Northville Placid Trail – Final Thoughts

I had some major stressors on this hike. Spraining my foot early, not planning resupplies well, and being low on food were the biggest ones. There were also some minor stressors, like struggling to cover as much ground as possible with limited daylight. However, I will try to be impartial to the path itself in my reflection.

It seemed as if much of the trail was poorly maintained, mainly due to trees blocking the trail and crumbling boardwalks. I didn’t have any problems with the quality of the trail itself; obviously there will be mud on busy trails like this. The trail was spectacularly difficult to see in the fall with the foliage on the ground. Because of that, I wish the trail markers had been a little more spaced apart, instead of one every other tree for a while and then others completely out of sight. There are a couple of optional turns that weren’t defined as trails on the map or in the guide that confused me a little, and it would have been nice to make sure the main turn signs were visible from the SOBO and NOBO perspective.

Northville, Long Lake and Lake Placid were awesome towns. The locals were all very friendly and the food was excellent. Piseco was disappointing.

I think my pacing was a little aggressive considering the amount of daylight I had, but I didn’t have any other PTO days to use, so that was all I could do. And obviously it was doable (even with an injury and little food). The average dawn to dusk time was 7:15 a.m. to 6:05 p.m., that is, 11 hours.

In retrospect, I wish I had spent my time in New York summiting the 46ers or something. But I also know that if I had done that, I would have regretted not signing the NPT. I can’t speak for the trail experience any other time of year, but if you want a true fall experience, this is a great place. If you want amazing views of the surrounding area, this is not a great place. If you want a mostly flat trail with a couple of steeper sections, this is great.

Photos

I liked to imagine them as little fairy houses, and this was a town.

Sorry for the photo dump, but there are a lot of things here that I enjoyed 🙂

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