Colorado Trail Recap Pt. 1
On Sunday, July 23rd at 1:56am, Tara Dower and I began a team self-supported Fastest Known Time attempt on the Colorado Trail from Waterton Canyon near Denver. On Monday, July 31st at 11:55pm, Tara completed the trail in Durango in a women’s supported FKT while her ragtag crew, including me, cheered her in. As you can imagine, a whole lot happened between the start and finish of what ended up being an epic and unexpected story.
Here’s what happened: Tara and I stuck together the first three days, covering 162 miles together with full packs- we both used the Nashville Cutaway. That third night I really started to struggle. It was a strange feeling. Physically I was okay, no injuries to speak of, but my energy was low and I was having trouble just getting myself to move forward. My guess is that it was the high altitude, which I’m not used to (I gave myself a week to acclimate, but I’m sure that wasn’t enough), combined with not eating enough. I’ve had several people tell me that you need to eat even more than usual at high elevation as your body is working harder, but something about it makes you feel less hungry, so it’s easy to go into caloric debt. It wasn’t unlike my second failed FKT attempt on the Long Trail when I bonked hard and couldn’t seem to get myself out of it.
I remember feeling pretty stressed as I went to bed that night, feeling aware that I wasn’t giving myself the care that I needed to move forward at the rate we were. Not enough food, not enough sleep, and I was running out of foot care supplies for my blisters. Basically starting to redline on all fronts, in triage. Tara gave me one of her recovery protein powder drinks. I gave her a wet wipe so she could clean her feet. We were always trying to help each other. I knew I needed to eat more, but I also knew we had limited time to sleep, so I chose to sleep. But then I knew I needed energy to move the next day, so I set my alarm early so I’d have time to eat a proper meal, in this case a bag of chickpea tikka masala.
The fourth morning, we were treated to extremely gentle, easy, soft trail. It should have been a piece of cake, but I was dragging. Tara easily pulled ahead. As the morning went on, it was clear we couldn’t go all day like that, or we’d never get to where we’re going. It was time for “the talk”. We knew this talk might be a possibility when discussing various scenarios before the hike. It was a hard and sad conversation. I didn’t want Tara to think I wasn’t trying my very best. I didn’t want her to feel like I was giving up on myself, or abandoning her. Tara didn’t want me to think she wanted to hike without me. We both admitted we were excited about the possibility of her going for the women’s supported record.
We decided that Tara would go on at her pace, and I’d do whatever I could to turn things around for myself by Twin Lakes, about 13 miles away. And if I couldn’t, that would be the place to get off trail then figure out what was next. Unfortunately, things just got worse for me. It was like a death march to Twin Lakes. It felt mostly physical, but I know some of it (or maybe more) had to be psychological as well. I felt so disappointed with myself. Tara called me to check in, and I told her I had decided to get off trail. It was a big blow. In this Trail Runner Mag article with Micah Ling, Tara shared that one of her lowest moments in the journey was when I got off trail, and suddenly she was alone, and didn’t know what was going to happen next.
I got off a side trail to Twin Lakes, a very small and remote town. I got myself a breakfast burrito, coffee, and soda water at a VW-van-turned-coffee shop then tried to figure out how I would get myself out of there with one bar of service on my phone while getting eaten alive by horse flies. Tara and I had a reservation at Mt. Princeton Hot Springs that night, though at our rate we would not have actually made it that night- but we had our resupply boxes there, and Tara would still be able to arrive before checkout the next morning and at least get a shower and hot breakfast.
I tried calling an Uber ride, but it would have been at least a hundred dollars, and no one was accepting my ride request anyway. The coffee shop owner suggested hitching and said it was really common to do so in those parts. I believed him, but only wanted to hitch as a last resort. It wasn’t a straight shot to Mt. Princeton, so if I hitched, it would have been in a piecemeal way. I texted my pal Rachel to beg for a ride, but logistically that would have meant hours of driving for her–but–she had a runner friend Reid that was living and training nearby, and maybe he could take me. Sure enough, Reid said yes, and before I knew it I had a ride with Reid to Mt. Princeton Hot Springs!
So I got to the hot springs. Thanks Reid! Another remote area, and I was on foot once again. I was filthy from being on the trail, and hours early for check-in. There were several thru-hikers milling around in front of the general store, so I joined them and explained my situation. That I had started the trail with a friend, that she’s still on trail, but now I’m off trail and needed to find a rental car. Not only that, I needed to find a way to get to a rental car. We weren’t close to any major city, and car rentals were hard to come by, and expensive.
I only had my phone as a resource, and wow was it a headache to explore the options. Denver, Colorado Springs, Vail, Breckenridge, and nothing was close or easily accessible by public transportation. Everything was hours away. I could catch a shuttle into the nearest town that night, then take a bus to a major city the next day, but that meant I’d have to pay for lodging in another town and completely miss Tara the next morning. That wasn’t going to work.
Finally, I found there was a car rental location at the tiny Gunnison Airport, a small town about 90 minutes away. 90 minutes away was closer than anything else I could find. I made a reservation for the next day right away. They had a strange, small opening hour window of 11am-1pm daily. One of the thru-hikers milling about outside shared a photo of a list of trail angels (trail angels are lovely people that voluntarily help out hikers by way of providing unexpected “trail magic” like rides, food, etc.) and phone numbers he’d taken from a hostel in the nearby town of Salida. He said 90 minutes was quite a drive, but it could be worth at least asking.
So I got to work crafting a message about my dilemma, offering to throw in money for time and gas, then copied and pasted the message to every single trail angel down the list. I received a bunch of responses. All of them kind. And all of them saying “Sorry, no, I can’t.” “Happy Trails!” Then, amazingly, one person said yes. I could have cried. Tony the Trail Angel. He would be able to pick me up at checkout time (11am) the next day and take me to Gunnison.
I could finally breathe a little easier. Tara was still out there putting in miles of hard work under the hot sun, so I couldn’t feel too sorry for myself. But I was exhausted, filthy, and famished from the effort on the trail and the stress of figuring out how to get to Mt. Princeton and then how to get a car. At 3pm I could finally check into my room. I still felt like I was in triage and didn’t know what to prioritize, but my body decided for me. I needed to sleep. Because I was dirty and didn’t want to ruin the clean bed sheets, I pulled my sleeping bag over me and passed out right there on the hotel floor. After a 90 minute nap I showered, threw on my cleanish wool long underwear, then I walked over to the general store to get a pizza and any items that Tara might need the next morning.
I had a restless sleep that night, knowing Tara was out in the wilderness by herself. I was having feelings of guilt for being in a warm bed, and this sense of responsibility and helplessness being her sole crew member currently without a way to even meet her. All I could do was wait. I woke up around 3am, checked her tracking, and saw that she was already on the move for the day. Good. I messaged her and asked if it was okay if I shared what was happening on social media (we had been posting everything delayed to that point), and if it was okay if I put out a public call for help. She messaged back and told me to go for it. So I shared an update, asked for help, and the floodgates opened.
Soon I received a deluge of messages and texts. The next several days were a blur of logistics, coordination, and organization. I did my best to get back to everyone and give the best information I could. I had researched the trail itself, but knew nothing about the roads or nearby towns that we never intended to go to; basically I had very little geographical sense of where I was or where I was going at any given point. Other than “southwest”. I had to calculate ETAs of where Tara would be and when, whether she would be accessible, and how to get to her. When you think about planning a supported effort, these are all things you would have sorted out months in advance, and here I was doing my best to figure it out on the fly.
Tara rolled into Mt. Princeton a little before 8am with a big smile on her face. We got her into the hotel room to shower. I had unpacked and laid out all her resupply items including new shoes, first aid for her feet, and food. While she took care of her feet, I ordered her breakfast and hot coffee as soon as the restaurant opened at 8am, and since there was no laundry machine onsite, I rinsed out several pairs of her socks and wind pants in the bathtub.
She left the hotel in good spirits, and from there I gathered and packed up all our items. Since I’d be able to meet Tara later, she was able to ditch her sleeping gear, only take the food she needed for that day, and majorly lighten up her pack. I acquired several cardboard boxes from the general store to box up the rest of our things and wait for my ride.
Tony the Trail Angel, bless him, whisked me off to Gunnison and I breathed a sigh of relief when I actually had the key to the rental car in my hand. I worried something might fall through with the rental and that I’d have no way to get to Tara, and she’d be out in the wilderness without a shelter or extra food. The stakes were high. From there I went to the grocery store and purchased a styrofoam cooler, a bunch of fresh food, soda, ice, and per Tara’s request a Subway sandwich. Then I zipped toward the trailhead I’d meet her at off of Highway 50.
In the meantime my phone was blowing up and I answered messages and texts as efficiently as I could. Thankfully there was cell service at the trailhead. I still felt rundown and tired from the three plus days’ effort. Finally I put the car seat back and laid down for a bit while waiting for Tara. She arrived right on schedule. I was excited to share with her all the fresh food I’d gotten for her. Sadly, I didn’t even have a chair to offer her and she plopped right down on the ground as she munched on strawberries and her sub sandwich. I had my Nashville Cutaway packed with my sleeping gear and hers. Once she was ready, we took off together up the trail. We hiked 11 miles uphill past the crest where the southern end of the E-W collegiate loop meet. We were treated to an incredible sunset with wildflowers and mountain views and I felt so lucky to be experiencing so much beauty with her. Tara put in a well-earned 52 mile day, even including her hotel pit stop. We made camp just as it was getting dark out.
I had planned to give a quick summary of this journey, but couldn’t help but go into detail as I go back and recount this grand adventure. So I’m going to stick a bookmark in this for now and continue the rest of the story in my next letter. In the meantime, Tara has been posting daily recaps on her Instagram @tara.dower which have been super fun to read and relive.
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