Direttissima Hikes in the Whites

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Originally Posted by spencer

I didn't have much luck searching the wayback machine for old VFTT threads but if there is another way, it might be a fun blast from the past.

I would have sent you a copy just for asking but now that you've offered something in return...:D

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It's on here, I remember reading it and I didn't read VFTT before the "crash" thing. I guess this means I have to spend some time digging..I should of thought of that before I left work this morning. :) I looked at your post quick but they only go back 500. Apparently you use to post a ton between 2003 and '06.

I guess I should just say that I have intention to do a Unsupported thru-hike of the White 4's myself. I have a few other things I would like to attempt first but hope to go this year and if not the following year. I was trying to decide between the Whites and the Long Trail and the Whites are pulling at me a little stronger.

I guess I'll mention also that besides the unsupported thru-hike that, Jan and I did of the ADK 46 in '09 we also did a unsupported thru of the Catskill 35 last Spring. I compensated for writing the longest Trip Report ever on a hiking forum for the 46 trip by not writing anything for the 35 trip. ;)

I use the term unsupported to mean all under my own power, no resupply of any kind besides water. We also carried every piece of garbage to the end. I decided after the 46 when we camped out every night that open air shelters (like leantos) and structures (like tent platforms) would be acceptable in the same regard as using a bridge to cross a stream. Staying in a hut or service house (like B&B's, etc) would not.

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Originally Posted by spencer

I didn't have much luck searching the wayback machine for old VFTT threads but if there is another way, it might be a fun blast from the past.

I would have sent you a copy just for asking but now that you've offered something in return...:D

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YES! Here..

That wasn't the discussion I was thinking of but good find anyway. Yes, I used to be much more active - I just check in occasionally now. There were some similar discussion from well before that. Anyway, send me your snail mail and I'll get a copy of the article to you.

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Originally Posted by DougPaul

The term means "direct route" in Italian. While this may be the first time it was applied to the White Mtns, it was used much earlier in Europe for technical climbing routes and railway routes.

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Originally Posted by spencer

I forgot to account for DougPaul literalism when I wrote that :D Yes, I think it was the first time the term was applied to hiking the 48 in the shortest route.

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Just trying to give a wider sense of the history of the term...

I first encountered it in the context of technical climbing in the Alps where it seems to mean a route which climbs straight up the fall line to the summit (thus the winter direttissma on the Eiger). At first, applying it to hiking seemed a bit far-fetched to me, but a check of online dictionaries also yields a translation of "shortest route" (http://www.dictionarist.com/direttissima).

Doug

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Originally Posted by spencer

Folsom did it in more than one "trip" but his claim to fame was more about figuring out what the shortest route to include all peaks was (hence the name) rather than just doing it the fastest.

At the time I was interested in choosing the optimal Diretissima route from a GIS network analysis perspective(

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This is known as the traveling salesman problem (find the shortest route to visit a list of cities) in the computational world. It is an NP-complete problem (very difficult to solve). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travell...lesman_problem

There are closed loop (start and finish in the same spot) and open loop (start and finish in different spots) versions.

Doug

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Originally Posted by DougPaul

I first encountered it in the context of technical climbing in the Alps where it seems to mean a route which climbs straight up the fall line to the summit (thus the winter direttissma on the Eiger). At first, applying it to hiking seemed a bit far-fetched to me, but a check of online dictionaries also yields a translation of "shortest route" (http://www.dictionarist.com/direttissima).

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The 1966 Eiger Direct people in "Direttissima" by Peter Gillman and Dougal Haston took weeks to fix ropes up a direct route on the North Face while the easier wandering route can be done in under a day. Similarly the 1971 NH 4k route was allegedly the shortest using trails but he was not trying to do it fast.

If I recall the AMC post talked about a potential longer route with easier footing or less elevation gain or the chance to drop your overnight pack and do some peaks as side trips - it may be a continuous route but not the Direttissima. The 1971 route used the Mt Cabot Trail which is arguably no longer an official trail and there may be other relocations affecting the shortest route today.

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Originally Posted by RoySwkr

The 1966 Eiger Direct people in "Direttissima" by Peter Gillman and Dougal Haston took weeks to fix ropes up a direct route on the North Face while the easier wandering route can be done in under a day.

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Yes, but it was hardly the first or only direttissima route in the Alps.

They were done in a variety of styles.

Doug

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Originally Posted by DougPaul

Yes, but it was hardly the first or only direttissima route in the Alps.

They were done in a variety of styles.

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My point is that "direttissima" traditionally refers to the shortest route, rather than a longer and faster route