This year has been another year of hiking.  It was a year where I was able to introduce a friend to the beauty of the high peaks and share with her one of my favorite places in the park, Avalanche Lake.  I also had the pleasure to hike in to Indian Head to watch the eclipse with about 50 others, and made a friend on that hike that I've thoroughly enjoyed hiking with since.

So, the numbers.  A total of 36 hikes, up from 21 in 2023.  There mileage was 225.73  miles over 156.45 hours with an average speed of 1.44 mph.  This is all up from 175.36 miles over 119.08 hours in 2023, and the average speed was about the same as the 1.47 mph in 2023.  This year I kept track of elevation too, and that was 69,237 feet, or 13.11 miles of elevation I climbed up and down.

I focused on my winter 46 and 3500 during the winter months, and mostly the low peaks during the warmer months, mostly working towards the fire tower challenge.

Winter 46: Sawteeth, Gothics, Armstrong, Upper WolfJaw, Lower WolfJaw, and turned around once on Lower LowlfJaw and Dial/Nippletop.  This brings me to 14/46 winter peaks.

Winter 3500: Windham High Peak, Thomas Cole, Black Dome, Sherrill, Halcott, Rusk, Hunter, South West Hunter, and Sugarloaf.  This brings me to 16/33 winter peaks.

Fire Towers: Vanderwacker, Lyon, Loon Lake, Gore, Belfry, Mt. Adams, Goodnow, Blue, Azure, St. Regis, Mt. Arab, Buck.  This brings me to 21/32 fire towers.

Tupper Triad: Mt. Arab, Goodman, and Coney completing the triad in one morning.

The other hikes were mostly repeats, lower peaks for red lining the map, or parts of other challenges: Baxter, Indian Head for the eclipse, Algonquin, Wright, Avalanche Lake, VanHovenberg (x2), South West Hunter, Roostercomb, Snow, and Noonmark.

Looking forward to next year.  I am not sure I am going to get as many miles, hikes, or peaks in.  But I will try.  I am hoping to get another 8 winter 3500 (leaving me 9 to do) and 13 winter 46 (leaving me 19 to do) by the end of this winter (march 21, 2024).  I will focus on finishing the fire towers up as there are only 11 left to go.  I will also work on finishing up the Lake Placid 9, and will look to take some of the lesser traveled trails and work on red lining the high peaks region map a bit more.  I may even branch out and look at hiking in Vermont and New Hampsire.