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WHAT WE DID!

  UPDATE!  
WHAT: Broke the speed record for summiting all 46 Adirondack High Peaks!!!
TIME: 6 days, 23 hours & 45 min
WHEN: July 4, 2019
FOR: The Dubin Breast Center of The Tisch Cancer Institute is located at Mount Sinai Hospital

There is a new standard for climbing the 46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks.

Two SUNY Cortland graduates, Michael R. Jock, 30, and Lukas B. Wear, 28, roommates and independent personal trainers in Manhattan, have completed the fastest known unsupported through-hike of the 46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks.

On July 4, the pair summited their 46th peak, Mount Esther, on the northern shoulder of Whiteface, 6 days, 23 hours and 45 minutes after starting their trek at the trailhead to Seward Mountain in southern Franklin County. 

The previous fastest know time was 7 days, 14 hours and 15 minutes. 

On their last day of hiking, they climbed six peaks, covered 44.18 miles and were moving for 23 hours and 30 minutes.

This was the team’s third attempt at the record.

On the first two attempts, there were four hikers. Injuries, a kidney stone, and bear encounters spoiled those two tries in the summer of 2018.

Their record time is listed on fastestknowntime.com, which tracks fastest times attempts on hiking trails. The web site requires an incredible amount of detail to verify an attempt.

 

They sent photos from the top of every mountain, data from their Garmin satellite watch and a detailed account of each day.

Those daily accounts are impressive. On the first day, they climbed seven mountains and covered nearly 38 miles. Their shortest day was the fifth day when they climbed eight mountains and covered 24 miles. 

Mr. Wear had some early experience in the High Peaks. He was eight-years-old when he climbed Cascade with his parents.  But most of their recent experience has come as they worked on a project called Team Adventure Portal with their friend Mike King.  Team Adventure Portal is a company that provides adventure travel, retreats, and custom hiking trips. 

Mr. King was on the first two attempts last year and this year was working on a documentary about the hike. 

Mr. Jock said he consumed about 24,000 calories of food over the six days. His Garmin watch said he burned 40,000 calories. 

Each lost about 15 pounds during the hike and Mr. Jock suspects he has a stress fracture on his left tibia. Mr. Wear’s arms were covered in scratches due to his headless style of moving through the woods. And, they were covered in bug bites. 

Of the 212 miles they ran for maybe 30 miles, Mr. Wear said.

 

They had planned on running more on the last day, but Mr. Jock’s injury made that impossible. 

On top of setting the record, the pair raised $17,000 for the Dubin Breast Center at Mount Sanai Hospital in New York. 

The toughest part of the trek may have been the night of day three when they had to descend Algonquin, the second highest mountain in the Adirondacks, in a torrential rain storm,  then walk in a constant downpour for about 15 hours the next day. 

“I tried to quit day four,” Mr. Wear said. 

“We had a couple good cries,” Mr. Jock said with a laugh.

 

“Everyday had its ups and downs, but for the most part it was good. Morale, on the whole, was good overall.”

They trained intensely for the five months leading up to the event. 

“We had one week where we had two 50-mile races,” Mr. Jock said. “We had a ten-hour endurance run and then six days later a 50-miler in Utah. And then we filled that with long runs and long cross training sessions.”

After a certain point, all the training was done while carrying weight, to get used to carrying backpacks.

With all the preparation and training it still came down to a bit of luck. 

“A big fear of ours,” Mr. Jock said, “was all the things we can’t control. A lot of stars have to align. Things have to go right. We talked about how scary it was that it could take one misstep out of the hundreds of thousands of steps we took and it could end the trip.”

While they recover and start exploring ideas for their next challenge they plan to spend some time enjoying the mountains they conquered. 

“We are super excited just to get back to the Adirondacks and just hang out,” Mr. Wear said. 

“I can’t wait to come up here and pack a bag full of good food and luxurious equipment and go get one mountain and enjoy the mountains the way we started,” Mr. Jock said.

 

"DON'T LIMIT YOUR CHALLENGES, CHALLENGE YOUR LIMITS"

Dubin Info, Team Adventure Portal, Adirondaks, hiking, NYC, guides

BEHIND THE SCENES

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