David Dietz completes popular Fire Tower Challenge in 26 days
David Dietz, a 38-year old IT analyst and avid hiker from Utica, was halfway to the summit of Overlook Mountain in the Catskill Mountains last month when a thunderstorm rolled in.
“It was Biblical-style thunder and lightning,” Dietz said. “I was counting half a second between the flash and the thunder.”
All the other hikers fled to lower elevations. But Dietz, who was on a tight schedule, was undeterred. Weeks earlier he’d set a goal to complete the Fire Tower Challenge in 26 days. As he neared the rocky summit, the rain let up a little. That’s when Dietz saw a sign posted on a tree.
“Rattlesnakes in Area!” The sign read. “Stay on trail.”
“Well, if I’m going to die, why not on a mountain?” He thought. “I had to keep trucking. It’s kind of morbid, but I was doing something I loved.”
Onward Dietz climbed, sticking to the middle of the trail until he reached the summit, snake free. He stood at the base of the fire tower, rain streaming down his face, as lightning flashed in the distance. Climbing fire towers was the best part of the challenge, but Dietz didn’t think it wise to clamber up what was effectively a giant lightning rod with stairs.
“So I touched my toe to the tower and said, ‘All right, that’s good enough,’” he said. “Less than ideal, but still an experience.”
David Dietz pauses for a selfie while hiking the Hadley Mountain trail, one of the 25 fire tower summits he climbed to complete the Fire Tower Challenge. Dietz described the trail as "relentlessly moderate."
To complete the Fire Tower Challenge, hikers must summit 23 of 28 fire tower peaks spread over a vast area of the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains. There’s no time limit, but most people finish it in two or three years, said Ben Brosseau, communications director for the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), which administers the challenge.
The Fire Tower Challenge is the second-most popular challenge in the Adirondack Park behind the more grueling 46er Challenge (climb all 46 Adirondack High Peaks), Brosseau said. According to ADK records, 45 people completed the Fire Tower Challenge in 2012, the first year the group began keeping track. Last year, 205 people completed it.
“It’s a great, family-friendly, introductory experience to the Adirondacks,” Brosseau said.
Kane Mountain fire tower. David Dietz says this well-kept trail is great for beginners.
In short, the Fire Tower Challenge is designed to be fun. So if there’s a “Biblical-style” thunderstorm raging over the mountain you intend to climb, it’s okay to turn around and get ice cream instead. Unless, like Dietz, you’ve planned your epic journey down to the last mile, with each climb time-stamped and slotted into a spreadsheet.
Despite his modern zeal for organization and efficiency, Dietz is a romantic in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau. Every ankle-busting boulder, and every exposed tree root of every Fire Tower Challenge trail is well-documented in online forums. But Dietz avoided reading too much about the trails lest he spoil the fun. Thus, the rattlesnakes came as a surprise.
“I still wanted there to be a sense of—I don’t know, just adventure,” he said. “I left it open ended.”
Soon after summiting Overlook Mountain, Dietz wrapped up his 26-day quest having incurred nothing more serious than heel blisters. According to Dietz’s spreadsheet, he’d hiked 92.8 miles of trails and ascended 5.31 miles in elevation over a total time of 4.15 days.
David Dietz mapped out all the fire towers in the Fire Tower Challenge on Google Maps and grouped them according to proximity, tackling 4 to 6 towers in a weekend.
More epic than the Fire Tower Challenge itself, perhaps, was the amount of driving Dietz had to do to complete it. He racked up 2,968 miles shuttling between his home in Utica and the different peaks.
Between gas, three hotel nights (one in Lake Placid, two in Pine Hills), gear, and snacks, Dietz figures he spent about $1,000 on the challenge.
“I wanted to push myself,” Dietz said. “From what all I’ve read online, I’d never seen anybody do it in a month.”
Thoreau famously relied on his mother to bring him sandwiches and do his laundry while he lived a (not so) solitary life of contemplation on Walden Pond, though Thoreau didn’t acknowledge her contribution. Dietz, on the other hand, credits his mother, Marlyn Brant, for being his mental “home base.” He often FaceTimed her from summits to share the experience with her.
“I could not have completed the challenge without her,” Dietz said. “She supported me from day one. And knowing that she was waiting for a call at the end of each day helped me push through the more challenging hikes.”
When he finished the Fire Tower Challenge, Dietz’s mother asked him what was next.
“I told her either bullfighting or deep sea diving,” Dietz said.
“I spent the whole month of May climbing,” Dietz laughed. “So I spent the first weekend of June falling out of the sky.”
A steep, boulder-strewn trail leading to the summit of Hurricane Mountain. The tough climb is worth the incredible view from the summit, said David Dietz.
It took Dietz about three and a half hours on average to hike each Fire Tower Challenge trail, although the trails ranged widely in difficulty. Hands down, his favorite trail was Hurricane Mountain.
“It’s a pretty long hike, but it’s a complete 360 degree view,” Dietz said. “The tower is like—you can reach out and touch a cloud. It’s just an unbelievable view. You get the most sense of being right in the Adirondack Mountains.”
Loon Lake Mountain was Dietz’s least favorite hike. The last half mile was a gauntlet of “boulders and roots,” he said. At the top he was rewarded with a lackluster view and a fire tower missing its entire lower section of stairs, rendering it unclimbable. Unless you’re a completist, Dietz suggests skipping Loon Lake Mountain altogether.
Mount Adams was the most “technical” hike, Dietz said, with a section of sheer rock face that Dietz scaled with the aid of a providentially downed tree. There’s quite a few easy hikes, too, he said, naming both Swede and Stillwater as trails good for toddlers and kids.
“I call them baby hikes,” Dietz said, “but they still have absolutely rewarding views.”
David Dietz, shown here wearing a bug net, said black flies were the number one challenge of the Fire Tower Challenge.
Bug nets and other tips
Anyone who’s spent time hiking in the Adirondacks has inhaled a few black flies. It comes with the territory, especially in spring when wearing a bug net is all but required to maintain one’s sanity. Dietz wore a bug net under his ball cap, but if he had to do it over again he’d get a wide-brim hat to keep the netting from sticking to the back of his neck.
View from Mount Adams summit trail. Dietz described the trail as the most "technical" of all the fire tower trails he climbed, with some sections consisting of sheer rock faces.
Dietz is done with fire towers for the time being. Right now he’s training for another challenge in September: the Lake George 12ster Ultra, which involves climbing 12 high peaks in 24 hours. Then he’ll fire up his spreadsheet and begin planning next spring’s adventure.
“I’m putting myself on notice,” he said. “In 2023, I’m going to complete the Fire Tower Challenge in two weeks.”
Dietz is already thinking about ways he could cut his travel time while maintaining peak physical performance. For instance, he could rent a van and sleep at the different trailheads. That way he could get a fresh start rather than arriving stiff-legged and bleary-eyed after a two hour-plus drive. For Dietz, solving such logistical challenges is just another part of the adventure.
Steve Featherstone covers the outdoors for The Post-Standard, syracuse.com and NYUP.com. Contact him at sfeatherstone@syracuse.com or on Twitter @featheroutdoors. You can also follow along with all of our outdoors content at newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/ or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/upstatenyoutdoors.
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