Advertisement Man hopes to climb all 48 4,000-footers in a week Andrew Drummond will trek 240 miles Share Shares Copy Link Copy

Andrew Drummond, 35, is setting out this weekend to see if he can climb all 48 4,000-foot mountains in the White Mountains in seven days.Calling it the White Mountain Direttissima, an Italian word for climbing the most direct line, Drummond said he will begin in Kinsman Notch, likely this Sunday and follow an Easterly route, often using the Appalachian Trail to climb all the peaks.He would be the seventh person to have done all the peaks and the current record is eight days.Last year, Drummond accompanied ultramarathoner Scott Jurek of Colorado for 100 miles through the Whites on his way to the record-breaking Appalachian Trail thru hike. Jurek completed it in 48 days and 8 hours, besting the previous record by three hours.Drummond said he accompanied Jurek for three days and it was "incredible."This will be an unsupported climb with no caches, Drummond said.He said his hope is to get people out on the trail to encourage him and in so doing, motivate them to step up their own hiking challenges. He said people can join him and should not feel intimidate about keeping up, claiming his pace will not be unusually fast.Drummond will have a GPS tracker so people can keep up with him online. The tracker will ping every 10 minutes provided he has a signal. He will also be posting on social media from places where he knows he has a signal, like in the Presidential Range.This past week, Drummond spent time packing and weighing gear and looking at weather models."I'm starting to look at a weather window starting as early as Sunday. This could get bumped up or back depending on how the forecast changes but right now there's definitely some rain and thunderstorms towards the end of the month."I was hoping to start this on Sunday with a potential ending the following weekend."I'm still finalizing gear, food and routes. I'll hopefully have a short video highlighting some of that information" on his website."All are encouraged to come out and join me for this adventure! It would be great to see new and familiar faces on the trail and will be a huge source of motivation," he said.There will not be much rest, he admits."I could take a 20-minute power nap or a five-hour sleep, then keep going," he said, noting he will be doing a lot of trekking in the dark.Andrew said his parents, Jim and Jean Drummond, instilled in him a love of the mountains and by about age 14 he had already hiked all of the 4,000-foot mountains in the White Mountain National Forest.For more information visit www.skithewhites.com/white-mountain-direttissima.-- For the tracking page: www.skithewhites.com/track-me-- Facebook athlete page with shareable video: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewDrummondNH/-- Snapchat for video updates: sr_drummond-- Twitter for additional updates: @andrewdv40836084