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.
