A quick recap.  I am working on hiking every mile of every trail within the High Peaks Wilderness of the Adirondacks.  This is going to the Red-line challenge, but I am going beyond what that challenge requires.  I am adding in all the herd paths, and all the trails that are on the easements.  Basically, everything that is numbered on the ADK map and in the ADK High Peaks Wilderness guidebook.  This adds about 50 to 100 more miles than the official challenge includes.  What I have hiked with GPS traces available can be seen here.  At this point, there's only a couple sections of trails that I hiked decades ago that I don't have a GPS trace for, and will hike again to get that trace.

My hiking focus this summer has been on doing as many of the new to me trails that I can do.  I also have been working on trying to "close out" trail heads and clean up various trails that have been missed over the years.  So far, I've hiked all that is reasonable out of the Upper Works road trail heads, Rooster Comb, Deer Brook, Cascade, and possibly Round Pond.   This all makes me feel good as I see the places I have to travel come more into focus.

We're now getting into fall shoulder season though, and that means the days are getting shorter and colder.  I've already seen some ice on the peaks, so I'm starting to have to carry more gear, and have to consider progressively more difficult and dangerous conditions.  So what can I realistically get done before the end of the year?

Out of ADK Loj, I have 2 trails I haven't done.  Rock Garden and Mr. Van.  Rock Garden is something short and easy so I should be able to get it done this weekend after I do trailhead duty.  Mr. Van is a ski trail and is historically flooded between Loj and Meadows Lane, so once the ground gets more solid, but before we get significant snow, I'll go and get that as one big loop as it goes all the way to the olympic center trails.

Out of the Gardens I've got a bit of cleanup to do.  I've got the Hopkins trail and about 0.6 miles of the Phelps trail that will make a nice loop, neither of which I've ever done before.  I may be able to add in Short Job, which I've never done, Woodsfall and Southside trails (I did these in 1998).  That would leave me with Shoreys Shortcut (done in 1998), and the cable route up Gothics.  Since I'm doing Basin and Haystack this winter, Shoreys will be taken care of then.

Out of AMR, I have a bunch of trails that never leave the property.  Once the permits are over, and before we get snow, I'll go in and get them, along with Round Mt. 

That is probably what I'll be realistically be able to get done this calendar year.  If I do all that, I'll have 120 miles left to do.  Of that, I'm going to have to do some backpacking to get a lot of that.  There's the 33 miles of NPT, the Cold River Horse trail, and a bunch of things out that way between Placid and Newcomb that is all low elevation and lots of miles.  In the mountains, I have a small part of the Hunters Pass trail and the herd path from 73 to Grace, plus the herd path from between Macomb/South to Lillian Brook all in the Dix range, which may be one hike, may be multiple as that's a long approach.  Then I have a lot of stuff out of Elk Lake, basically the trails that are best to start from Panther Gorge and upper Ausable Lake, and involve steep climbs over multiple mountains and long days.

So, it looks possible that I may be able to finish this next year, but I am going to be realistic that it probably won't be done until 2028.... there's just a few too many multi-day hikes to be confident I can get it done in one year.