Who is this boy? – The walk

Hi, I’m James! I will be hiking the Northville-Placid trail this September. I’m a 43-year-old mail carrier who lives in western Massachusetts, near the New York and Vermont borders. I have done many hikes in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and Berkshires. I backpack several times a year with my wife and our dog, Wiley, but I’ve never tackled anything as long as the NPT, and I’ve never backpacked alone. I love to draw and will carry a sketchbook.

How I found out about the TNP

My wife and I have spent a week hiking the Adirondacks every fall for the past eight years. A few years ago, while browsing the local/nature section of the Lake Placid bookstore, a title caught my eye:The charm of the deep forests by Walt McLaughlin.

ID I’m listening of the Northville-Placid Trail earlier, as I scanned my map for an easy hike we could do a day after tackling a high peak, there it was: a long, winding line, starting at Averyville Road in Lake Placid and extending… right to the side of the map. Traveling the NPT from Lake Placid never seemed feasible. Twelve miles one way to a place called Duck Hole?

The cover of this book spoke to me. Something about the phrase «Deep Woods» and the peace and solitude I could feel emanating from the shed on the cover. I did some research and discovered that the Northville-Placid Trail was 138 miles long and that someone (like me?) could backpack it from one end to the other.

making it happen

Over the next few years, I became more familiar with the Northville-Placid Trail on several shorter backpacking trips. The French Louie Loop, a 23-mile loop that traverses a section of the NPT through the Western Canadian Lakes Wilderness, was my first experience with the trail. Lying in my hammock and listening to the strange sound of a loon call transmitting across the nearby lake, I knew I wanted more. Last fall, after several more confidence-boosting backpack trips, I began to feel like hiking the Northville-Placid Trail was a real possibility. I had built up some extra time away from work, and after doing the math, I realized I could actually do it. My wife and I were about to hike the Cold River Loop, a 30-mile loop that starts at the Seward Trailhead and follows the NPT for 10 miles along the Cold River; I decided that if the trip went well, I would ask my wife for her blessing to tour the NPT the following year.

As you can probably guess, the hike was a success and I got my wife’s blessing, so here I am: I have time off from work and in September I will be hiking the Northville-Placid Trail, alone.

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