24-hour Hut Traverse (in 19 hours)

24-Hour Hut Traverse (in 19 hours)

At the final hut, Lonesome Lake

Eric Gilbertson
Philip Kreycik
Victor Shnayder (support crew)
9.18.10

50.3 miles hut-to-hut (56.1 miles total)
16000 ft elevation gain
19 hours 39 minutes
6:11am Saturday to 1:50am Sunday
8 huts

A hut traverse is one of the toughest day-hikes in the whites – the goal is to visit every AMC hut in less than 24-hours. The minimal-distance route is approximately 50 miles with ~15000ft elevation gain, including a full presi-traverse and part of a pemi-loop combined. Most people start the route at Carter Notch, ending at Lonesome Lake and hitting Madison, Mitzpah, Zealand, Galehead, and Greenleaf on the way. (By “most” I mean a few hut croo workers I talked to said they and their friends had tried it in that direction).

Philip and I were running out of long hikes to try in the whites and this sounded like a challenge right up our alley. I had attempted this a few years ago but couldn’t quite get it under 24 hours, mainly due to sleep deprivation and trying to hit every single summit in between the huts. I had started that hike late morning and had to pull an all-nighter in the middle of the hike. So the strategy this time was to start at dawn and try to finish around midnight or so to avoid an all-nighter. That would mean running on the flats and downhills and going around a few summits to hit the minimal-length path.

We left town on Friday afternoon with Victor and drove up to the 19-mile brook trailhead. The plan was Victor would do a more laid-back dayhike Saturday and pick us up at the end of our trip at Lonesome Lake. We hiked up 19-mile brook trail that night and camped out close to Carter Notch hut to prepare for an early start.

We rose slightly before dawn and officially left the hut at 6:11am. We jogged parts of the trail that weren’t too rocky, ran down the road to the Great Gulf trail, and then started up Madison Gulf. This direction (Carter to Lonesome) made the most sense because we could get the rugged presidential traverse done first while we were fresh, and we could be above treeline while we were most confident the weather would be nice.

At ~9:30am we tagged our first hut, Madison. It was officially closed but there was a hut croo person doing some maintenance and we asked him to take our picture. I guess he saw me tag the hut and he asked “so, you doin’ a hut traverse?” We nodded and he happily took our picture. I would have guessed Presi-traverse first if I had seen us, but he must have done a hut traverse himself sometime and seen it in our eyes what we were after.

Next we headed off towards Lakes of the Clouds. The minimal-distance route actually took us around every summit – Adams, Jefferson, Clay, Washington – and it felt a bit lame at first, like doing a cheater version of a Presi-traverse. But our objective was huts, not summits, and we had climbed all those mountains a thousand times anyway on other trips. We could not feel right passing by Washington, though, and made a short detour to tag that summit and utilize the nice facilities on top.

Lakes gave us a 5-minute break to snap a picture and scarf down some bars before we headed off again. Most of the trail around Monroe, Franklin, and Eisenhower was actually runable and we made pretty good time. We had to be honest hikers and actually go over Pierce (only our second summit of the trip) before hitting Mitzpah around 1:30pm. By 2:30 we made it to Crawford notch and who did we see at the Highland Center? – Victor! He had finished his hike up Carrigan early and surprised us with some fresh bananas.

We took our longest break so far here – a full 17 minutes – and then jogged over to the Avalon trail. The first 50% of the hut traverse had only taken about 8.5 hours, so we started thinking we might actually have a shot at a sub-24-hour traverse.

We hit Zealand Hut around 4:30 pm and took an even longer break – 20 minutes. The hut was partially to blame for this indulgence because they had some really good warm soup for a couple bucks that we just couldn’t resist. We then took off up Zealand still feeling strong with 30 miles under our belts and a few hours of light remaining in the day. Our goal now was to make it as far as possible before dark, because we knew once we were reduced to using headlamps our speed would drop significantly.

At 7:10pm we made it to South Twin (official summit number 3) in time to see sunset over Franconia Ridge and by 7:30 were at Galehead Hut. We intended to just go in, fill up water, and keep going on our way, but we got to talking to the hut croo and ended up getting a free dinner out of it! The exchange was something like,
“Are you guys still hiking farther tonight?”
“Yeah, we’re headed to Lonesome” (still ~12 miles away at this point)
“Wow you’re not doing a hut traverse are you?!”
“Yep”
“Awesome! Are you hut croo members too? You must be starving – have some turkey, mashed potatoes, soup, and ginger bread
“We’re not hut croo, but we certainly are hungry”

We definitely took them up on that offer and then returned to the trail with full stomachs. The going was considerably slower now that it was too dangerous to run, but we made decent time, reaching Lafayette by 11pm. Luckily the skies were clear and we had no trouble finding the trail. However, on our descent we found another hiker wandering around lost and looking for the trail, so we showed him the way down.

By 11:51pm we reached Greenleaf, hut number 7, and refilled water for the last time on the trip. We got down to the bridle path trailhead at 1am and soon found the car with Victor sleeping inside. He had bought some pizza which was just what the doctor would order for hikers like us with 48 miles to our names. But we still had 2 miles left and were still on the clock. So we officially registered a 13-minute break at the car and then all three headed up the trail. There was no way we would get this far and not make it in under 24-hours.

We hiked quickly up the trail, jogged the flat stretch around the lake, and officially crossed the finish line at 1:50am! 19 hours and 39 minutes for all 8 huts!

After taking some victory pictures we hiked back down and stealth-camped near the trailhead, getting to bed by around 3:30am. Cumulative trip mileage (including up-and-back from Carter and Lonesome) ended up being 56.1 miles, with ~17500ft elevation gain.

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