I recently came across an FKT page for Mount Monadnock with an interesting set of routes that I immediately thought I could apply to my local mountain, Wachusett – multi-summits or multi-traverses.
The way it works is you summit the mountain 2+ times, each by a different route. Monadnock has five unique trails that descend from its summit, so the “Pentanock” exists which is a nutty 38km route with around 2700 meters of elevation gain. You can also do double, triple and quadruple summits/traverses, of which there are several options. Monadnock unfortunately is a bit too far away to get too deep in the weeds regularly, but a similar thing can be done on Wachusett. The only FKT routes listed for Wachusett are a standard loop route as well as the Infinity Loop (which I was independently looking into before I knew about the FKT page).
My criteria for routes is that it each has to be a unique trail which descends from the summit, does not share any portion with another, and must descend to a paved road at the bottom. Since as far as I know no one has done this, I defined the Wachusett quad as comprising of the following trails (distances/gain are for the out and back):
- Pine Hill Trail (briefly jumps on Bicentennial then finishes descent on the Old Pine Hill Trail, which is a short herd path, ending at Mountain Road) – 1.8km, 184 meters of vertical
- Mountain House Trail – 2.8km, 235 meters of vertical
- Harrington Trail – 4.6km, 239 meters of vertical
- Old Indian Trail (starting at the Bolton Pond Trailhead. Can alternatively start at Balanced Rock trailhead at the resort parking lot, but I like Bolton Pond a bit better – 5.6km, 302 meters of vertical
Based on these trails, there are 6 double traverse/summit routes, 4 triples, and the one quad (obviously). These are much easier than the Monadnock versions, where doing just one summit is about equivalent to a Wachusett double, and the Monadnock doubles are comparable to the Wachusett quad.
I’ve been working on some of these routes and trying to do them fast as I build up my endurance. Will probably not spend too much time beyond the doubles before winter, then go hard on the triples and quad when the snow melts in the spring.
Below are my double traverse PBs! This was my main focus for October – I did different pairs of the double routes on successive weekends that month (hitting each trail once per week, efforts on back to back days). Just to be clear, these are out and back routes – I start and finish at the same location.
Mountain House-Pine Hill: 53:10 (October 25, 2026, 3rd attempt, started with Mountain House)
Harrington-Pine Hill: 1:09:23 (October 18, 2026, 2nd attempt, started with Harrington)
Harrington-Mountain House: 1:24:13 (October 11, 2026, 2nd attempt, started with Harrington)
Old Indian-Pine Hill: 1:26:23 (October 10, 2026, 1st attempt, started with Old Indian)
Old Indian-Mountain House: 1:40:15 (October 17, 2026, 1st attempt, started with Old Indian, took a longer route at the bottom of Old Indian which is slower)
Old Indian-Harrington: 1:44:44 (October 24, 2026, 1st attempt, started with Harrington)
If I add up the total times on each weekend, I get the following (note this is not a perfect representation of what I could do for the quad, as there’s about 22 hours of recovery between the efforts. I fully expect that if I had attempted a quad instead, my time would be 5 to 10 minutes slower. Hence my goal time of sub-2h 50min):
Harrington-Mountain House (1:24:13) + Old Indian-Pine Hill (1:26:23) = 2:50:36 (October 10 and 11, 2026)
Harrington-Pine Hill (1:09:23) + Old Indian-Mountain House (1:40:15) = 2:49:38 (October 17 and 18, 2026)
Harrington-Old Indian (1:44:44) + Mountain House-Pine Hill (53:10) = 2:37:54 (October 24 and 25, 2026)
Based on my results so far, my goal (to be done in 2027) is to complete the full quadruple traverse in under 2 hours and 50 minutes. This should be doable with a bit more training and conditioning (and a bit of weight loss – I gained 5-10 pounds during my injury recovery and rehab and haven’t been able to lose it – though my fitness and strength are still solid). As you can see, I’ve already seen massive improvements through October, despite tough trail conditions (more mud, puddles, and leaves obscuring rocks/roots on trail). Once the snow melts and the trails dry out in spring 2027, I expect faster times due to being more comfortable on trail plus continued improvements to strength and fitness over the winter). I’m not set on what my ideal order of trails is, but I’m definitely leaning on starting with Harrington, as it has the mellowest bottom section, perfect for warming up and finishing the run at the end.
