3-day barefoot hike in the Adirondacks July '16

3-day barefoot hike in the Adirondacks July '16
By Tristan


At last my long awaited 2016 trip to the mountains was upon me. It seems I only get one chance a year to go hiking in the mountains, though I try for a second and maybe this year I may get a chance for another. This will be my first trip in recent years that I won't be solo... my mom and one of her hiking friends will be doing the hike with me. Mom had wanted to go with me on prior trips but it never worked out. She has a lot of experience but hasn't done any overnight or strenuous trips in many years, so she was a bit nervous about her capabilities. I tried to break my trip down into more manageable days, but in the end I think I made the overall trip much harder.

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The plan was to hike the Dix Mountain range, which was 5 of the 46 high peaks of the Adirondacks. Many do this as a really long and tough day trip but with our questionable mountain hiking shape I broke the trip into two loops, plus the third day just to hike back out to the car. We had a long drive to get there, so no matter what we couldn't do the whole range and drive in the same day. So I made the plans which actually took a lot of deciding. There are about 3 different approaches to the range, and then a few trails from the crest back down into the valley. Two different camping spots in the valley as well, so a few different loop options.

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GPS track of our hike.

We set out from the Elk Lake trailhead and setup basecamp near the Slide Brook Lean-to, about 2.4 miles in. It was an easy hike in so I didn't go quite as weight-weenie as I usually do. No peaks would be climbed with the full pack, in fact I brought along a second pack that was smaller for the ascents. After setting up tents and stashing most of our gear we headed out for the lower part of the range, Macomb, South Dix, and Grace Peak. That is the yellow loop above. The next day we did the red loop, including Dix Mountain and Hough Peak. Third day was pack up and head back to the car.

GPS records
Day 1: 10.9 miles 6:55 moving time 3721' ascent 3547' descent
Day 2: 9.4 miles 6:18 moving time 3541' ascent 3518' descent
Day 3: 2.4 miles 1:05 moving time 130' ascent 320' descent

Total Trip: 22.7 miles 14:18 moving time 7392' ascent 7385' descent


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These won't be clean for long!


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Approaching the slide on Macomb.

The first mountain was Macomb, which the trail went up a slide most of the way up the mountain. Unlike most slides this one was very loose. Dirt, gravel, boulders. I was a bit nervous about doing this one in bare feet, but my backup sandals would be an even worse idea so I went for it.


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Looking back down Macomb's slide.

The feet held up fine! I'd say they felt tougher than my previous hikes. Of more concern was to avoid causing a rock avalanche! It was nearly impossible to avoid sending a few rocks sliding on down, look out below!


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A little higher now, we could see Elk Lake where our day had started.


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Get'n higher!


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Short but near vertical scramble near the summit.
It seems to always be the steepest right near the summit. Mom struggled a bit but got up. Barefeet can be a bit of an advantage in some of these tight spots since your feet and toes can mold to the contours better and make footholds where boots might not be able to. Of course it also strains the foot a lot harder, but I didn't toughen 'em up for nothing.


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Finally approaching our first peak of the day!

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We took a nice long lunch break on Macomb.


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Summit marker.


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View from South Dix.
Took us only about an hour to hike along the ridge to South Dix where we didn't linger too long as we would have to come back this way on the return trip. Off to Grace Peak.


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On Grace Peak.
Our last peak of the day. While Grace Peak was one of the shorter mountains around, barely qualifying for 46er status at 4006' it still had wonderful views in all directions from it's open rocky summit. In fact it was a clear enough day (although a bit hazy) that you could see across Lake Champlain and all the way to the Green Mountains of Vermont in the faint distance. It had taken a bit longer to get there than we hoped, so we headed back with haste. I really didn't want to try and descend that loose slide we came up on Macomb Mountain, so we opted to go down a different path though it added some distance to our day. Luckily we made it back to camp under the dimming light of sunset, as mom had not packed her headlamp in her daybag.

More to come, I'll continue another post later when I get the chance...

 
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[SIZE=5][I][COLOR=#000000][U]Barefoot[/U][/COLOR][/I] PR's:[/SIZE] [B][SIZE=5][/SIZE][/B] [SIZE=5][B][B][COLOR=rgb(0, 0, 0)]1mi -[/COLOR][/B][/B][COLOR=rgb(153, 51, 0)][B][B] 05:38 [/B][/B](2018) [COLOR=rgb(0, 0, 0)][B]5k -[/B][/COLOR][B] 18:50...
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Home sweet home for two nights.

We had a lazy morning, I don't think any of us set an alarm. We had what I thought would be a little harder and longer of a day, but we were already on the trail versus a 3+ hr drive and 2.4 mile hike in. In the end it seems GPS says our day two was actually a mile shorter and a smidgen less ascent. But it felt harder... it was steeper and unrelenting.


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Tired souls (and soles) on the long and steep ascent of the Beckhorn of Dix Mountain.

My hiking partners were pretty winded but my running, cycling, and stair climbing paid off. While nothing can prepare you for hiking tough trails like hiking tough trails can, my workouts on the flat lands surely helped. I felt quite fine ascending, only pausing for photo ops and to let my partners rest. It was quite hot too for northern NY, but I just drank to thirst and surprisingly all three days I used my 3l water bladder and never refilled. I had 3/4 liter left over at the end. Now I know I should have drank more, the first day I was feeling a bit of heat exhaustion at the end of the day. The second day I tried to take a few more sips now and then.


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Approaching the 'Beckhorn' of Dix Mountain.


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Taking some shots after having some lunch on top.


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Panorama from the Beckhorn, with Dix Mountain in the center view.

It may look far in that panoramic view but Dix Mt. was only a 5-10 minute walk from there. My mom and I went to the true summit, Ray decided to rest at the Beckhorn until we returned. We had to come back and then keep going to get the final mountain in the range, Hough Peak.


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One last look before heading off to the final peak of the journey.

The journey to Hough was rough. Nothing steep or technical, but the scrub brush was the worse I had ever experienced. Most of these mountains are so heavily traveled that the paths are pretty wide and beat down. Not so much here, the scrub was so thick in many spots the dry sharp ends of the fir branches were nearly touching each other from each side of the trail. Make sure everything is strapped down good and attached because this brush would take anything it could off your pack or out of your pockets.


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Looking back at Dix Mountain from Hough Peak.

Dix was a tall one, for around here anyhow. It's 4857' whereas the trailhead starts at 2000'. Dix was a great hike IMO and I would like to revisit it again some time.


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All of our feet on the last peak of the trek.


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On the descent along Lillian Brook trail back to basecamp.

One thing this trip lacked compared to many other of my Adirondack trips is beautiful streams with cascades and waterfalls. This trip was almost entirely dry. Lillian Brook was nice, but I never photographed it. I think this is one of its small tributaries.

We had a great trip with no major problems. My soles held up great but were a bit tender after the hike was done. I had to take it easy on the gravel for a few days after, but a week later and I'm good to go. And now closer to my goal of hiking all of the 46 high peaks of the Adirondacks, and hiking them all barefoot. I am taking a week vacation to visit NY again end of August so I might have a shot at another mountain trip. But it is a shorter visit and I'm running an 18.12 mile race the last day of the week, so not sure.

Larger, and more pics, are available at https://goo.gl/photos/A6PNwJmekCA3fAbt8
 
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Beautiful, Tristan, as always! Good living right there.
 
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Shared on the home page and mirrored here.
 
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What a great hike! The sky looks nice in blue in all your pictures and my soul longs to be back out on the trail, reading your post only makes things worse. I've thought about attempting to hike all the NH mountains barefoot, seems like a challenging goal at this point since I've only done one of the 48. How many of the ADK 46 do you have left?

The picture of the three feet was interesting since it looks like you have three totally different styles of foot wear. One leather boot, one mid-weight and than a barefoot. Seeing the gators reminded me of how hot my feet use to get when hiking. While the gator may help keep stuff out of your boot, it also keeps in a lot of heat. I didn't miss that on my last barefoot hike.

Your tent looks like it is missing its sole as well. Does it work as well as bare feet does in the rain? But I'm sure it helps keep the pack a lot lighter.

Thanks for sharing.

Dana
 
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@hikerdana Thanks! I agree completely with the gaiters, I have a pair I used to wear and it would always make my lower legs so sweaty.
This trips puts me at 33/46 of the ADK high peaks complete, 16/46 barefoot. The big difference in barefoot numbers is the ones I hiked in high school and college. All of the recent ones are barefoot. After I finish the 46 I want to go back to get all of them barefoot. I've forgot a lot about those trips anyhow and would like to revisit anyhow. I don't have a count of how many of the Whites I've done, I haven't been in NH since my high school days. As I recall they were even nicer, or at least more of them that had great views. Someday I'll go back there too, it's just too far away from me now.
Not sure what you mean about the tent... the pic might be deceiving. Despite its light weight, its a full featured double wall tent with two doors and full bathtub floor. You can even vary the height of the fly off the ground easily to make it tighter to the ground and more storm proof or up in the air for more ventilation. It's large enough to fit a decent size pack under each vestibule, and long enough inside I have about a foot and a half extra length to put stuff inside as well. It's engineered great, and is all pre-attached and goes up quick, like 1 minute after your familiar with the process.

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All for 1 lb 10oz including stakes and stuff sack (not including hiking poles used to set it up). Hand built by a fellow out west. For better pics that might be easier to make sense of https://www.tarptent.com/notch.html

I'm trying to replace my gear (especially anything older/bulkier/heavier) with cottage industry type stuff. Besides the tent I also have family business made sleeping bag (Enlightened Equipment quilt), Whitebox alcohol stove, and Goosefeet Gear down socks, over-booties, and air pillow cover, and of course my backup footwear which is usually Unshoes sandals. I may eventually replace my brand name pack with handmade, rain gear, and a couple other odds n ends. I really like supporting the little businesses and to be honest their stuff blows away the big name brand and China made stuff.
 
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@hikerdana
Not sure what you mean about the tent... the pic might be deceiving. Despite its light weight, its a full featured double wall tent with two doors and full bathtub floor. You can even vary the height of the fly off the ground easily to make it tighter to the ground and more storm proof or up in the air for more ventilation. It's large enough to fit a decent size pack under each vestibule, and long enough inside I have about a foot and a half extra length to put stuff inside as well. It's engineered great, and is all pre-attached and goes up quick, like 1 minute after your familiar with the process.

All for 1 lb 10oz including stakes and stuff sack (not including hiking poles used to set it up). Hand built by a fellow out west. For better pics that might be easier to make sense of https://www.tarptent.com/notch.html

I'm trying to replace my gear (especially anything older/bulkier/heavier) with cottage industry type stuff. Besides the tent I also have family business made sleeping bag (Enlightened Equipment quilt), Whitebox alcohol stove, and Goosefeet Gear down socks, over-booties, and air pillow cover, and of course my backup footwear which is usually Unshoes sandals. I may eventually replace my brand name pack with handmade, rain gear, and a couple other odds n ends. I really like supporting the little businesses and to be honest their stuff blows away the big name brand and China made stuff.

I checked out the tarptent website and the tents are really impressive. Their website shows the tarp tent really well. The website also says it takes a minute to pitch and you echoed that, which is an impressive pitch time. I usually don't care how long it takes to boil or pump water, but getting a tent set up quickly is a different matter. I want one, but not sure I can justify yet another tent, my next tent will probably be a new family tent. My daughter asked me just yesterday why I had so many tents and I had to explain to her that each tent served a different purpose.

I make my own alcohol stove from two soda cans, but the Whitebox stoves are very affordable and look pretty impressive. Thanks for sharing the equipment info.
 
No prob @hikerdana I know many end up buying lots of gear and have multiple tents, etc. I actually only have two tents, my first one I bought 10+ years ago in my first round of buying gear (inexpensive gear) and the above Tarptent when I decided to go back through and cut weight. Similarly I have 2 bags, air pads, backpacks, etc. But just two of each, and in some cases just one. So I really don't have a lot of gear... the second time around I really tried to research and make the best decision on gear so I wouldn't have to upgrade again for the foreseeable future, and then keep the old stuff for backup gear or car/canoe camping where weight and size aren't as big of a deal. The only thing I may get another tent for is if my son takes up hiking, as both of my tents are really only 1 person tents.

I will say the first few times it takes a little longer to setup of course, but even then it was still faster to setup than my previous tent that I was very familiar with. What really attracted me to it was that for poles it used hiking poles instead of separate tent poles. Some may not like that though if they don't use hiking poles, but you can buy the optional tent poles. I always use hiking poles so this works great. Of course during your hike you'll have to collapse the tent. Could be a bit of a problem if it rained and water pooled in your collapsed tent, but I have not had an issue yet. If I knew it might rain I'd try to pile things in the middle to make the water shed off as much as possible. The nice thing is you can pull out and put back the poles without having to adjust anything really.

As a DIY'r I always wanted to make an alcohol stove. Kind of ashamed I bought one pre-made, but the Whitebox stove was actually on sale for only $15 with s/h at the time, and it is very robust, supporting cottage industry and of recycled aluminum cans, so I just went for it. The only downside is it's wide flame pattern needs a wide pot for the most efficient heat transfer, I got a GSI Kettle and the combo works great, and only a hair heavier than a plain aluminum pot, but a lot more convenient to pour from.
 
Cool trip thanks for sharing!

Do you eat hot food or just coffee?
Thanks Abide, to answer your question this trip was along the lines of my usual meal plans, I do a hot (freeze dried) breakfast and dinner at the basecamp and pack PBJ pita for lunch in my day bag for the hike. I've been meaning to try some better quality dehydrated meals but thus far I just use Mountain House. It's full of sodium and some other crap but at least on a long hike, especially hot summer one, the sodium is needed more than it usually is. There are some small family businesses out there that will make dehydrated meals to order for hikers I've been meaning to try, like http://hawkvittles.com/ for one that is local to the Adirondacks but also another popular one is http://www.packitgourmet.com/ you wont find either at your typical department/outdoor sports store though. But in the MH variety I usually use the egg scramble breakfast and I add in dehydrated bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes to make it more veggie packed and filling. And usually a packet of instant coffee, either Starbucks via (pricey) or Tasters Choice Columbian (the best of all cheap instants IMO but hard to find) Dinner is usually MH beef stew or sweet and sour pork and rice. I've found these two to be excellent and some of their most veggie-packed ones they have (some have hardly any at all). For the trail I also carry a baggie of medjool dates and a cliff bar (or some sort of gorp/trail mix).

If I lived closer to the mountains and able to hike often I'd try to dehydrate my own meals, or perhaps cook more real meals with pots n pans on the easier hikes. But for the once or twice a year hikes I do now I'll just buy the freeze dried stuff and be done with it. I do hope to move nearer to the mountains once my son is through school and I don't have to stay here local any more. But that is still a ways off and anything can change between then and now.
 
Thanks Abide, to answer your question this trip was along the lines of my usual meal plans, I do a hot (freeze dried) breakfast and dinner at the basecamp and pack PBJ pita for lunch in my day bag for the hike. I've been meaning to try some better quality dehydrated meals but thus far I just use Mountain House. It's full of sodium and some other crap but at least on a long hike, especially hot summer one, the sodium is needed more than it usually is. There are some small family businesses out there that will make dehydrated meals to order for hikers I've been meaning to try, like http://hawkvittles.com/ for one that is local to the Adirondacks but also another popular one is http://www.packitgourmet.com/ you wont find either at your typical department/outdoor sports store though. But in the MH variety I usually use the egg scramble breakfast and I add in dehydrated bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes to make it more veggie packed and filling. And usually a packet of instant coffee, either Starbucks via (pricey) or Tasters Choice Columbian (the best of all cheap instants IMO but hard to find) Dinner is usually MH beef stew or sweet and sour pork and rice. I've found these two to be excellent and some of their most veggie-packed ones they have (some have hardly any at all). For the trail I also carry a baggie of medjool dates and a cliff bar (or some sort of gorp/trail mix).

If I lived closer to the mountains and able to hike often I'd try to dehydrate my own meals, or perhaps cook more real meals with pots n pans on the easier hikes. But for the once or twice a year hikes I do now I'll just buy the freeze dried stuff and be done with it. I do hope to move nearer to the mountains once my son is through school and I don't have to stay here local any more. But that is still a ways off and anything can change between then and now.

Understood completely, dehydrating takes a lot of patience. I am always curious when people bring warm meals on hikes and if the extra weight for cooking utensils is worth it, or if it even tastes good, so its nice to hear perspective. Although havng hot coffee in the morning is huge.

I buy these instant nescafe espresso packets over here to use in races. They aren't the nasty crystals, it's just finely ground coffee and it mixes pretty well with cold water too. They are similar to the starbucks ones but much cheaper. I am not sure if you have them over there. I think it's this one, that price is much higher than what I get them for but $19 for 70 isn't too bad? I'll let you know for sure when I check my box at home.
https://www.amazon.com/Nescafe-Inst..._SR151,160_&psc=1&refRID=TWMMVPRBJ5XY2NCHR2Z9
 
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I have never heard of those, just might have to keep an eye out for them thanks for the tip! After some searching I found the best of the regular instants to be the 100% Columbian Tasters Choice, far better than their other instants, but yeah still a little bit of that instant kind of taste. But I have not been able to find it locally ever, only online. Via is a bit better but several times the price. I do not like a lot of Starbucks Via actually, the darker roasts tastes really burnt to me, perhaps because it's micro ground coffee and your drinking some of the grounds. But I do enjoy the lighter roast Via like Veranda roast. I'm normally a bit of a coffee afficionado but I admit my standards drop greatly when I'm on a mountain. Everything tastes better on a mountain we always said (except spam! :yuck: lol) . I ended up buying a huge bulk pack of the Columbian Tasters Choice, like 100 packets or something, so have a good supply still but I do use them for other things too. T

Your first link doesn't show available but your second link shows that I can order it. Says it's shipping from Greece but free s/h? But at $11/15ct it's about Via pricing. Might be worth a try though :)
 
I have never heard of those, just might have to keep an eye out for them thanks for the tip! After some searching I found the best of the regular instants to be the 100% Columbian Tasters Choice, far better than their other instants, but yeah still a little bit of that instant kind of taste. But I have not been able to find it locally ever, only online. Via is a bit better but several times the price. I do not like a lot of Starbucks Via actually, the darker roasts tastes really burnt to me, perhaps because it's micro ground coffee and your drinking some of the grounds. But I do enjoy the lighter roast Via like Veranda roast. I'm normally a bit of a coffee afficionado but I admit my standards drop greatly when I'm on a mountain. Everything tastes better on a mountain we always said (except spam! :yuck: lol) . I ended up buying a huge bulk pack of the Columbian Tasters Choice, like 100 packets or something, so have a good supply still but I do use them for other things too. T

Your first link doesn't show available but your second link shows that I can order it. Says it's shipping from Greece but free s/h? But at $11/15ct it's about Via pricing. Might be worth a try though :)

Yeah I wouldn't spend that kind of money on it. It might also be an acquired taste as that is the style coffee they drink over here. I can buy a box of 25 for 2 euro though. It's definitely worth that but not $11.

It's much better than the instant crystals!
 
This might be a great thread, food ideas for backpacking. I often dehydrate fruits for home and hiking. I've made pizza, cinnamon rolls and other cool treats when I'm inclined while hiking. Otherwise, I grab some mac and cheese and Lipton Noodle dinners. I'm not a coffee drinker, but Mt. Dew has often been found in my pack.