Considering a Long Trail (Vermont) Speed Hike

[will sawyer]

A little background:
I'm 16, Last summer I hiked the LT with a group (anyone know Chewonki?), it took about 30 days, and we averaged about 9 miles a day. I'd say about a 30-40 lb pack weight.

I'm thinking about trying to do it again, but go unsupported and try for less than 12 days, since that seems to be the "record" set by the founder of Golite. 10 days would be nice. I've never done anything like this before, and I'm sure I'd be in over my head, but thats part of growing up, right?

I'm thinking about going stove-less and shelter-less, and bringing only a few staple foods, e.g. oatmeal(which i eat wet, but uncooked), peanut butter, maybe some jerky. It would get unappatizing fast, but if you can't eat it, you ain't hungry! I know it isn't "balenced" but for a short duration I think it would be ok, and its healthier than what most kids eat.

I wouldn't plan out each day's hike, rather go as far as I could each day. Being on the trail 12+ hours, trying to do something like run/jog 10 minutes, hike 20, repeat. or base it off incline of the trail? walk ups, run downs, and then use the above for flats?

On a more general note, if I were to go through with this, and beat his time, is there any official way to do this?

What am I not thinking of? Has anyone tried doing a run/hike pace like that? I'm not sure what my pack weight would be, I'm hoping for a baseweight around 10lbs, and then starting with say 20 lbs of food leaves me at a very rough guess of 30-32 lbs. It would be hard to run with that, but towards the end it would lighten up as I ate my way through. Does anyone have experience doing a speed hike like this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, even if it is telling me I am crazy.

Here is Golite's press release of Coupounas's hike:
http://www.golite.com/PDF/pressrelease/9.pdf

Much Thanks

[Author]

Posts