Toughest Hike or Backpacking Day

scatman

scatman

Member
.
Joined
Dec 23, 2013
Messages
3,924
To follow up on @Parma 's Most Miles Hiked in a Day thread, what is the toughest hike or day backpacking? I mean a day where you are physically or perhaps mentally exhausted by the end of the day.

My list in order of most difficult for me:

1. Old Fountain Trail, Yellowstone National Park - 14 miles of hell! Followed the old stagecoach road across the Madison Plateau on June 21st. Left at 5:00 am and finished at 9:30 pm. The entire route was burned back in 1988 and the downfall was horrendous. There were points along the way where the downed trees were eight feet off the ground. There were times when when we didn't touch the ground for a half mile to a mile. New growth at times was so thick that you couldn't see out in front of you for long stretches. It's amazing that no one was impaled somewhere along the way. At the end of the hike I had to bicycle roughly twenty miles back to our vehicle at Lower Geyser Basin. I'm pretty sure no one has done this since our trek. This was both physically and mentally fatiguing.

2. Wildcat Ridge - Here in the Wasatch Front near Salt Lake. I think it is only eleven miles in length, but it took all day - 16.5 hours. This hike was both physically and mentally (for me anyway) with a lot of exposure and elevation gain through out it's length. It took me three days to recover form this one.

3. Millcreek Ridge - Another Wasatch Front Hike of approximately 13 miles. The first part of the ridge is wonderful, the last three fifths a bushwhacking nightmare. This hike took me from 5:00 am until midnight to complete. I still have scars on my legs after this hike.

4. The 26 mile day hike I mentioned in the other thread. This one scared off some of my old backpacking buddies.
 
toughest hike for me was southbound through the mahoosucs. 3 days of crazy ups and downs along with a mile of scrambling through the notorious mahoosuc notch, a talus field that.s kinda fun to navigate through up and around. i came down mahoosuc arm in the rain. and it was one of the few times i was a bit scared.its a series of ledges with little or no handholds, difficult climbing up, 10 times more so climbing down, especially on wet rock. i would be hanging on to pine tree roots along the edges of the ledges, and just swing down to the next ledge, praying the roots would hold.

2nd toughest was a traverse of franconia ridge in new hampshire. i had planned a 14 mile day from the notch to garfield ridge campsite. took a shuttle to the trailhead, but got a late start. it was hot, and i should have stopped for water at liberty springs campsite, but i kept moving due to the late start, around 9 miles in , between lincoln and lafayette, i ran out of water, and was becoming dehydrated. coming down lafayette was maddening as i could hear water running but no way to get to it. when i got to the base of mt garfield, i was totally spent, and suffering from heat exhaustion, with chills and nausea. i sat, wondering if i could make the 1400 ft climb over garfield to the campsite and water, when a couple weekenders were out to do the bonds.one of them was carrying a huge pack had to weigh upwards of 50 lbs. i asked if he had any water to spare, he set his pack down, and pulls out a gallon jug of poland spring, told me to help myself, he had two more jugs!
we helped each other climb slowly up garfield. my benefactor also had an altimeter in his watch and would announce every minute or so "only another 863 ft. only another 833 ft,only another ..." and so on. i wanted to tell him to shut the * up, but was grateful for the water so i kept my lip shut. although it was late, we decided to take the spur trail to the summit, before hitting the campsite.we got to the top just as the sun was hitting the horizon.360 view of nothing but mountains. we stood with packs on for over an hour watching the stars wink on, until we were surrounded in galaxies.
we headed the last .25 down to the site in the dark, with headlamps.
 
Last edited:
My exit from the Brooks Range. it was quite the event, at least for me. After coming off the North Fork Koyukuk River at Rock Creek i had tented up to wait out some rain. The next day i packed up at may be 430 the next after noon when there seemed to be a break in the weather. I knew no thing about this route other than the topo map that i had. It's some of the most difficult walking I've ever done, all over grown, lots of soft low ground vegetation, and it was all on relatively steep slopes, no thing level and open enough near the creek, and no available ridge to walk. It rained on me once during this and i might've started to go in to shock for just a moment. I stopped, cooked my last meal, i was essentially out of food at this point. And i put on all my layers for a moment. The real problem with the rain was all the water left on the vegetation afterward that soaked my legs and feet. At the head of Rock Creek i was able to ascend above the vegetation to some ridges, and had some relatively easy walking. At the top how ever every thing was fogged in, and it made navigation interesting. Eventually i made it to where i could see the Middle Fork Koyukuk below me, and i bushwhacked down to it. There i reinflated the packraft, and floated the last mile back down to Coldfoot, arriving there at noon the next day. About 18 hours of walking, and then an other hour in the raft, and then a few minutes walking down the road to "town". Then i had to try and hitch a ride back to my bike. Any way. I just drew a line on caltopo, and it looks like it was about 18 miles i walked. Longer than i would've even thought. It was awful, don't do it, float the rest of the way down to Bettles. I was able to walk the whole night through because it doesn't get dark North of the Arctic Circle in July. The only time i really stopped longer than a minute was the time to cook spaghetti. By the time i made it out i was out of food to the point that i was eating what was left of the brown sugar i bring to sweeten the oatmeal.

Summary. 18 hours to walk 18 off trail miles, too often bushwhacking, some ridge walking through fog, and then an hour to finish floating down the river. And a little rain. And running out of food. Good times. I'd do it again, and do it better.
 
Last edited:
It's tough to admit, but the most exhausted I have ever felt "hiking" for an entire day/night was at Universal Studios in Orlando! We were there from open to close and when we (my wife and 3 kids) were walking back to the car my feet, legs, and back HURT!
And I had to carry my 3 year old because his feet hurt so bad. And our feet were wet too, thanks to that river/rapids ride. So this isn't as tough/manly as everyone else's...but at the end of that day I was hurting more than any other backpacking trip I've ever done.
 
Got my truck stuck in the mud once on a "day trip". Short story made shorter - two days and two nights, 34 miles, open desert, late winter, no shelter, no food, eating dirty snow for water (made me puke....). Never felt in any danger or anything, aside from hunger, thirst and cold, didn't even suffer much, just a garden variety shit sandwich, but of above average proportion, simply had to eat it one bite at a time.

- DAA
 
I guess my response here would be about the same as the other thread...

Vegan.Hiker said:
Ben, I thought we did more than 21 miles together on our last day in the Tetons when we exited out of Idaho no?

Elevation wise, the hardest thing I've attempted was the Great Range Traverse (~11k elevation gain) but bailed on my second day. So I ended up doing 7,146' of elevation gain on an overnight with about 90% of it on the first day. Had about a 30+ lb pack since there are no reliable water sources on that route and had packed for 3 days.

Gaia tracks
View attachment 36039

Longest day hike? I dunno, a bunch around 15 miles or so. Mt Timp felt like the longest but that's probably cause I got some AMS above 10k.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't have thought of it if @hikerboy didn't mention it, but Franconia Ridge in the Whites was indeed a tough day when I did it.. ~4,500' elevation gain, though I took a different route than @hikerboy.

Not the hardest day per se, but the hardest TRAIL I've been on is the Devils Path in the Catskills. I've only done sections of it in loops and it's quite ridiculous. I honestly wouldn't dare trying the whole 25 miles of it. It's generally regarded as the most difficult and dangerous trail in the eastern United States (and I'm sure ranks up there for the whole country).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Path_(hiking_trail)
 
Baker/Iceberg Lake area to Green River Lakes trailhead in 13.5 hours in the Wind River Range was the longest and toughest hike I've ever done. Amazingly beautiful territory, but pretty brutal until we got down to Slide Lake. Lots and lots of snow which actually made the hike easier. We woke up camped on the saddle on the continental divide in the area of Iceberg Lake. After hiking in to that site two days before, we got fogged in for a day and woke up to a brutally cold morning. We didn't even make breakfast, we just kind of all agreed to start packing and get hiking as soon as possible to try to warm up. It took us about 2 hours to get to the other end of Baker Lake, though after that the going wasn't quite so slow. Very tough routefinding for the next while, but we ended up at what was supposed to be our campsite for the day, Elbow Lake #2. Unfortunately we had developed "trailhead fever" by that point and decided to push on. We hiked over Lost Eagle Peak and down to Slide Lake. It was late enough in the day to make camp then, but the mosquitoes at Slide Lake were absurdly bad, so we decided to hike the "easy" trail back to the trailhead. We did make it to the trailhead, but I was suffering from a bit of dehydration by the time I got to the trailhead (the other two hiked ahead of me, and I had no water purification with me so I hiked from Slide Lake to the trailhead on a liter of water, I think). We started hiking at 7:00AM and when I got to the trailhead it was 8:30PM. We had stopped only for water and a few snacks along the way.

Hardest hike mentally for me was this summer, over the course of two days (well, half of one day and half of the next) from Lake at the Falls to Elpestrine Lake in the Beartooths. We started at Elk Lake in the morning, intending to get to Martin Lake. By the time we got to Lake at the Falls I was pretty much beat. My conditioning regimen before the trip had evidently been insufficient, and it was showing pretty badly. My hiking partner was not at all happy at my request to modify the route, so I agreed to try to make the climb to Martin Lake. It turned out to be some of the most difficult off trail bushwhacking I've ever done anywhere, and I quickly became exhausted and was running very low on water. My hiking partner, in much better shape, continued on ahead, figuring we would meet at the top. We of course became separated and I sat for a pretty darn scary hour and a half waiting to see if he would come back down to find me. I had gotten walled out and was too tired and frustrated to keep trying to go up, and was planning on heading back down to Lake at the Falls and making camp there to wait. Eventually he did come back down and we found each other. Had to trade my back back and forth between us on the hike back up. I was exhausted and dehydrated. Really wanted to take a short day or layover day the next day, but instead we pushed on going over the pass from Glissade/Bergschrund lake over the Elpestrine Lake. On the hike from Martin to Glissade I was the weakest I have ever felt hiking, having to take a break every few steps on any sort of climb. Had lunch at Glissade Lake and we actually made it over the rest of the pass with surprisingly little trouble. That was one of those hikes that had to be taken one step at a time, over and over, to get there. After getting to the top of the pass I felt like I was already home, knowing the rest of the hike wouldn't be anything nearly like what we had just done. We hiked on to Desolation Lake that day, which really wasn't too bad (especially after the miles leading up to that point).


SHORT SUMMARY VERSIONS:

1) Iceberg/Baker Lake to Green River Lakes trailhead in the Winds via Lost Eagle Peak, 13.5 hours and about 18 miles according to that lying liar Google Earth

2) Lake at the Falls to Elpestrine Lake in the Beartooths over the course of the better part of 2 days, getting lost for a while and being so physically exhausted you are hiking one step at a time and mentally stressed to a pretty good degree.

An honorable mention goes to Pine Creek Canyon trail in the Winds on my very first backpacking trip ever. We hiked to Fremont Lake from Elkhart Park the first day, and the second day we hiked up to Trapper Lake. I was in terrible shape, had never really hiked at altitude before (never mind with a pack), and was just totally unprepared for the experience. Spent most of the afternoon at Trapper Lake in pain. Now, 8 years later, I'm still backpacking for some strange reason.
 
My Son (unbeknownst to me ) read my earlier post and a couple minutes ago asked me " what about that time. .."

And he's right.

The physically and mentally toughest hike was not the time I had to walk two days described earlier. It was the time my back went out down in the Maze. Camped at the Overlook and walked down to the Harvest Scene. Back went out at the mouth of Pictograph fork. Less than two miles back to camp but made that two days walking out from my truck being stuck seem like an erotic massage. ..

- DAA
 
Vegan.Hiker said:
I guess my response here would be about the same as the other thread...



I wouldn't have thought of it if @hikerboy didn't mention it, but Franconia Ridge in the Whites was indeed a tough day when I did it.. ~4,500' elevation gain, though I took a different route than @hikerboy.

Not the hardest day per se, but the hardest TRAIL I've been on is the Devils Path in the Catskills. I've only done sections of it in loops and it's quite ridiculous. I honestly wouldn't dare trying the whole 25 miles of it. It's generally regarded as the most difficult and dangerous trail in the eastern United States (and I'm sure ranks up there for the whole country).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Path_(hiking_trail)
Click to expand...

devil's path is indeed a ball buster,although i did it a long time ago in the 80s, but not the most difficult trail ive hiked.the AT thru the whites is tougher. there are also a number of smaller trails in the whites that are insane, more like rock climbs, including the kings ravine trail, the castle ravine trail, madison gulf trail, great gully trail,huntington ravine trail, to name a few. i would rank western maine on the AT to be tougher than devils path.
 
Third day of the Santa Cruz trek in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru. While the trail tops out at 15,700 feet, that wasn't the hard part. The hard part was the nine miles downhill through six inches of mud...seemed endless.
 
They are all hard these days, even with the stats getting milder and milder!

Recently, on our Wind River High Route, we ran out of time and finished off going 22 miles from near Knapsack to Green River TH. Pretty tough on the feet, but all downhill.

A long while ago we skied in to a basecamp in a remote valley in Norway. Loads were heavy and the arctic winds howling. After digging our snow cave my partner discovered frostbite in 3 toes. I skied back out to get help. This was all following an all night drive after work to get up there. In the end 38 hours without sleep and some 40 miles.
 
Last edited:
Sometimes it's not mileage or length, but other factors. One time I dislocated my should near the summer of some unnamed peak in the Wasatch. It was only 2-3 miles back down to the car, but I couldn't get my shoulder back in the joint, and had to hike the miles down with a dislocated shoulder. Once I finally got to the car and sat down and relaxed it popped back in. Lesson learned.
 
Toughest day for me was when I hiked Imlay Canyon in one day. I think it is about 18 miles from Lava Point TH to the Temple of Sinawava Bus Stop. Within the first 5 miles I started chafing, so most of the canyon I was having to deal with that. Imlay is a beast of canyon anyway, so by the end of hiking it, I was beat. THEN you have a 2 hour slog through the narrows. Walking that in the dark was hard enough. add exhaustion from doing the canyon and it was crazy hard.
 
andyjaggy said:
Sometimes it's not mileage or length, but other factors. One time I dislocated my should near the summer of some unnamed peak in the Wasatch. It was only 2-3 miles back down to the car, but I couldn't get my shoulder back in the joint, and had to hike the miles down with a dislocated shoulder. Once I finally got to the car and sat down and relaxed it popped back in. Lesson learned.
Click to expand...
I just had shoulder surgery from when I dislocated my Shoulder while coming down from Hayden Peak in September. Crazy that mention this.
 
Bummer, sorry man. Mine has bugged me ever since a basketball game in high school. That was 15 years ago. For a while it was coming out once or twice a month, but these days it seems to have healed up a bit and it's only about once every year or two.
 
andyjaggy said:
Bummer, sorry man. Mine has bugged me ever since a basketball game in high school. That was 15 years ago. For a while it was coming out once or twice a month, but these days it seems to have healed up a bit and it's only about once every year or two.
Click to expand...

Its all good. I get to rehab over the winter. I should be on the slopes again by February :) My backpacking plans for next year remain the same so, all things considered, now is the best time for the surgery and rehab.
 
balzaccom said:
Third day of the Santa Cruz trek in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru. While the trail tops out at 15,700 feet, that wasn't the hard part. The hard part was the nine miles downhill through six inches of mud...seemed endless.
Click to expand...
Are there pics to this?
 
@Blake Merrell and @andyjaggy ...my shoulder brethren. I injured my shoulder back in March of 2006 climbing (I should post that story...) I re-injured it about every other week for about a year. Re-injury = hurt to where I couldn't move it, then the pain would subside, testosterone would kick in, stupidity would ensue. Back then instead of fixing the problem I just cut out what I loved, hindsight makes that statement hurt even more. 8/31 I had surgery. The Doc found much more damage than any diagnostic test found. Long and short I'm not quite 8 weeks post-surgery, still weak, range of motion improving, Hopefully February I'll be strong/stable enough to hit the slopes and be ready for uninhibited adventure. We should get together and have a rehab bash.

Salud!
 
A few years ago I wasn't feeling good and almost bailed out of hiking Nebo, but for whatever reason decided to give it a shot. What I didn't know was that my buddies were planning on doing the traverse starting more or less at Mona. So there's a walk up Mona Pole Canyon, 3000' of bushwacking over to North Peak, the scrambly slog over the summits, then a seemingly interminable walk out Willow Creek. Not that many miles but pushing 7000' of vertical and a lot of off-trail and whatever was making me borderline sick hit me like a truck that evening.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top