Chuck Keiper Trail (CKT)
My wife (48) and I (46) hiked the west and eastern loops together counterclockwise from fish dam overlook August 5-7 2023. We did the 49 miles in 3 days (miles per day: 16/19/14). It was very arduous. Not sure we could recommend the trail to anyone. The hike is quite hard on its own, but the trail conditions are pretty poor, at least partly due to lack of use, which increased the difficulty. The trail register we signed listed the last through hiker on June 21st. There were miles of waist, to head high BlackBerry brambles and stinging nettle. Miles of trail along steep hills with a narrow, less steep area to place your feet on an angle. Maybe 1/3 of the total distance was clear trail. The rest was totally overgrown and only discernible by the trail blazes. Pretty well marked with trail blazes; but they were not visible everywhere due to the height of the brush. We got pretty far off “trail” 3-4 times. Probably over 30 large trees down over the trail requiring bushwhacking, climbing, or crawling. We didn’t see any other people. We didn’t see any bears, just scat and paw prints, but we did come across 3 rattle snakes. One each day, each one right on the trail. We each got 2 Wasp stings; 3 of them I’m pretty sure we’re bald faced wasps, which are very painful. The trail guide by Dave Gantz was helpful for distances and camp site locations; we had nice sites at 16 and 34 miles, and there are many others, so the guide would be recommended for setting distance goals. We pushed hard having heard it would storm the third day, and it did. In fact it came early starting to rain, then pour as we set up camp the second day, so we just had a cold dinner and went to sleep. Thankfully it was not raining when we broke camp, but we then hiked through several heavy storms back to the car, where the sun came back out. We feel accomplished. But we will not return.
★
★
This was the first leg of the full CKT loop. I did this counterclockwise getting through all the major elevation gain on day 1. The side hill hiking was frustrating when it seemed a better trail could have been blazed along the floodplains. The forests were beautiful with lots of hemlock and white pine groves.
★
★
★
★
