Food bag.One Nalgene with boiling hot water in OR water bottle cozy.Waterproof matches, paraffin and dryer lint fire starter, lighter.Tie wraps, spare shoelace, and 10′ very thin cord (for small field repairs).Camera. Cyber-shot hx-90v.