2025 was a good year for hiking.  In the end I hiked 47 hikes over 40 days.  My shortest hike was the Normaskill East trail in Delmar at 0.5 miles.  My longest was Hough from Elk Lake via Lillian Brook at 16.5 miles.  Time wise, my shortest hike was the Normanskill East trail at 13 minutes and my longest being Panther and Couch at 15 hours.  I did one trail that had zero elevation change, and the most elevation in a hike was Dial and Nippletop at just over 5100 feet of elevation.  My year end stats were 336.82 miles over 228.85 hours giving me an average pace, including stops, of 1.47 MPH.  I also climbed 86,486 feet and came down 86,801 feet due to carpooling to a trailhead.  This works out to 16.38 miles up and 16.44 miles down.

I did 13 ADK High peaks for winter credit and 3 Catskill 3500 for winter credit.  I also was taken out to New Hampshire for hiking for the first time and hiked 6 of the New Hampshire 48, and that had prompted me to start seriously doing the NE111.  That pushed me to finally do 3 of the 5 peaks in Vermont over 4000 which has put me 1/2 of a peak short of half way done with my 111.

On 2 of my winter hikes, I realized that I was lucky and had a couple of near misses.  One was nearly having a new winter hiker on what to date has been one of my toughest hikes.  Thankfully we were able to convince them to do an easier hike.  The other was a fellow hiker not eating well on the trail and bonking on the way out.  These events made me realize that we need more education out there, and pushed me to become an ADK trip leader.  I had the skills, I just had to jump through all the hoops to fulfill their requirements.  The only thing I really had to do was to get Wilderness First Aid or higher certified, which has pushed me to go back and get re-certified as an EMT.

So, in the end I did 26 hikes in the Adirondacks, 13 in the Albany area, 2 in the Catskills, 3 in New Hampshire, and 2 in Vermont.  I co-lead 3 hikes and lead 8 hikes for ADK.  3 of my hikes failed to meet what I planned to do, two of those was because of injury on or before the hike, the other because of physical issues and nerves.

Plans for next year are going to be similar.  I will be working my hardest to finish my winter round of 46.  I will do the 2 remaining peaks in Vermont.  I will try to get out to New Hampshire to do a couple peaks, maybe a half dozen or so and maybe hut to hut hiking.  I'll also be offering more ADK hikes of various difficulties... I'll be restarting a week night local hike once the days are light enough at night, and I'll be doing a more difficult  hike at least once a month, if not a couple times.  They won't be focused only on the Adirondacks, but also Catskills.  I hope to again do over 300 miles of hikes and have a pace of 1.5 MPH or better.

The full list of hikes:

ADK:

• Blake and Colvin (Winter)
• Dial and Nippletop (Winter)
• Phelps and Indian Falls (Winter)
• Dix (Winter)
• Hough (Winter)
• Allen (Winter, failed due to injury the week before)
• Panther and Couch (Winter)
• Santanoni (Winter)
• Whiteface and Esther (Winter)
• Pharaoh Wilderness
• Potash (ADK Co-lead)
• Cascade
• Upper Tongue Range and Deer Leap (ADK Co-lead)
• Phelps and Indian Falls
• Red-lining trails between Loj and Phelps
• Baker
• Goodnow (ADK lead)
• Elk Lake to Panther Gorge (failed due to injury)
• Black Mountain Fire Tower (ADK Co-lead)
• Mt. Adams
• Fish Hawk, Indian Head, and Rainbow Falls (ADK lead)
• Rooster Comb and Snow (ADK lead)
• Noonmark (ADK lead)
• Colden (ADK lead)
• Marcy Dam (failed Cliff and Redfield)

Catskills:

• Kaaterskill High Peak (Winter)
• Bearpen and Vly (Winter)

Albany area:

• Normanskill East Preserve
• Normanskill West Preserve
• Normanskill Ravines
• Swift Preserve
• Schiffendecker Preserve
• Hollyhock Preserve
• Holt Preserve
• Bennet Hill Preserve
• Keleher Preserve
• Hollyhock Preserve (ADK lead)
• 6 Mile Waterworks
• 6 Mile Waterworks (ADK lead)
• Blueberry Hill (ADK lead)

New Hampshire:

• Flume and Liberty
• Garfield
• Tom, Field, and Willey

Vermont:

• Killington
• Abraham and Ellen