All The Data About My White Mountain Guidebook Hiking Project
Although I didn’t complete every trail in the guidebook in a set amount of time, and had 4 individual days worth of hiking that I didn’t complete during my timed attempt, I have a smorgasbord of data to share with anyone interested about just how much hiking (and driving) it takes to complete every trail in the guidebook.
There is no one way to do this hiking challenge and everyone’s data will be different because of the variability of route options for a lot of these hikes, however, one of the main reasons that I wanted to do this hiking project as a timed attempt is to gather data to share with the community about what one person’s attempt looked like.
That being said, although I am not sharing my routes (which there are 254 of them) because a huge part of this hiking project is creating your own routes (and reading the guidebook, not just downloading someone else’s routes offline and copying them) I can assure everyone that my record keeping was meticulous and I am 100% certain I hiked every trail in the guidebook. Many of them multiple times.
The Stats
16 Months 10 Days (485 Elapsed Days)
Total Days Tracing: 194
Total Miles Hiked Towards Tracing: 2099.36
Total Vert Hiked Towards Tracing: 602,002’
Trace Completed: 97.6%
Hikes NOT Completed during timed attempt: 8 (4 hiking days)
Bonus Miles
Extra Hikes for 100 Highest & Spring: 12
Bonus Miles Hiked: 140.70
Bonus Vert Hiked: 44,371’
100 Highest Peaks: 67/100
Overall Stats
Total Days of Hiking: 206
Altogether Miles: 2,240.06
Altogether Vert: 646,373’
Days Backpacked: 1 night
Individual Hikes: 254 (Some days I drove to multiple trailheads to complete multiple hikes)
Added hikes because of extenuating circumstances: 7
Summits: 205
Days Worked: 80
Miles Driven: 46,000
Carspots: 38
Avg. Miles Driven Per Day: 223
Avg. Miles Hiked Per Day: 10.90
Avg. Vert Per Day: 3,138’
Avg. Days Hiked Per Week: 3.12
Days In Snow: 46
Days In Rain: 27
Months of Winter Conditions: 11/14/22 - 5/1/23, 10/28/23 (5 Months, 4 Days)
Had I completed the attempt as I had it planned, this is what the last 4 days of hiking data would equate:
Incomplete Miles: 29
Incomplete Hikes: 8 (4 hiking days)
Miles Left To Complete Timed Attempt: 49
Vert Left To Complete Timed Attempt: 13,469’
The most important piece of data, in my opinion, is the weather window. I had 11 months of snow-free hiking to get this done because the vast majority of these trails cannot be done in winter due to road closures and trail conditions.
The Missing Data
Trails that I completed prior to this attempt with one set of completion dates (I’ve done some of these trails many times):
Downes Brook 5.2 miles (5/30/20)
Sabbaday Brook 4.9 miles (6/17/21)
Kate Sleeper 3.3 miles (9/11/21)
East Sleeper Spur .1 miles (5/30/20)
Mahoosuc Trail 2.9 miles, Speck Pond Tr. 3.6 miles, May Cutoff .3 miles (11/11/21)
Starr King Trail 3.6 miles, Kilkenny Ridge 2.1 miles (7/2/20, 6/25/20)
Landing Camp Trail 1.8 miles(7/4/20)
George’s Gorge .3 miles & Crew Cut Trail .4 miles (1/20/22)
Boothman Spring Cutoff, Closed 2023 .5 miles (7/1/20)
Frost Trail .4 miles (6/26/19)
