Bikepacking the Colorado Trail: Part 5
Day 9: Shavano CG to just past Marshall Pass TH
Stats: 13.39mi Elevation Gain: 3806ft, Moving time: 3h58m, Elapsed time: 6h25m
The morning was dry but still cloudy. The ground was still wet, but we took the time to set out all of our wet gear to try to dry some things out while we ate breakfast, sipped our steaming coffee and packed. Our goal for the day was to try to get up and across Marshall Pass by the thunderstorms and then just get as far as we could, which didn’t turn out to be very far… haha Though, elevation-wise 3.8k ft in 13 miles is a pretty big feat.
So, the day started out alright, but before too long, the rain began. We began the climb up towards Fooses TH that would lead us to the top of Monarch Crest and over to Marshall Pass. I was pleasantly surprised with the climb up towards Foose’s. Aliza was not. Her legs weren’t having it, and it turned out that she was also very distracted mentally because she was going through some relationship stuff which had come to a head while she was out on the trail. So, needless to say, with her brain energy going elsewhere, she didn’t have much grit left to help push her along the relentless ascending landscape.
We arrived at the Fooses trailhead and saw her van parked. We got pretty excited because we were thinking that maybe we could get some dry socks and clothes, but alas, it was all locked up and Patty was nowhere to be seen. We knew he was out riding that morning, but didn’t know where he was at the time, so we decided not to wait for him since we needed to keep climbing to avoid any worse weather. So much of the trail was rideable, much more than I had thought, which put my spirits in top gear and propelled me forward. I kept pulling ahead a bit and then waiting for my buddy to make sure she was alright and still moving forward.
Up the trail I saw/heard some MTB brakes coming towards us and out of the forest appeared Patty and his friend Chris, who had joined him for some rainy riding. They had ridden up Foose’s Creek access road, which connected to Monarch Crest, took that over and went down Foose’s creek. So, they got to experience the epic climb going the opposite way. After experiencing the up way, I don’t know which I would have rather done. Either way is epically steep and rocky.
Anyway, we chatted for just a bit, they were just as soggy as we were. Aliza finally joined with a not so happy countenance, said hello, and then we kept trudging upwards. I was under the impression that we had done most of the climbing and I was ecstatic that I had ridden so much so far. Little did I know that the worst was yet to come.
From then on out, the trail just got steeper and more rocky. Here was the part that everyone talked about. My mental party came to a halt when I realized that this was serious business. I just needed my shoulder to hold out through all the pushing and carrying my bike and we needed to get to the top before the big storm that was rolling in. Our mentality from here on out was just to get up to the top at our own pace. I made sure to check on Aliza, especially on any of the especially steep spots where you had to hoist your bike or shove your bike inch by inch up the hill. Her knee was very tired/painful and she was not in a good head space.
Eventually after hours of pushing/hauling, I crested the very top of Monarch Crest. I thought I almost wasn’t going to be able to push my bike fully-loaded by myself up the last stretch. To say steep was an understatement. It was, by far, the steepest section of trail we had to hike up. Aliza was a ways back so I ditched my bike after a quick breather and hiked back down to help. She graciously accepted and we inched our way up to the top, her pushing from the front and me following from behind. The relief from being at the top quickly overrun by the urgency to get down off the mountain. We could see the darkness creeping in and it was freezing at the top. We managed a quick snack, a few pictures and tried to enjoy the view and kept pushing on.
Once you crest, you get to traverse the ridge and head generally downhill towards Marshall Pass and the jeep road. This section would have been fun had we not been in a hurry and not been freezing cold. The wind was whipping around us, and the rain which had started to sprinkle was feeling more like a sleet on our faces. We made it to the road without any major incidents and sat on the side of the road deciding what we wanted to do next. As we ate lunch, suddenly there was a boom of thunder and a torrential downpour began complete with wind, sleet, lightning, etc. We had missed the storm by just minutes and were glad we weren’t hadn’t spent any more time at the crest. Aliza decided that it would be best for her to call it for a while. We agreed to set up the tent and sleep/chill for a bit to see if the rain would dissipate after a few hours.
This is when the already blowing/raining chaos that was already happening got even worse. We were trying to find a spot right off the road to set up the tent. We found a bit of “dryer” ground under some trees right down from the roadside, though it was covered with cowpies. We scouted around and finally found a small space that we thought would suffice for our tent. So, now, to get the full picture - we are trying to set up a tent in a monsoon, sleeting, hailing, full wind, trying to avoid cowpies, sopping wet with freezing hands, and trying to do so as quickly as possible. We got the tent set out on the footprint, but then quickly realized that rain was getting inside the body of the tent because it was netted and the rainfly wasn’t on. We just figured that we’d hurry, but then as we were trying to get the poles out, one of the pole parts unlodged from the middle part, and looked like it broke off. AFter a bit of scrambling, we got the poles together again, and started fitting it to the tent when it came apart again. It was then, that we realized, thankfully that it wasn’t broken, but it had come unscrewed at the center joint. ONce that was fixed, the rest went quickly, but not before Aliza managed to lodge her entire foot into a thick and juicy cowpie. Ugh! I felt so bad for her! What else could go wrong!
As soon as we got the tent up, Aliza got in the tent, gear and all and got in her sleeping bag to warm up. I managed to get into some warm clothing and got in my bag as well and we sat in silence, I think somewhat in shock and somewhat just relieved that we weren’t in the rain and the cold any more. ALiza had been smart and brought hand warmers, so she shared one with me, which was a life saver.
She fell asleep instantly and I sat there wondering what I was going to do for the time being. It was still early in the day and I didn’t know whether to change my clothes to night time clothes or to make dinner or lunch or just try to fall asleep. I felt a bit claustrophobic: too cold and wet to go outside, but too restless to be sitting in a tent for the next however many hours. Eventually I dozed for a bit once I got warm, and then woke up very hungry. Now, I know that it is against the rules to eat or have food in your tent, but we agreed that this was a dire situation. After Aliza woke up I stressed to her that she needed to eat something, even though she didn’t want to, so we grabbed our goodies and made up some hot meal, keeping our food and fuel in the vestibule. We both kept our heated dehydrated meal packs in our sleeping bag as we waited for it to “cook” and I don’t think I’ve ever been so warm in such a dreary situation.
The rain didn’t let up and Aliza couldn’t bear to think of getting out of the warm, dry-ish tent to continue any further, so that was that. We slept on and off, eating when needed, only to get out of the tent to take care of business and put away food, and that was the rest of the day. We did “see” or rather hear one through-hiker that was actually hiking the CDT. We talked to him a bit through the walls of the tent. He mentioned that he had heard rumors of moose sightings right where we were camped. We hadn’t seen any, and hoped that they would just leave us alone if they came through when we were in the tent. The gentleman went on his way, I don’t know who he was or even what he looked like - but I hope he had a good rest of his rainy day hike! I think we were asleep before dark and slept through the night until morning.
Are we there yet?
Day 10: Marshall Pass to Razor Cr Trail/Lujan Creek
Stats: 21.5mi, Elevation Gain: 3829 ft, Moving Time: 5h50m, Elapsed Time: 9h22m
We woke up to glorious sun beams shooting rays through the clouds! It’s truly amazing what a little vitamin D does for the soul. Also, we had slept for probably 10 hours the night before so we were up and ready. We sprawled everything out in the meadow area to try to dry things out. We took a somewhat leisurely morning, trying to let things air out, and eventually we were on our way. Most of the next section of the CT is open to motorized traffic and eventually we would run into quite a few motos that we had to contend with. The beginning of the day went fairly quickly, open road, good weather and we made good time.
This was, until we ran into we ran into unrideable, deep, thick, peanutbutter puddles of mud. There was actually a small group of people doing trail work on the area and said that after they got done with the work, it would be mostly rideable. They were fixing the drainage on the trail so the puddling woudln’t happen. It was obvious that the moisture had just wrecked the trail so it was great to see that they were in the process of rehabilitating it. We said our thanks and proceeded to choose between whether we wanted to slosh our feet in the puddles or risk falling over on our bikes. A little of both happened as we made our way through to the other side.
From what I remember, the climb up Sargants Mesa wasn’t horrible. The trail was pretty smooth with occasional roots or rocks and the grade was more bearable. But not so horrible dissolved quickly as we navigated baby head sized rocks on a consistent false-flat ascent. Aliza’s patience for such terrain was short and she started cussing/walking quite a while before I did, which was surprising because she had the full suspension bike. Thai said, after a while, though a lot of the trail was “rideable” my butt finally got fed up and I just lost my mind a bit and had to get off my bike and walk. I just couldn’t even deal any more. You just really start to feel like all of your energy is sucked out by each baby head that your tire rolls over or bumps into. That, combined with the fact that I was on a hardtail just started to add up until I couldn’t take it any more and walking was had for a while until I could gather my wits again.
The descent from Sargents Mesa was no better. It’s always a disappointing thing when you get excited about descending because you should be able to go way faster with way less energy expenditure than all other parts of the trail, but the trail had other things in mind for us.
We came to see that instead of glorious descent as we had hoped, the trail funneled us into an un-rideable very rocky, rooty, jumble of boulders and washed away crevices of a trail, which was shared by motos. We approached a steep descent part of the trail to find a couple on motos heading the same way we were. They ended up passing us, which we were thankful for, but then we caught up to them eventually as they tried to push/navigate their machines down the narrow, steep “trail.” We waited for quit a while as they hefted and rolled and gunned their motors, slowly making progress. Finally, they let us pass. Even though we weren’t really riding the boulders, our bikes were a lot more manageable than theirs and we eventually made our way down the hill.
Our plan was to make it to Razor Creek, where we hoped there would be water somewhere near a place that we could camp.
We had run into a few people who had mentioned that there was an amazing view point that we could see if we left the trail just a bit and rode a few miles and then back. By the time we got to the turn off it was getting late so we coudln’t be bothered. Aliza was struggling again both mentally and physically and I did my best to be moral support and understanding but also had to give a bit of a pep talk to get her through the afternoon. We crested over the high point of the day and followed the Continental Divide for a short portion before descending towards Razor Creek. There were a smattering of tents at the top of the descent near Razor Creek and we started to worry a bit about the water situation because we didn’t see much as the creek trickled down the hill, disappearing into the moss and dead logs.
We finally found a place that seemed to have a bit of water and would be large enough space for our tent. Aliza started putting up the tent and I went to scout water. The water was only a trickle, but about 300 yards from camp I found a spot where it pooled. I dug a little bit into the mud and created a larger pool, waited for the sediment to dissipate and then used my mug to put water into the filter. It took quite a while, but worked in a pinch! The rain actually wasn’t so bad as we cooked our dinner and settled in for the night.
Bikepacking the Colorado Trail: Part 4
Day 6: Just below Searle Pass to Leadville
Stats: 28.95, Elevation Gain: 3,238ft, Moving time: 4h51m, Elapsed Time: 9h03m
We were on the trail at 4:50am, soggy as could be with almost all of our layers on. I’ll tell you what: one of my least favorite things about adventuring in weather is putting on wet shoes. I can handle most things, but wet shoes in the morning makes me grumpy. But so does having to wake up at 3:00am, so either way, it wasn’t going to be the best morning for me. The rain had ceased at some point in the night but everything was dripping and damp. We still had a bit to go before the tree line so riding through large wet roots was a thing. My headlamp wasn’t in a spot that I could really see over my baggage on the front of my bike so I was having a heck of a time.
Also, we had chosen not to eat breakfast, but just have a snack/munch as we rode and have a proper breakfast with coffee later. So, here I am, no good lighting, no breakfast, no coffee, 3am wake up call and wet cold shoes. How do you think things went? Aliza kept on trucking, which was great because it forced me to keep doing the same, even if I was crying just a wee bit. (Shhhh… don’t tell her). Finally I stopped and had a snack, which put a little fire under my tushy and I rode/hiked my bike a little faster to catch up with Aliza.
As the sun rose and we began to be able to see without lights, we were also cresting above the treeline and my mood lifted immediately. It was like we had transported to Ireland, or somewhere with rocky crags and spotted green patches of grass and I’m sure there were mountain sheep somewhere out there (though we didn’t see any). We got to Searle Passe at around 5:20am and celebrated with an obligatory summit dance. We crushed Kokomo Pass, which was our highest point of the trip so far at 12,022 ft. I think we did another dance, but it was short lived because it was friggin’ COLD up there! The wind about blew us over and it made us so glad that we had not ventured up there during a storm. We did talk to one rider who had been up there during hte storm the night before and said it was huge hail and scary lightning and thunder, which just validated us that we had made some smart decisions! Go team!
The descent from Kokomo was a blast. It was mostly rideable, as far as I can remember and it went pretty quickly, which was good because once again, the thunderstorms came right on time. The trail pops out on the road where the bike Wilderness detour leads toward Leadville. Though the pavement was fast rolling, the wind was strong. Aliza’s energy was waning quickly and her ability to put the pedal to the metal was long gone. We tried to motor together, but she wasn’t having it, so we needed to take it slow and steady. We were starting to realize that we would not be able to get to Buena Vista via our own two wheels unless we rode through the night because of how long everything was taking. So, we called ahead to the awesome Patty Sag wagon and he met us in Leadville just as the rain started pelting down. We hopped in the van and rode the rest of the way to Buena Vista where to our Airbnb where we would be spending the next day as a much needed Zero day. At first, I will admit that I was a bit disappointed by having to miss some of the trail and felt a little blow to my pride for getting some rides to specific points on the trail, but going into this adventure, Aliza and I had agreed that no matter what happened, we were in it together and we would make decisions together about what we needed to do to complete it together and that’s what we did! We went and grabbed dinner in Buena Vista - a cute little fresh foods place that I can’t remember the name of. Loads of laundry were done and we relaxed like nobody’s business.
Day 7: Zero Day: Buena Vista
Stats: 0 mi, Elevation Gain: 0ft, Moving Time: 0h0m, Elapsed Time: 24hrs
Our rest day was magical, but as with all rest days, I felt very restless. You go from pedaling your bike all day every day to doing absolutely nothing besides eating, resting, laundry, a quick bike wash and check and then going back to resting and eating. We ate Casa Sanchez Mexican restaurant and it hit the spot. This cute little joint had outdoor seating in their covered patio area and the meal included the most delicious sopapillas for dessert! We hear they sometimes include a shot of Tequila with the meal, but we didn’t order drinks in the first place, so they didn’t offer. We saw another table that got shots delivered all around, though, so I think the rumors are true!
We also had to make an obligatory stop to the bike shop in Buena Vista. My derailleur wasn’t shifting properly after a couple spills and some mud and grime, so I had them check that out. Aliza also got her crank looked at again. They got us in quickly and our bikes were ready to go in a couple hours. In the mean time, we treated ourselves to some mini belgian waffles in the little cafe that is attached to the bike shop. GET THESE IF YOU ARE THERE! They were only $3 or so for one and I could have eaten 10! (though I did a great job of restraining myself!).
We also ventured over to Cottonwood Hot Springs to have a soak.
The mineral hot springs in man made pools were a much needed reprieve for our tired legs. There’s also a little area where you can scramble down to the river next to the springs to take a quick cold soak, so of course we had to experience the thrill of immersing ourselves in cold river water. I’m a wuss with such things and while I soaked for a bit, I got out pretty quickly. Aliza was a champ and stayed in quite long. Patty even submerged his head under! His bravery would prove futile later though, because he started to feel under the weather and after some internet research, we “diagnosed” him with cold shock, which apparently can happen when going from one extreme temperature to the other. He felt very out of it and a bit dizzy and nauseous for the next couple of days, poor guy.
Anyway, I was glad we were only resting for one day and was anxious to get back on the trail. My grumpiness and tummy start to act up on rest days, though I know it’s so good for me, so I tried to just chill and headed to bed early after a good stretch session.
Patty in pure sopapilla bliss!
Day 8: Avalanche Trailhead to Shavano CG
Stats: 29.11mi Elevation Gain: 4688ft, Moving Time: 5h38m Elapsed Time: 8h54m
Ready to Roll at Avalanche Trail Head
Patty Sag drove us to the Avalanche Trailhead, which is where the bike wilderness detour meets back up with the CT proper. This way, we avoided a generally boring road/gravel climb out of Buena Vista. It was overcast and a little chilly and we assumed we were in for some weather that day.
The trail conditions in this section of the CT were spot on! We could actually pedal our bikes, it wasn’t too soggy and the ups and downs weren’t horrible. We did have to cross a couple of creeks, some of which had little bridges and some did not, but we were already sort of soggy anyway due to a misty rain, so it wasn’t a big deal to get our feet a bit wet.
Not too far into the ride, I managed to slide out a bit on a wet section and banged my derailleur again! Ugh! All the $$ out the door and now I had a derailleur that wasn’t shifting properly. I tried to adjust it on the fly and it helped a bit, but was limited in my gear options.
After descending off the ridge, we popped out on a road, so it was pretty quick riding for a while. This part of the trail is for both hikers and cyclists, and bypasses around private land. We saw a couple of hikers on this section, going the opposite way. I vaguely remember having a bit of a hard time mentally on this part, but I don’t quite remember. We stopped for a bit for some reason, but then obviously kept on truckin after a quick snack and a stretch.
At one point, after we returned to trail, we were on the 6.6 mile section where there are several water sources and good camping areas, though everything was just a damp soggy mess and we weren’t looking to stop here anyway. We did see quite a few hikers through this area. We decided to hunker down in a little shire area for some nom noms and ran into two day-hikers, young guys, who were out looking for mushrooms. The damp, moss and aspen covered hills definitely seemed like prime mushroom housing, and they showed us their bounty. They had foraged all types of mushrooms, some of which were definitely chanterelles, some lobster and some that they weren’t so sure about. They offered some of the chanterelles to us, and I took them up on it, but after riding with them for a bit they became a little too moist and broke down a bit so I ended up tossing them, but dang, they would have been good with my dindin!
From the end of this roller coaster trail, traversing down into creek crossings and up again and again, the rest of the trail was climb, climb, climb. From what I remember we could ride most of it, with small areas of hike a bike, but could be rideable if you had the legs. Somewhere in this area of the trail it had started raining profusely and we were soaked to the bone. We didn’t know how far we were going to get that day and decided to ride until we couldn’t any more. I think both of our morale was low and our rested legs wanted to rest for longer. We descended down a ways and the trail reaches the Angel of Shavano trailhead. Here, it was raining so hard, we could hardly see anything, so we pulled over at the day-use area at Shavano CG and joined some through-hikers in the pavilion in having a hot drink to try to warm our weary bones. The longer we sat there, it was very apparent that Aliza didn’t want to go any further that day. I probably could have made it happen, but we also knew that we had already done almost 5k ft of climbing that day, our legs were tired, and we had another big climb in front of us, which would lead to higher elevation, colder temperatures, and a chance of being exposed in a thunderstorm.
The rest of the through-hikers had decided to call it a day too and ambled their wet selves over to the campsites. We went and looked at the campsites and realized we were a bit late to the game, with no campsites open, we returned to the pavilion. It did say no camping, but we figured that we’d just go ahead and set up and if someone kicked us out, we’d let them deal with trying to find us a spot in the campground. We put our belongings in the outhouse, which was rather warm and we hoped it would dry things out a bit. Having the overhang at the pavilion as well as tables was a treat and we stayed pretty dry and warm for the rest of the night. We set up a tent on the pavement of the pavilion and stayed pretty warm! It was a great set up! And bonus! We didn’t get kicked out, though I do think we had a friend that visited us in the night and tried to munch our food. I always travel with a critter/bear proof Ursack and scent-proof bags, in which our food was stashed, so this staved away any critters that attempted to feast on our food.
Trying to find my mojo somewhere…
Bikepacking the Colorado Trail: Part 2
Day 2: Buffalo Creek CG to Twin Eagle CG
Stats: 43.3 mi, Elevation Gain: 5033ft, Moving time: 5h41m, Elapsed Time: 8h38m
We woke early and knew we had a pretty warm day ahead of us. I don’t remember much about this day except that I felt pretty good and Aliza didn’t. At Rolling Creek TH, the Lost Creek wilderness detour began, which meant we were on mostly paved/dirt roads for the day. You might think that sounds wonderful compared to trails, but in this case it also means sandy, non-graded roads, open treeless passages (hot), and washboard.
For me, though, with my hardtail, compared to Aliza’s full suspension trail bike, it was quite plush. My energy pedaling helped propel me forward right up the hill, where Aliza’s bike sucked a lot of energy that she was putting in. That, plus her sensitivity to heat made for a long grueling day. We rode together quite a bit, but also we rode with the understanding that we each just go at our own pace up the long ascents and then meet at turns or occasionally on the hills, just to make sure we don’t get too far apart. Eventually I realized that Aliza really was struggling and she needed more of a rest than just a quick stretch and a snack.
We stopped in some of the only shade we could find on the dirt road in the middle of the day. Ants ate our legs alive in the first couple of spots we tried, but eventually, after naming the road Ant Hill, we found a place to stretch our legs. We stripped down, doused ourselves with water, ate some snack-ums and just rested for a while. At this point we were in the heat of the day and we knew we just needed to not be in a rush and take it easy or else we could possibly get too overheated.
The road climb to the campsite was beautiful and brutal at the same time. We were literally only a few miles from camp when Aliza had to just not pedal any more. We dismounted, clamored over to a shaded rock area and laid on the cool rocks for about thirty minutes or so. We had just a bit of climbing left, so after a pep talk and some grumbling, we were on our way. We pulled into the campsites near Tarryall Reservoir and it was a busy, crowded mess. It didn’t look like there were many, if any, open spots, so we looked at the map and saw there was a smaller camp ground that we could possibly find a spot at. This was a good call! I think we ended up at Twin Eagles CG, a small spot, with maybe eight camp sites. We plopped in the first one we came to and set up camp. We arrived at about 3:30pm so we had plenty of time to rinse off and cool down in the lazy river right next to our campsite. After living and bikepacking in AZ, I will NEVER take a stream/river for granted! It is such a luxury to be ale to have an after-ride “bath” and a “wash room” for our salty, dirt-filled clothes.
Day 3: Twin Eagle CG to Jefferson Creek CG
Stats: 35.09 miles, Elevation Gain: +3802, Moving Time: 4h 55m, Elapsed Time: 8h24m
We woke up, refreshed and thankful for a cool morning. We tried to get an early start and were on the road by 7am, which all things considered with having to pack up and make breakfast and all that stuff, was a pretty great feat. We would be leaving the wilderness detour and rejoining the CT proper, which we were pretty excited about. The morning was pretty uneventful, and I thought it was pleasant, as we motored up to high alpine through the aspens, enjoying the rideable singletrack. The only drawback of getting such an early start was that we tried to stop by the well-known Lodge but it was closed when we got there. They have variable hours and we knew it probably wouldn’t be open bevcause it was early. We stopped for a quick snack and were on our way.
After gravel and aspens and wildflowers, our lunch stop was at Johnson Gulch where there was a cute little stream, and I swear we had turned into Bilbo Baggins and Frodo and had been galavanting in the Shire. Though it was a little buggy, the creekside resting place was much needed and our lunch spot gave us the energy we needed to continue on. We ran into two guys on foot (I think?) that had stopped for lunch as well and had a wee chat before they went one way and we went the other. Lunch legs hit hard when we realized we had to climb out of the gulch we were in and the long afternoon slog proved mentally (and physically) challenging.
Lunch break and stretch at Johnson Gulch
The climb up to Kenosha Pass was a bit brutal. I have pretty much blocked it from my mind. The only thing that I do recall was that, except for the two hikers in the gulch, we hadn’t seen anyone for the entire day and were just mentioning how it was something special to be able to ride to a place in the middle of nowhere that was inaccessible by anyone unless they really put the effort in when two people on horseback and their pup rounded the corner. We chatted for a bit, reveling in the beauty of where we were at on that ridgeline with views for miles and the serenity of it all. We bade each other adieu and continued toward the top. The camp area near the summit had a pump water station, so we filled our bottles, doused our heads, cleaned off a bit with our handkerchiefs readied ourselves for the final roll to Jefferson Creek CG.
At one point, we heard some noises in the trees and stopped quickly, unsure of what we would find. Suddenly, a few large quail flew out in front of us and we jumped so high! We giggled afterwards, and saw a whole family of the birds, climbing onto one of the branches that lay on the ground. They gave us quite the scare, and we were glad it wasn’t anything bigger.
Towards the end of the day, clouds blew in and started spattering sprinkles on our tired legs, shortly before we reached camp. We got a little turned around, unsure of which way the trail led to the camp vs. going through on the trail, but eventually found our way to the camp site in the late evening. We hadn’t known exactly where we would meet Patty Sag, whether it be on the road or at the campsite, but eventually we saw the van pulling into the camp just in time for dinner and just in time to get warm for the night. Aliza got a comfy bed in the camp and Patty and I slept in the tent. We dove into our resupply boxes for special treats that we had sent ahead and slipped into our dry, fresh clothing.
Bikepacking the Colorado Trail: Part 1
The Colorado Trail is a 468-567 mile through-trail that runs East-West from Denver to Durango. The CT was originally completed in 1987 after Gudy Gaskill founded the Colorado Trail Foundation in 1986 with the main mission of the organization was to compete and maintain the trail. The trail in its entirety is kept up by the continued work of the Colorado Trail foundation, which is volunteer led. Work on the trail is mostly done by the organization who work in cooperation with the US Forest Service. As you might imagine, keeping up over 400 miles of trail is a daunting task so the efforts of these volunteers is a fundamental part of the trail's continued existence and use. After experiencing the beauty and epicness of the CT, it is astounding to me that such a large stretch of trail has been kept in such great condition over so many years. Thank you to all those out there who provide their time and energy and money to help keep this trail in existence!
Aliza at Lenny’s Rest
Bikepacking the trail is quite a feat. People have been traveling the trail on foot for years, but only in recent years has bikepacking the trail as a through-ride become more popular. It has been said by many bikepackers that have attempted the CT that it is a hiking trail that you can ride your bike on. I can readily confirm that is the case. With a ratio of probably 60/40% ride time to hike-a-bike time (of course depending upon your fitness level and technical riding ability), the CT is no joke, especially if you ride self-supported with all your gear that you would need for anywhere from four days to a few weeks. The Colorado Trail Race is a bikepacking self-supported race that takes place every summer with a grand departure in late July, alternating years going East to West or West To East. The race’s inaugural year was 2007, starting in Denver and heading West towards Durango. The race, at the time, had only three rules:
Race from Durango to Denver, self-supported, under only your own power, along the entire CTR route
No pre-arranged support, with the exception of mail-drops to a post office and only a post office
Don’t break the law
There may be a few more rules at this point, but overall, you get the gist. There are no prizes, no finish line glory. Just the bragging rights to say that you completed the trail in the fastest time that year, and of course, peeps are always vying for the FKT. Though I commend these folks for racing the CT, I honestly don’t know how they do it. I felt like I was at my max most of the time and it took us 14 days to complete (most) of the trail. I am amazed, especially by the chicas, like Alexandera Houchin, who completed the course in 6 days, 2 hours, and 33 min in 2022! Yes girl!
Me. In a lot of pain from separated shoulder. Eating Icecream, cause why not?
When my bestie, Aliza, and I decided to ride (not race) the CT, we knew it would take probably about 2 weeks (at least), so we put it on the calendar…in 2020. Well, as we all know, COVID had other ideas. I also separated my shoulder during a fun ride up in Oregon a couple of months before our scheduled trip. A few weeks before our scheduled departure, we knew it wasn’t meant to be and we tabled the ride until 2021.
The next year rolled around and everything fell into place. The weather was looking good, snow levels were perfect, and we both got the time off of work. Better yet, my boyfriend Patrick (Patty, aka Patty Sag), offered to be a SAG wagon for us and drive Aliza’s van to meet us every few days, so that we didn’t have to ship anything or worry about resupply. This was great news, especially since Aliza deals with quite a few dairy restrictions, so it meant she would be comfortable the entire trip and not have to worry about resupply at small markets and things like that.
Aliza and I are both experienced adventurists. We have ridden significant portions of the Great Divide MTB Route, Baja Divide, completed the entire Oregon Timber Trail, Kokopelli Trail and other smaller multi-day Type-2- Fun adventures, so we felt like the CT was the next level up. This would be the first trip that we would have to plan away from each other because I had moved to Phoenix in 2019 and she was still in Portland, but after many FaceTime calls and emails, we managed to pull our trusty spreadsheet together. Our spreadsheets looks something like you see below. We each can edit it at leisure and it gives both of us a good opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the trail, what to expect, etc. We both had a copy of the Colorado Trail guidebook, which you can purchase here. We also include things like links to lodging, confirmation numbers, phone numbers, etc and make sure to share the document with our loved ones and close friends so they can keep tabs on us and make sure we are safe!
Our nifty little spreadsheet!
The plan was to meet each other in Durango; Patty and I drove up from Phoenix together and Aliza drove from Portland in her van. We were lucky enough to be hosted by a friend’s friend’s mom and step-dad in Durango. Joan and John were the best hosts! They whipped up some popcorn for our arrival, made sure we had plenty of snacks and beverages and had a garage in which we could store bikes and gear. Best yet, their place was even right next to a trail head so we could go spin our legs out!
Getting acclimated in Durango for a couple of days was helpful - even though it was a couple of days, it gave us both a chance to feel crappy on the bike before heading out on the CT. We loaded up our bikes with our gear to make sure everything was working correctly and went out for a spin. It was rough! I felt like I couldn’t ride my bike, couldn’t catch my breath, and wasn’t having a ton of fun. It made me rather nervous, considering I was going to have to do a lot more riding up crap-ton more elevation and with a lot more weight on my bike, but just tried to brush it off, knowing that the altitude had a lot to do with how I was feeling and that it would get better with time.
Our ride the second day took us from the house. I can’t remember which trails we rode, but it was basically, climb, climb, climb, and then descend down some pretty fun technical/switchback descents. In proper Colorado fashion, it started raining just as we finished our descent. By the time we got about two miles from the house, it was pouring rain, and we huddled under a large tree, contemplating whether it would pass quickly or if we should just dash home and get soaked. We chose the latter, and sprinted toward the house. We showed up looking like the three drowned mice. I figured we’d just need to get used to it because we’d definitely have to deal with the thunderstorms on the trail.
The morning of our departure, Joan whipped us up a delicious frittata and sent us on our way with coffees in hand. The drive to Denver seemed to take forever. We got to town just in time to swing by the REI and grab some last minute items/foods and then ate dinner. We were originally planning on camping somewhere near the trailhead, but since it had been raining that day, I contacted my friend Will and he graciously invited us over to stay with him and his girlfriend for the night. We’d be leaving early in the morning so this was perfect so we didn’t have to worry about taking down camp before we rolled out.
At Will’s house, we unpacked our crammed bikes and gear and outfitted everything up so we wouldn’t have to worry about it in the morning. I was glad we did because as I pulled out my bike, I noticed that the rear tire was completely flat. Ugh! There was a huge sidewall gash, which must have happened when we were stuffing all of our gear and three bikes into the back of Aliza’s van. Luckily, because it was way too late to try to hit up a bike shop, Will had a brand new tire that I bought from him and we got it squared away with not too much hassle. (Thanks Will)! Will was a peach and put up with us nervous chatty Kathy’s. He has completed the CT race a couple (few?) times prior to that year, so knew what we were in for. He regaled us with his stories of terror and awesomeness of his experiences - I don’t know if it helped or made us more nervous, but it was still exciting to hear about some of the places that we would soon see with our own eyes.
The next morning came all too quickly, and as I rose to pack up and roll out, I realized I was not quite ready to be missing the comfort of a shower and bed and my tummy was a little nervous. I couldn't eat breakfast, but figured I’d get something down once we started riding. The trail terminus was about a 30 minutes drive and it went fairly quickly, especially so early in the morning. We unloaded our bikes and made sure we had everything. Obligatory picture time was had, and away we went!
Day 1: Indian Creek TH (East Terminus) to Buffalo CG
Stats: 31.6 miles, +4695 ft, Moving Time: 5h49m, Elapsed: 9h03m
We arrived at the Indian Creek Trailhead at around 7:00 am on July 26, ready to ride. It was a clear, cool morning, which was perfect for the start of our radical adventure! Feeling some nerves and jitters, we double and triple checked that we had everything we needed. Picture time was had, and off Aliza and I went, leaving Patty Sag behind. We would see each other in a few days.
Rolling out on the CT!
The trail from Indian Creek TH was lush and somewhat overgrown but it was a short, fun descent. We quickly got our “trail eyes” on and then realized, but as soon as we reached the bottom, we realized we would have to climb out of the valley that we just descended into. We reached the famous bench at Lenny’s Rest by about 9:15am and took a brief reprieve. We were officially on the Colorado Trail.
The hike-a-bike began early in the day and it was no joke. Aliza was on her last leg (literally) with her knee. She has since had a total knee replacement, but at the time, the hiking with her bike was not kind to her. She had really been working hard with her physical therapist and on her own to get ready for the trip, plus her brace helped her stability, so she was doing the best she could, but we both knew that her knee, which she aptly named “Hermio-knee” would be the weakest link on this trip. I was still dealing with stability and strength issues from my previously separated shoulder, and hoped it would hold up. I only felt it give a couple of times up the hill, so figured I would be able to make it the rest of the way.
We made our way up the bush-lined trail, which seemed to never end. Through-hikers that we had passed earlier in the trail leap-frogged with us the rest of the way up, making me question why we were hoisting 70 lbs of bike up this trail, though once the descent began, it made me gloriously excited to be on two wheels!
I honestly can’t remember much about the trail between the hike-a-bike section and the exposed burn area toward the end of our day. I know it was hot, which Aliza really struggled with. My training in AZ helped me acclimate pretty well, which I was grateful for (cause it was still a difficult ride). After a flowy descent, we started climbing again into a vast clear cut area that is recovering from the Hayman Fire of 2002. The openness of the landscape was unreal to ride through and was a complete change from the lush greenery and towering trees that we had just exited. Here, we were exposed to the elements including the heat and the wind, which were relentless. On top of that, the dirt was quite loose, so any time it pitched, our tires would slip out, causing us to dismount and hike our bikes. Aliza killed it in this section and I suffered hardcore. Even though she suffered from the heat, her strength and mental determination to not have to hike her bike more than she absolutely had to helped her get up those steep pitches. We eventually got through the burn area and made our way up to the unmanned fire station where there was a water spigot. It was time for a break!
We hadn’t seen anyone else on the trail for quite a while. We began to record our daily trail report when lo and behold, a young man came out from behind the station to say hello. This through-hiker had been taking a siesta in the shade to avoid the heat of the day and was about to get on his way. It was fun to talk to someone about the trail for a bit. We had found a “trail angel” Coca-Cola on the bench near the station and we told him he should have it since we would probably be able to reach someone/somewhere with a cold Coke well before him, since we were on bikes. After snacking and chatting a bit, we were on our way since we had a ways to go until our stopping point for the night.
We arrived at Buffalo Creek CG early in the evening. I think there was water for us to rinse off, but I can’t quite remember. We set up camp early in the evening and laid down for an early night, as would be the case for pretty much the entire trip. This is one of my favorite things about backcountry adventuring. There is something fulfilling about the simplicity of working hard all day, being with yourself in nature, sleeping and waking with the sunrise and sunsets and only having to worry about moving forward, keeping your body fueled, and your mind strong.
