NH 48 Direttissima North to South 8/13 - 8/23

[Darl58]

Super job to Mats & Meb!!

Loved reading all about the adventure of you two on the trails!!

The weather was tough this year for sure but we are all so glad you gave it a shot!! Another year....can't wait!

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Emilio Comici

It was the "Good Reverend" Henry Folsom who came up with the name back in 1971 so I thought it would be good to respect his innovativeness. He took about three months to do it with 19 effective hiking days. His goal was the shortest route on foot for all 48 without aid in between. The spelling has two "t's" and two "s's" in it......

And, before the "Good Reverend" Henry Folsom, there was Emilio Comici, who initially coined the term (sorry for my typo in spelling, as indeed Mats is correct about two t's and two s's).

Here is an excerpt from John Middendorf's excellent expose on big wall climbing, "The Mechanical Advantage." But, I had always heard Comici's quote as "......from the summit let fall a drop of my spit....." rather than "...drop of water....."

"In 1931, he put the new systems to use on the 4000 foot northwest face of the Civetta. This was the steepest and perhaps the most difficult climb in the world at the time (and is still to this day is a challenging 26 pitch vertical adventure), but not satisfied, he wrote "I wish some day to make a route and from the summit let fall a drop of water and this is where my route will have gone." He realized his dream of such a route, a direttissima as it became known, with his direct line up the 1500 foot overhanging north wall of the Cima Grande in 1933. The line wavers slightly but no more than if the mythical drop of water were buffeted back and forth by an unseen wind. On the steep initial half of the wall, Comici and Giulio Benedetti used just 75 pitons -- on average only one every ten feet -- hardly excessive considering that the wall overhangs continuously and is composed of less-than-solid rock."

http://www.bigwalls.net/climb/mechadv/index.html


Probably the most famous "direttissima" is the Eiger's North Face ("Of course" - Clint Eastwood ). But, these guys have the authorship all screwed up on the namesake book by Dougal Haston and Peter Gillman.

http://www.librarything.com/work/1164617

 

[DougPaul]

I agree with Dr D on the origin and meaning of the word direttissima with regard to climbing. IMO, the analog in hiking would be a straight path between two points.

What you were doing here is a version of the traveling salesman problem*. It is difficult to determine and is an intensively studied problem in computational mathematics.

* A salesman has to visit a number of cities. Given a list of the cities and the pairwise distances, find the shortest route that visits each city exactly once. (Substitute a list of mountains, the hiking times between each pair of mountains (the times need not be symmetric), and allow peaks to be revisited. It could also be constrained to require the finish and start points the same to make a loop.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem

So, IMO it should be called an NH-48 traveling salesman hike...

Doug

 

[ColdRiverRun]

So, IMO it should be called an NH-48 traveling salesman hike...
Doug

IMO it should be called the NH-48 traveling Swede. Mats tried to draw a straight line.. he is just apparently better at paint by color.

 

[DougPaul]

IMO it should be called the NH-48 traveling Swede.

That works too, however it probably leaves MEB out...

Doug

 

[Mats Roing]

IMO it should be called the NH-48 traveling Swede. Mats tried to draw a straight line.. he is just apparently better at paint by color.

Observe that existing trails or roads were used 100% this time and the last day would have been on trails (and also crossing route 112) all the way as well. I don't think there is a shorter way to do it using trails and roads.......if it hadn't been raining we would have done the wack up to the col between Flume and Liberty though so I wouldn't have been able to make the statement above. Henry Folsom had a rule of using only exisiting trails and roads as well.

 

[prino]

Congrats!

Well done Mats and Meb! or should I say Shake and Bake .... Great read! A little bit of cut and pasteing and you have a nice book.