Cross Country/Track 11/12/2020 1:00:00 PM

Huckle Reflects on Record-Setting Hike in the Adirondacks

With a majority of long-distance running events canceled due to the pandemic, Canisius cross country/track head coach Nate Huckle joined his hiking partner, Katie Ghidiu, for a trek in the Adirondack Mountains. This hike, however, was not your stereotypical one.

Envision hiking nearly 150 miles over 62-plus hours with a 20-pound backpack strapped to your back at all times. That's what Huckle and Ghidiu accomplished last month on the Northville-Placid Trail in the southeastern portion of the Adirondack Mountains.

Huckle and Ghidiu completed the entire 142-mile route in 62 hours, 44 minutes to establish a new unsupported fastest known time, colloquially known as an FKT. Their backpacks, ranging between 17 and 20 pounds, held all of their gear and food that they needed and were only able to take water from natural sources.

"Everything was canceled, so we couldn't get out and do our normal, long efforts," Huckle said. "I think there's something in the DNA of an ultra-runner — or even beyond ultra-runners — there are people out there that just need to get out and scratch an itch a couple times a year to just do something hard. I joke about joining Katie for fun, but I need to get out there a couple times a year and just do something challenging, to push myself and see where the limits are."

Huckle is not the only Canisius connection to the trail, either. Daven Oskvig, an adjunct professor in the religious department, hiked the same trail two weeks before Huckle and Ghidiu.

Oskvig had somewhat of an easier time with the trail, setting the supported FKT in 38 hours, 44 minutes. This marked his third time hiking the trail this summer. Both of his previous attempts ended at Wakely Dam — the approximate mid-point of the trail.

"Supported essentially means that you have a crew or people who are going to support you intermittently along your way," Oskvig described what a supported hike is. "Food and other aspects of what you will need will be available at different times, as opposed to having to carry that all with you. They can access you, or you can access them, you have the ability to interact with others and for others to join you at different parts of it."

When it comes to determining how much to carry in your backpack on an unsupported hike, Ghidiu admitted there was lots of time spent on how much, or how little, they needed to carry in their backpacks.

"The goal is always to carry as little as possible, while still being safe and having enough to keep you warm, to keep enough calories, enough food so that you can make it through the whole trail," Ghidiu said. "It really made a difference in how fast we could move."

Ghidiu was already in the planning stages of returning to the trail when Huckle decided to join her. She had previously completed a thru-hike on the trail a couple of years ago, taking 11 days to complete.

They began the hike at the northern-most point of the trail in Lake Placid at approximately 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 2. One of the more difficult portions of the trail was later in the day, around 8:30 p.m., when they had to hike a total of 1,259 feet uphill over two hours just east of Long Lake.

"We were hitting some logging roads and I was like, 'Is that the top?' and Katie's like, 'I don't think so,'" Huckle reminisced. "Then we really started to climb and got into almost high peak-esque climbing for a little bit. It was challenging, but you could just wrap yourself around the effort and you're pushing through it."

After the steep climb, they stopped at a lean-to to sleep around 12:30 a.m. A lean-to is a structure added to an existing building with rafters "leaning" against another wall. They slept for around four hours, their longest stop during the entire hike.

The second day began with a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call but didn't begin hiking until about an hour after waking. They took a pair of naps — one for five minutes and another for an hour — before reaching the hamlet of Piseco around 2 a.m. Ghidiu mentioned in her report on fastestknowntime.com, that once arriving at Piseco the weather was becoming a factor. Temperatures were dropping and the conditions of the trail were becoming more slippery due to frost.

Their third and final day was a continuation of the day prior, never completely stopping for rest. Their food supply was beginning to run low, as they hoped to have finished the hike in just over two days. Ghidiu mentioned in the post that the last 30-plus miles were long and slow due to significant elevation changes. Huckle and Ghidiu kept a slow but steady pace, attempting to be out of the woods by nightfall. The pair officially completed their hike at 8:10 p.m. on Oct. 4, reaching the southern-most part of the trail in the village of Northville.

"It's just one of those beautifully awful ideas in some ways," Oskvig said. "You really can't be in a more remote part of the Adirondack Park than on that trail. You didn't hear anything that was not natural for hours and hours and hours. Not an airplane, not a motor, nothing, because you are so far from anything civilized, that's just you and nature. Any noises being made are either you or what's out there in the natural landscape."

"I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to anybody else," Huckle added. "I'd recommend it like Katie did the first time, as a 10-or-11-day hike, and go through and really enjoy it. But I think all of us probably would agree that we just need to get out there from time-to-time and get in touch with nature and strip yourself down. Let go of all the distractions that are here in our work life and personal lives and just recalibrate, reset ourselves a little bit, whether it's physically, spiritually, whatever it might be."

Huckle, Ghidiu, and Oskvig described their hikes in fuller detail in a Zoom call, which can be found here.

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