I recently heard an analysis that suggested an interest in self-inflicted suffering was a symptom of narcissism, the narcissist elevating their self-importance by inflicting unnecessary woe unto themselves. I don’t have the background in psychology or neuroscience to understand if my motives were pure and noble, or a bit of low-grade debasement when I decided to attempt a one-day loop in New Hampshire’s Pemigewasset Wilderness.

In some circles, the Pemi Loop is considered one of the United States’ hardest day hikes. While you can dispute that ranking, it’s one of a dynamic duo of challenging single-day hikes in New Hampshire’s White Mountains that also includes the Presidential Traverse.

I’d done the Presi Traverse in 2020 as a bit of a test run to see if there was any hope of completing the 30+ miles and nearly 10,000’ of elevation of the Pemi Loop, at that point in my running career never having ventured much above 20 miles of travel. In early 2021, my grand plan was to parlay the fitness I’d accrued to complete my first 50K into a hill-climbing machine, complete with finely tuned quads with thousands of lunges hardening them into sinewy pistons.

Like most of my well-laid plans, the thousands of lunges and squats turned into dozens, and my training plan turned into more of a half-followed suggestion, and as my family made its annual pilgrimage north I found myself in early July well behind where I’d hoped to be in terms of strength and overall fitness. Not being one to let a minor detail like inadequate training stop me from creating an arbitrary deadline, I picked July 10^th, weather permitting, and set about working in some road time in the hills to at least get my fitness moving upward rather than nowhere.

As is usual this time of year in the mountain, the weather appeared uncertain, with the forecast predicting solid rains on the 10^th, then sun, and then drizzle through most of the morning as I laid out my gear and prepared to bed down early on the 9^th. My goal was a sub-15 hour loop, so I figured if I could get up around 3:30 and be on the trail by 4:30 after the hour drive to the trailhead, I would be in good shape.

My brain clicked on somewhere around 2AM, and I felt energized and ready to roll, so I carefully rolled out of bed in order to avoid waking my wife, grabbed a water bottle for the ride over, emptied my bowels, and loaded up my trusty running vest and hopped into the car.

What would normally be an astoundingly beautiful ride along the Kancamagus Highway was little more than a dark tunnel barely penetrated by my car’s headlights on the moonless evening, to the point that I somehow missed the turnoff for the Lincoln Woods visitors center. I only realized my mistake when I saw the first set of headlights I’d seen in the last 50 minutes slowing to make the turn I’d just passed.

I secured a parking space near the other flickering headlamps of fellow early rises, found the parking pay station after a brief search in the dark, gave myself a final pep talk, and broke into a trot as I started my watch, and crossed the bridge that would mark my start and finish line for the adventure.

This was timber country a century ago, and the trail away from the visitors center follows an old railroad grade, with the occasional railroad tie or piece of iron track still embedded in the well-worn trail. Unlike my Presi Traverse, where I had no goal other than finishing upright, I wanted to run where I could on this adventure and finish in (slow by Pemi standards) 15 hours or less.

The run was easy and nearly flat for the first 2 miles or so, and was ground I’d cover again on the return where I’d drop down from the mountains back onto the railroad bed for what was rumored to be a bit of a death march back to the parking lot. There’s a bit of debate on which direction is best for the Pemi Loop. My choice, going clockwise, had the benefit of putting the more aggressive climbing early in the day, when legs were fairly fresh. The main drawback was a bit over 5 miles of running on the railroad grade on tired legs and with a tired mind.

Proponents of the counterclockwise route suggested that getting the 5-mile run out of the way first resulted in an easier finish, despite a more challenging descent down Mt. Flume, which would be my first summit and the final summit for a counterclockwise loop.

I passed the sign for the Osseo Trail, marking my split from the railroad bed and transition to “real” hiking and a slower pace. I also passed, and was passed by, some fellow explorers. We shared morning greetings and that look of amusement, respect, and a touch of fear that one exchanges with fellow travelers on an unconventional adventure with an uncertain outcome.

The sun began to light the sky as I climbed the wooden stairs and ladders to the summit of Mt. Flume, and I was rewarded with a glorious sunrise that showed clearing skies and views across the wilderness.

One of the remarkable aspects of the Pemi Loop, which I’m not skilled enough to capture in a photograph, is that you can see the entire Loop from any of the six major summits it crosses. It’s awe-inspiring and frankly a bit frightening to observe the topography and distances involved, and I found myself glancing down at my legs somewhat suspiciously, as if they’d hoodwinked me into investing in a pursuit where the outcome was a bit less certain than I’d been promised.

As I worked my way across the ridgeline, I noticed a couple of “bandit” campsites off the trail, with occupants in various states of preparation for their day, as the Pemi is a well-traveled backpacking route. I wondered for a moment while they’d slept so late, only to glance at my watch and realize we were still in the 5 o’clock hour.

Unlike the Presi Traverse, which quickly gets hikers above treeline and largely keeps them there, the Pemi Loop has several valleys between summits, populated primary by the sweet-smelling scrub pine that often grows in lopsided triangles due to the constant winds, and I dipped into one of those valleys after exiting the summit of Flume.

The sun slowly rose to my right, and for a brief moment, I was trotting along, level with the golden orb as light streamed through the trees. I was making good time over Mt. Liberty, trying to keep my stops to a quick photo and brief sit, rather than the longer, more contemplative breaks I took on the Traverse, and soon found myself on the summit of Mt. Lincoln, with a majestic view of what was already appearing to be a significant amount of distance behind me, but a long portion of Loop remaining. I’d essentially started at 6 o’clock on a clock face, and had made it to 9 o’clock. 25% of the Loop lay behind me, and 75% remained, looming large in the distance, with the geographic high point, 5249’ Mt. Lafayette, up ahead.

There are a limited number of 5000’ peaks in this part of the world, so there are usually several day hikers, phones clutched in hand “doin’ it for the ‘gram,” but it appeared it was still early enough that most folks were out for longer hauls.

The climb to the summit of Lafayette was fairly easy, especially since I was already above 5000’ on Mt. Lincoln, and I had a stunning view that was reminiscent of one of those plaster representations of a mountain range. There’s one at the Pinkham Notch visitors center at the base of Mt. Washington, and I’ve seen similar setups where a 15×15-foot square has scale representations of the mountains, with trails drawn upon them. Rather than some godlike creature staring down on the mountains in miniature, I was a tiny speck on the life-size version of one of those maps, with views in all directions and a clear view of the journey still to come.

I left Lafayette relatively quickly, as the descent is fairly steep and rocky, and brings the traveller along the seemingly-endless Garfield Ridge, which is below tree line, and on this day was covered in the lone cloud pushing its way up the ridge like a slow-moving army attempting to overrun a wall.

The woods were damp and the trail rolling, with a few “mini summits” that would seem like they were about to break treeline, and then head back down again. I’d backpacked this part of the trail once before with my son, admonishing him to conserve his water as he sucked his hydration bladder dry, and a mile or so from the mid-point water fill at Garfield Ridge shelter, I sucked my own bladder dry, at nearly the same spot.

I considered wading into the woods near Garfield Pond to filter and fill, but managed to suck a couple of gulps out of my soft flasks as I emerged from the clouds and slog through the forest to summit Mt. Garfield. I looked back on the clouded valley and the journey ahead, now just about at noon on my imaginary clock face, and 10AM on my watch, a time that normally would have struck me as relatively early, but I now had seven hours of hiking under my feet.

I cruised down the summit of Garfield, a rather steep journey, although one that I knew would only get steeper after the spring. I was beginning to get thirsty and contemplated filling my bottles in the trickle of water running down the trail, but I knew I was a few hundred feet of descending away from a cool spring. I soon heard the incongruous sound of wood being chopped, and came across the shelter caretaker down some trail cleaning with her axe. I briefly considered “axe-ing” her if she enjoyed puns, but thought the better of it, said hello, and soon came upon the spring.

The spring was a cool and picturesque as I’d remembered it from my last journey, and I greedily filled my filter bottle, and squirted the refreshingly cool water into my mouth, pausing only briefly before filling another bottle and immediately draining it. This was the mental halfway point of the trip and the first of two “confirmed” water sources until I began the descent from the Bondcliffs, where I’d cross the Black Brook and had planned a third and final water fill.

After hydrating, filling my bladder, and enjoying a snack, I carried on, down the steep trail that seemed to have been intentionally designed to put the traveler in the midst of a near-vertical creek bed. After making it down, the ground leveled, I got in a bit of running and soon hit the border of what I knew on the route, as on my last trip my son and I left the Loop at the Franconia Brook Trail. I stopped for a picture, assessed how I was doing, and took my first step into the unknown.

The trail was wooded but generally rolling, allowing for a bit of what I’ll loosely term “running,” but was likely more of an amble. The trail began to climb slightly more aggressively, finally arriving at the Galehead Hut, one of the Appalachian Mountain Club “huts” that are an interesting mashup of backcountry lodge and primitive shelter. For my purposes, the hut had three objectives:

• A toilet of some sort that was sure to be better than a cathole on the trail, should I need it
• A final “official” water stop before I’d be relying on a river or stream, and perhaps most importantly:
• An opportunity for hot food

On my Presi Traverse, a cheese quesadilla at the Lake in the Clouds Hut had been a game-changer, and the affable young lady manning the grill suggested adding pork to a quesadilla, and also had a tray of delicious-looking blueberry cake on the table. I would have paid every penny on my person for this combo, and plunked down my cash and took a sit on the porch to enjoy the spoils of the hut.

I did cast a wary eye at the Twinway, a somewhat infamous portion of the Loop that ascended just over 1000’ in about ¾ of a mile, directly after the hut. I finished my grub, mindful of my 15-hour goal (the clock never stops for pit stops), tucked back into the hut to thank the woman for her exceptional culinary skills, filled one bladder and emptied another, and set off.

My plans of frequent leg work were based primarily on what I’d heard about the Twinway ascent, and I certainly could have used some extra explosiveness in my quads as I labored up the trail. My cardio system seemed to be OK, but towards the end of the ascent, I needed a break every few minutes to allow the lactic acid to drain a bit from my burning legs.

It wasn’t pretty, but I made it up South Twin Mountain feeling decent about my abilities, and feeling that the hard work was done. I could hear Robert Frost and his “miles to go before I sleep” echoing in the back of my mind, but I also had made it over the last large mental and physical speed bump and any question of not being able to finish due to anything short of a major injury.

I sailed along the Twinway, taking the few hundred-yard detour to bag Mt. Guyout and reveling in a classic New England ridgeline hike. I’d been continually working on transitioning to more of a forefoot stride over the past year, and while I was far from the soft-footed grace of the truly masterful runners who plied these mountains, I felt more sure-footed and slightly faster than I had along the Presi Traverse.

The final hurrah of the clockwise Loop is the Bondcliff Trail, presumably named for the dramatic cliffs along the trail. Braver hikers would venture out to a rock face for a classic picture, but my legs were feeling a touch rubbery, and I had no interest in a misplaced foot or sudden rush of vertigo sending me to my doom after so much hard work, so I watched someone pose at the edge of the cliff while I drank some water and got my bearings, slightly concerned that my water supply was again quite low.

An initially rocky and rather steep descent began to level out as I passed a few hikers heading up, presumably making an attempt to get to one of the huts before sunset. I was now out of water once again, and kicking myself for my poor planning. As the trail reentered the forest and the woods grew damp, some small streams began to crisscross the trail, and once they seemed significant enough, I stopped for a quick bladder fill, not wanting to wait until I crossed the brook.

Hydrated and feeling good, I broke into a fast walk as I descended, crossing Black Brook several times (now that I had water, of course) and finally hitting the old railroad bed where Black Brook merged with the Pemigewasset River.

This was the “death march” I’d been warned about earlier, and I mentally steeled myself for the almost five-mile slog along the railroad bed. My 15-hour goal was also looming large in my mind, and I was around the 14-hour mark as I hit the railroad bed. Having come this far, I broke into an amble, and did the mental calculations that required me to get a 10-minute mile pace to hit my goal with a little room for error.

My legs felt surprisingly cooperative despite the 25 miles they’d already logged, but I’d run for what seemed like a mile or two, only to glance at my watch and find a couple tenths had dropped off since the last time I’d looked. I started playing mental games, doing everything from setting minor goals based on a distant tree, to giving myself pep talks and singing songs, in what felt like an epic battle just to peel off the 1.6 miles to where we rejoined the Lincoln Woods Trail, the straight and flat shot back to the start/finish line.

I continued to invent games to push myself, alternating between congratulating myself and insulting myself in order to maintain the 10-minute pace. At one point, I saw a trio of people in the distance, and convinced myself it was a group of young adults that had passed me all the way back at the Twinway. I created an elaborate story in my head about how they’d run out of gas, and the old man they’d chatted with was now poised to “attack from the back of the pack.” I poured gas on the flagging flame of endurance I still had left, and convinced myself that they’d glanced back and seen me and were now picking up the pace.

As time had become compressed, this epic battle I’d created in my head probably took place over less than 10 minutes, and as I neared this group of incredibly fit mountain people that I’d somehow bested, I realized it was an overweight gentleman smoking a cigarette with his wife or girlfriend, and their pre-teen son, out for a carefree stroll at a pace that was unhurried at best.

Somewhat disappointed in the end to my grand competition, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the cut off for the Osseo Trail, where I’d headed up Mt. Flume 14 hours earlier was now in the rearview mirror, and it appeared that I could wrap up the remaining 1.3 miles of the Pemi Loop under my 15-hour goal.

The last 1.3 miles were a bit of a drag, although I finally passed some familiar landmarks, including a wooden fence along the river, and eventually could make out a sign on the trail in the distance that I assumed indicated the bridge back to the parking lot was just ahead.

Finally, I’d made an accurate assessment, and I ran across the bridge, mashed the stop button on my watch, and felt what was mostly relief at being able to stop moving, and also a tinge of pride and happiness that I’d just snuck under my 15-hour goal. I let out a cry of victory, presumably scaring the nice couple doing a photoshoot on the bridge as they quickly scurried away, and I hobbled on somewhat unsteadily legs up the stairs to the parking lot.

I’d left a recovery drink filled with ice in the car to celebrate my return, and it had become hot in the afternoon sun, so not quite the refreshing elixir I’d planned. However, the warm pink liquid was as fitting an end as the finest champagne as I toasted the mountains, perfect weather, and odd combination of circumstance and fortune that found me, a lowly water buffalo, in the woods of New Hampshire with 31 miles of mud, mountains, occasional pain, and a massive quantity of joy seared into body and brain.