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Luckhurst takes on 52-peak challenge

Neil Luckhurst is no stranger to hiking in the Adirondacks and has done multiple single-season assaults on the 46 High Peaks. He has even bushwhacked all of them too.

Now Luckhurst is coming back to the Adirondacks to complete a 15-day, 52-peak hike to raise money for Lower Adirondack Search and Rescue. The challenge that Luckhurst has set for himself is called Project 52. Otherwise known as “Playing with a full deck.”

A couple of years ago, Luckhurst climbed all 46 High Peaks in the winter in just 10 days to raise money for the Adirondack High Peaks foundation, of which Luckhurst is a founding board member.

The foundation raises money for a variety of Adirondack issues, including paying for one of the High Peaks summit steward positions each year. Project 46, when he climbed all the peaks in winter, raised about $15,000.

While his upcoming hike will be both on and off trail, and will last longer, Luckhurst is hopeful that it will raise enough money to really help the search and rescue team which is based out of Warrensburg. LASAR provides volunteer assistance to forest rangers and other emergency response organizations.

Luckhurst’s itinerary this time around will comprise about 138 miles of hiking, 50 of which he expects will be off-trail. By his calculations, Luckhurst will have more than 60,000 feet of elevation gain, with more than a third of that taking place while he bushwhacks.

The mountains are a combination of high peaks and some lower mountains.

“There’s no real rhyme or reason to the ones I’m doing,” Luckhurst said this week. “It was so that I could make it a linear hike. I think there’s one section that’s a side loop, and there’s a couple of short out-and-backs, but the whole thing kind of flows in a line.

“It’s a pretty crooked line,” Luckhurst laughed.

Starting at Hunter Pass near Dix Mountain, Luckhurst plans to hike 12 miles on the first day. He will end by hiking the Sentinel Range, giving him an 11-mile final day.

“I like the idea of starting on Grace Peak as a nod and a wink to Grace Hudowalski,” Luckhurst said. Hudowalski is 46er number 9, becoming the first woman to complete all the high peaks, and was also a founding member of the 46ers and the group’s original historian.

Luckhurst said he started his training in earnest in April. He has already hiked much of his route in little sections so that he has some familiarity with the terrain. The pre-hiking also gives him some extra confidence when having to climb mountains with no trails.

He said his wife Sylvie will be staying at Tmax-n-Topo’s hostel outside of Lake Placid, and can provide food drops during the 15 days Luckhurst will be in the woods.

He also said that Project 46 raised a lot of interest and money since it was the “sacred 46.” His new effort may not have the same appeal, but has already raised more than $1,000.

Luckhurst said Project 46 was conceived in direct response to a personal tragedy. His son Dominic, who had completed the high peaks with Luckhurst, died in an avalanche in the Canadian Rockies about 8 years ago. That tragedy led to the foundation being formed, and Project 46 was an outreach of that memory.

“I think this hike this summer is really just my own personal thing. It’s not ‘in memory of’,” Luckhurst said. “I haven’t really mentioned that this time around, but that’s what got me started.

“Over the years, I’ve gotten more free of the grief, and so this one is more for my pleasure.”

Luckhurst won’t be using a GPS to navigate any of this trip, preferring to use a map and compass.

He also said that if the weather gets really nasty, he might hike out and take a night off to shower and relax.

“I’ve had some nasty weather, and I know in August it can get cold. And if I’m waking up in the morning and packing up a wet camp and then bushwhacking through a car wash, that’s not how I want to spend my vacation,” Luckhurst laughed.

Luckhurst is going light on his pack, and is bringing a tarp and ground cloth as a tent, as well as some clothes, food and a light-weight sleeping bag, but not much else.

Luckhurst is a chiropractor in Montreal, and laughed when asked if any of his chiropractic colleagues had tried to talk him out of completing such a daunting challenge.

“(It’s) rough on the body,” he chuckled. “I’m 60 as well, and you don’t recover like you do when you’re 30.”

In addition to regular hikes in the Adirondacks, Luckhurst said that there’s a steep trail near his office that he climbs regularly to help train for the 52-mountain challenge.

“It’s 200 vertical feet, a very steep ascent. So what I’ve been doing is loading 15 pounds of dumbbells in my pack and going up and down it 10 times over my lunch break,” he said. “So I get 4,000 feet and then come back and do the next half of my day at work.”

Donations will be accepted through the duration of the hike, and Luckhurst will be using a SpotTracker so that people can follow along with his progress.

For more information on the trip and how to donate, visit Luckhurst’s blog at www.project52playingwithafulldeck.wordpress.com/about/.

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