Shortest Continuous Footpath of the New Hampshire 4000'ers

[RoySwkr]

This is all pretty moot since he seemed pretty anal about doing ANY bushwhacks if he didn't consider that little shortcut on the way down from the Moose.

BUT, a modern day trekker like Tim or yourself can certainly set their own rules (more or less like Cavedog did for his exploit).

...
Or put it another way: if I'm going to redo the Folsom trek, I have to first have to add 2 peaks. What else makes sense to make this rational and appealing - certainly don't skip that tiny section on Moose - well, what else?

The distinction to make is that Rev. Folsom was trying for SHORTEST DISTANCE, and if you allow bushwhacks the shortest distance is near 100% bushwhack although it would take much longer. He actually hiked this route in sections over a year so elapsed time was not a concern.

If Tim's goal is SHORTEST TIME, he can do all the bushwhacks he wants but that probably means almost none.

 

[ColdRiverRun]

This is a good one! I'm going to bump it since 90%+ of the members here weren't members when this was discussed. Should be fun for people to think about.

 

[BethW]

traveling salesman problem (TSP) route

Should anyone be interested, my husband and I ran a modified TSP program in Matlab on the 48 4K footers in the WMNF. I'm not going to claim this is the best TSP solution - just what we came up with out of interest in the problem.

Open Circuit Loop

Closed Circuit Loop

Edit: To be clear - this is a theoretical route and was calculated mathematically with straight lines to the peaks. No trails involved and I haven't looked yet to see if it's even possible (are some sections impassable?). The real deal is certainly longer than 181 miles.

I suggest as a first approximation you plug in the locations and minimize the straight line distances connecting them (the "all bushwhack" scenario). Run it through a traveling salesman program. You may be very surprised if you start with this since the program won't have your biases about what "must" be the best way.

 

[Tim Seaver]

Very cool, Beth. Splitting the Presidentials into two "pieces" and ascending Jefferson via Caps Ridge is something that didn't occur to me - this route completely removes the section between Jefferson and Washington. If it's really only 181+ miles this way, that's pretty amazing, even if there was an elevation gain penalty of some sort for "double-dipping" up and over the Prezzies .

EDIT : Castle Ridge might be the shorter way, I haven't measured.

 

[Chip]

uh...anyone wanna let Farmer know ?

Congrats to Tim on the original work and to Beth on the TSP. Cool stuff.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

I'm kind of disappointed neither Tim nor Ryan took up my 100 Mile, 49,500 foot route to Mt. Washington challenge

Tim

 

[Jeff List]

Should anyone be interested, my husband and I ran a modified TSP program in Matlab on the 48 4K footers in the WMNF. I'm not going to claim this is the best TSP solution - just what we came up with out of interest in the problem.

Open Circuit Loop

Closed Circuit Loop

The open circuit route is pretty close to Mats Roing's route, including the Presis split, which is pretty interesting.

Of course all the bushwacking required for the open circuit route might just be a little time consuming. ;-)

A close approximation of the open circuit route, but using trails (mostly), and the Castle tr., comes to about 237 miles with 82k of elevation gain.

 

[TDawg]

I'm kind of disappointed neither Tim nor Ryan took up my 100 Mile, 49,500 foot route to Mt. Washington challenge

Tim

Ha, I remember this. The route would have to be modified today with Rocky Branch and Dry River trails in the state that they are.

 

[Chip]

Is there a simple listing of all "standard" FKTs ? I found this; http://fastestknowntime.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=mountains&action=display&thread=42

I'm sure some here might know off hand. Not that I'm planning on breaking any records, but I forget which threads here have included finishes.

BTW Tim Seaver, this is one of the best WMNH pics I've seen: