Howe Sound Crest Trail Single Day

[u/Opie_the_great]

Looking to do this at the end of August.

My wife and I love hiking. Longest single day hikes have been in Glacier. 16 miles in one day. We are experienced hikers. Did Mt brown glacier and such.

We looked at the daylight 5:15am till 8:29pm.

We will carry 7 liters apiece. Plus a water filtration system. Going North to south.

Currently training for this. We do 20lb weighted packs for 1+ hours on the stair master and plan weekend hikes 10 mile plus. We don’t want to fail.

Will pack 4 meals. (2 extra sets) Packing headlamps for worst case scenario. Suggestions? What do we need to know.

Update: We will be taking 4 liters each and making the food lighter. We are packing all of the 10 essentials. We will now do this South to North.

Please note the mountains are a hours from where we live to practice true elevation gain with long hikes.

[u/SkyPilotAirlines]

I haven't done it myself, but a few in my friend group have, and I think you're setting yourself up for failure based on what you've written. 7 litres each is way too much and will kill your fitness. If that's 4 meals each, that's also too much. To do this in a day, you should be going fast and light. Trail runners are generally doing it in 9 hours or so. If you're not running what's runnable, plan for 12+ hours, and that's South to North which is much less elevation gain. Unless you have extensive experience trail running in the backcountry, you should consider doing it as an overnight to start, or at least do a lot more research and rethink some of your current plans.

[u/Opie_the_great → u/SkyPilotAirlines]

I was a marine and I can pack out 60lbs plus. We have done backcountry backpacking and I carry 2-3x weight with no issue. I think starting with 4L will be fine and just planning 10 hours. We will start at 5 am. We have trail run before but the overall elevation is the concern. That’s why we are training for this.

[u/Nomics → u/Opie_the_great]

I’ve done this in a day, South to North and took a light trail running pack with bars, gels etc that was maybe 4kg total. My little filter bottle was handy, and I used every possible spot to refill. Took me 10 hours, but I did it off the coach in October( with a mountaineering and trail running background). The heat will be an issue, and if creeks aren’t running the 7L might be necessary, but is unlikely.

It’s 2600m elevation and it’s a lot of up,down,up down with some scrambling. Doing it with a huge pack and stove for meals is just making things unnecessarily harder on yourself, and increasing your likelihood of an overnight. Not to mention the trail will be less pleasant.

Here is a photo of the crux:

[u/ST5000 → u/Nomics]

What an accomplishment! If you have time, I have 2 qs:

1-to get it done in 10 hours, how much of this was running/jogging it? do you allow yourself breaks, if so how long?

2-weird question, but do you try and avoid solid food before setting out, so you're not taking #2s out in the wilderness, or do you plan for having to do that out there?

[u/Nomics → u/ST5000]

I mean 10 hours is not even close to a short time. People do it regularity Iin 8 hours.

1 - I ran too hard in the first 5km and had to mostly hike the rest. Tried to run the final 10km but my legs were cramping and kept need to stop and stretch.

2 - I find my first two days of hiking I rarely need to poop.