Speed hiker sets some lofty goals Vermonter hopes to set records, but in a less intrusive style
BY KATY MOELLER Gazette Reporter
Afew summers ago, an Oregon hiker named Ted "Cave Dog" Keizer took the Adirondacks by storm, hiking the 46 High Peaks in a record time of three days, 18 hours and 14 minutes. That’s so fast it can make your feet hurt just thinking about it. His super-fast trek was interesting to many. Inspiring to some. And annoying to those locals and environmentalists who didn’t particularly like Keizer’s high-profile and high-speed attack of the Adirondacks. "The Cave Dog thing rubbed people the wrong way around here. He became known as Hot Dog," said Ed Palen, a speed hiker and former Adirondack 46 record holder who runs the guide service Adirondack Rock & River out of Keene. Keizer, who had a "dog team" of nearly two dozen people to provide him with water, food and support along his way, has publicized his exploits far and wide. His many records, which are not verified by any sanctioning body, are posted on his Web site, www.cavedog.com But, as they say, records are made to be broken. Tim Seaver, a Vermont hiker, has decided he’s going to try to top some of Keizer’s speed-hiking times, particularly those in New England and the Northeast. WHAT’S THE RUSH? Some don’t like this idea of ultra-hikers doing this kind of thing, encouraging others to push their limits to extremes and, perhaps, miss the forest for the trees as they race to exhaustion. There’s also some concern about the impact on the natural
environment and what kind of message it sends to children to use the woods as a kind of race track. "Like any other sport, you’re going to have differences of aesthetic," said Seth Levy of the American Hiking Society, who admitted enjoying speed hiking himself. "The message we try and get across is that as long as you hike safely and at the pace that is enjoyable to you, hiking is beneficial. You don’t have to hike 100 miles a day at 50 miles an hour. You don’t have to hike far and fast to enjoy hiking." Indeed, a few athletes out there do enjoy hiking far and fast. In July of 2002, Seaver hiked all 48 4,000-foot peaks of New Hampshire in just three days, 15 hours and 51 minutes. He shaved an hour and a half off Keizer’s record time. "A lot of what drove that was regional pride," said Seaver, who lives in Calais, Vt., and works as a photographer. "I figured it was a New England thing. I was defending [the record] from this carpetbagging Westerner." "I’ve met him [Cave Dog]. He’s a great guy," said Seaver, explaining that he’s simply engaging Keizer in a fun, friendly rivalry. "We’ve run together and talked. When he broke the Long Trail record last year, I tagged along with him for one of the last sections. The Long Trail in Vermont is the length of the state. That might be on my list in the next few years." He’s also thinking of trying to topple Keizer’s record for the Adirondack 46. But Seaver’s next speed-hiking marathon will be the Northville-Lake Placid Trail, which runs about 122 miles from Lake Placid in Essex County to Northville in Fulton County. He plans to do the trail in early August, hiking it north to south. Seaver says the Northville-Lake Placid Trail Guide lists the trail record as being held by Richard Denker, who hiked it in 40 hours in 1973. Seaver hopes to hike the valley and river trail in 30 hours or less. Unlike Cave Dog, Seaver doesn’t have a big support team. It’s just his wife, Elisabeth, their 2 1 / 2 - year-old son and a couple of friends. ‘SIMPLER STYLE ’"I wanted to do it in simpler style, reflecting the Yankee ethic of do-it-yourself," Seaver said. "I just thought it would be more appropriate. It’s less intrusive on other people’s mountain experience. Everyone should do these kinds of things in the style they feel appropriate. I, myself, feel comfortable [alone] in the middle of the mountains. I don’t feel afraid." Seaver will get food and dry shoes at four main road crossings along the Northville-Lake Placid Trail. His support team will also give him a fresh pack with the food and supplies, and warmer clothes and a headlamp for night hiking. He scouts out the trail in advance and hides half-liter bottles of water, which he will pick up along the way. "They’re thin plastic bottles, and as I use them up I crush them in a ball and put them in my pack," Seaver said. He made an attempt at completing the Northville-Lake Placid Trail a couple of weeks ago, but aborted after about 37 miles. "The [weather] forecast was good. There just happened to be a 20 percent chance of an isolated storm," Seaver said. "I could see blue sky over my shoulder for four hours while I was getting pelted with heavy rains and lightning bolts in the forest around me." The 43-year-old, who stands 5 feet 9 inches and weighs 150 pounds, has been a recreational hiker for many years and has spent a lot of time shooting photographs in the mountains. He said he got into speed hiking, in part, because he would hike up mountains quickly — without lugging up his photo equipment — to look for good places to set up. Last year, he ran the Wakely Damn Ultra, a 32.6-mile race that’s on an uninterrupted section of the Northville-Lake Placid Trail. The race has no aid stations. COURSE RECORD Seaver won the race and set a course record, finishing in 5 hours, 5 minutes and 50 seconds, according to the race’s official Web site. "It was my first trail race and my first ultra [marathon], so I was pretty happy," Seaver said. "I prepared all summer for it." Seaver said there are some blowdowns, or trees that have fallen, along the Northville-Lake Placid Trail, and some beaver constructions that he’ll have to skirt. But he doesn’t anticipate having to do any bushwhacking, or traveling off the trail, to avoid obstacles. When he first scouted the trail, he lost it and ended up swimming across a river. That’s not good for the feet, of course. "You try to keep your feet dry. If they stay wet too long, you get trench foot," Seaver explained. "It’s like dishpan hands, except on your feet. If you let that go too long, eventually your skin just starts coming off. So you coat your feet with huge gobs of Vaseline and that acts as a waterproofing agent. But that only lasts 10 or 20 miles." Seaver’s wife says she’s seen her husband’s strength and endurance improve as he built up to 100 miles of running a week. "In the past, if he came out of the woods after 40 miles, he’d fall asleep," she said. "Now, he says, so what do you want to do next?’ " Palen said speed hiking is as old as the hills, even if the term was coined in recent years. Other terms to describe the multiplicity of hiking styles include fast packing and rapid hiking. "Bob Marshall, the founder of 46 er Club, was a speed hiker," he said. "They did it a lot in the 1920s." 11-DAY PACE Palen said counselors at the summer camps got into a competition in the 1950s. One counselor did all 46 High Peaks in 11 days, setting a record that others tried to beat. Palen and his buddy Sharpe Swan, teenagers who worked at Camp Pok-o-Moonshine, set the next record for the fastest time for hiking the Adirondack 46 in 1972. Following a long tradition of starting their trek at midnight, the pair finished after six days and 18 hours of hiking. The young hikers, who back then wore bulky hiking boots or basketball shoes, beat their rivals at Camp Treetops. It was all in good fun. But one of a pair of hikers from Camp Treetops was killed in 1972, when a hurricane hit the Adirondacks while they were hiking. Their perspective about what they were doing changed a bit when they read in The New York Times and other publications about environmentalists’ concerns that the wilderness was being turned into a gymnasium instead of a protected natural space. "It opened our eyes and we agreed," Palen said. "We don’t think the act [of hiking] is wrong. We think publishing the act and glorifying it is." In 1997, Palen and his buddy hiked the Adirondack 46 again, that time in a record four days and 18 hours. "We didn’t tell a soul," said Palen, now 49. "We tried to adhere to that philosophy: Do it and don’t tell anybody. Do it because you like to do it; it doesn’t hurt the mountains physically."
PHOTO COURTESY OF TIM SEAVER Tim Seaver, a Vermont photographer, beat Ted "Cave Dog" Keizer’s record for hiking the 48 4,000-foot peaks of New Hampshire in 2002. He hopes to overturn the Oregon hiker’s records in the Adirondacks.
