Colorado Trail
Paul Pomeroy holds the supported CT record at 8d12h14m, set in July 2008 (west to east).
Paul Pomeroy holds the unsupported record, 14d9h30m, set in 2006.
The Colorado Trail (CT) runs 500 miles from
Denver to Durango. It travels through some of the most spectacular country in Colorado,
through 6 wilderness areas and eight mountain ranges. The CT was first conceived in 1974,
but was not completed until the late 1980's.
The first speed record on the Colorado Trail
happened in 1988, almost immediately after the trail was completed -- so
soon that the route was hard to follow in many spots. Dale Garland,
Dave LaFranboise, John McAward and John Wolgamott ran from Durango to
Denver in about 17 days.
Buzz Burrell & Peter Bakwin hit the CT back in 1999. They started the eastern end (Waterton Canyon) because
it meant they could sleep at home in Boulder the night before the start, and because most backpackers go
east to west. It was Bakwin's first big trip of this sort, and he got injured after 7 days and had to
stop. Burrell went on to lower the record to 11d16h13m.
In 2003, Betsy Kalmeyer smashed Burrell's record, running 9d10h52m.
Betsy's time was beaten just 3 days later and by only a few minutes by
Hal Koerner, 9d10h19m (shows the advantage of knowing the existing record!)
Information about Hal's trip
is here.
Both Kalmeyer and Koerner ran east to west.
Jonathan Basham ran 8d13h28m (east to west) in July 14-22, 2006, supported by AT-record-holder
Andrew Thompson. Basham's daily splits are here.
The La Sportiva Adventure Running blog
has some great information about Paul Pomeroy's CT record, which I'll quote extensively here:
"Paul Pomeroy of Lyons, Colorado just broke Jonathan Basham’s Colorado Trail Record. Paul went 'under the radar' by choice;
almost no one knew he was even on the Trail. 'I did it entirely for personal reasons', he notes. 'I didn’t want to talk it up.
I wanted to do it'. Paul is well-known in local running circles as an outstanding athlete, with a great wit and sense of honor.
Fortunately he is also gracious and articulate, and generously shared a few words with me about his recent trip:
It was definitely arduous. That’s an understatement. It just about finished me off. Let me just say I’m not looking to repeat
this anytime soon. Getting toward Denver the heat became a problem. My feet were swollen and my shin hurt, but decided to go for
broke and pay the price after. I taped it up, took some Advil, and did 74 miles the last day. I left at 1 AM and reached Waterton
(the northern terminous) at 12:15 AM the next night. That was on about 1 hour of sleep to begin with. I basically made a last
desperate burst to Waterton, looking at my watch the whole way.
Paul clocked 8 days, 12 hrs, 14 mins, 5 seconds, bettering the previous mark by about one and a quarter hours. The record is tight!
Paul shared more interesting thoughts:
I could only move so fast. So its how long can you keep moving? It’s like nothing else I’ve ever done. A sleep deprivation thing.
Sometimes I couldn’t walk a straight line, sometimes my eyes couldn’t focus. 18-20 hours a day ... it’s hard to believe a person can
keep it going ... not real high on the fun factor, that’s for sure.
My crew was great; obviously it was a team effort. It was my wife Suzanne, my mother, and my son Ethan was along too. We only
had a couple of missteps; cost maybe 2 hours total. We had a pop-up camper which was essential.
Towards the end of his CT run, in a very unusual twist, Paul met Sam Thompson running
the other direction with the same intention:
I was surprised to meet Sam on the Trail, going the other way. There’s only a one month period when you can do these things, so
I thought I’d do it now and maybe have the Record for one year. While I’m not exactly going to root for him to break my record,
I’m not against him either ... he’s a nice guy, and I set out to do a certain thing, and I did it, so I’m happy. Someone will
always be faster … I thought it was possible to do this in 8 days flat, and I couldn’t do that ... someone else probably can, if
they can run more. When Jonathan did it he was 29; that’s a good age ... I’m 47, and I don’t know if I have another one of these left
in me. I emailed him my time, so he would know. That’s only fair; I knew Basham’s time, and went for it, so he should know mine."
Sam Thompson's trip began July 25, 2008, at Waterton Canyon, and was recorded daily in a blog.
The blog reports the decision to quit as follows:
It was a heartbreaking decision, but Sam and Kirsten very wisely decided to pull out with 70 miles to go. Essentially, logistics and the
inaccessibility of the trail is what mattered in the end, not Sam's ability to keep going. Here's what happened:
Earlier in day 8, Kirsten and one of the photographers tried to forge a creek, but the engine flooded, rendering the Jeep inoperable
(it had to be towed away). Because the crew couldn't reach Sam's checkpoint, he kept going while drinking water from the creek / river
and eating the food he had left. Meanwhile, Kirsten and the photographer hitchhiked into Silverton, met up with Kirsten's parents, and
somehow made it to the next checkpoint.
When Sam arrived at the checkpoint, a decision had to be made. The crew couldn't find a local marathoner on such short notice to accompany
Sam on the nighttime leg of day 8 (there are actually quite a few ultramarathoners in Silverton), so the two options were:
a) For Sam to tackle the trail at night by himself
b) To call it.
Although nobody doubted that Sam could physically keep going until the end, safety had to be the biggest concern. Badly fatigued (yet still
determined, persistent, and able), Sam would have taken a huge risk to keep going without some assurance that the crew could make it to the
next checkpoint. Further, without a running partner to help Sam navigate, staying on the trail in complete darkness would have been just
too much of a risk to take.
Amazingly, the CT has also seen a couple of truly unsupported trips.
Unsupported means you carry all your food from the start, basically
getting nothing but water en route. The CT was first done this way
in 2004 by Demetri (Coup) Coupounas, the founder of GoLite, in about 20 days.
Coup carried a big pack full of food, but also lost 25 lbs body weight
on the hike. Coup also did the JMT and the LT unsupported that year,
completing the "Triple Gem" of backpacking.
In another of his classic trips, Paul Pomeroy attacked the CT
unsupported in 2006 -- with a vow of silence for the entire trip.
Paul finished in 14d9h30m, dropping 16 lbs of body weight
that he could ill-afford to lose.
The CT also hosts an informal
mountain bike race.
Mountain bikers must deviate from the hiker route in several places to avoid
wilderness areas. The guiding principles of the race are simply stated as follows:
Solo, self-supported. This is a very pure style of racing with a
strict code of ethics. The guiding principles are 'Do it yourself.' and 'Equal opportunity.'
In 2007 Jefe Branham set the fastest time at 5d5h30m
(followed just 20 minutes later by Stefan Griebel).
In the 2008 race Ethan Passant lowered the mark to 5d2h26m.
But, a week later Owen Murphy did
the route as an "individual time trial" in a stunning time of 4d8h45m. Murphy's
report includes the following lines that I think will resonnate with many who engage
in these types of individual adventures:
I can only shake my head in disbelief at the good fortune I encountered along the
Colorado Trail: perfect weather, interesting people, no major mechanicals, and no major
physical or mental meltdowns. I cashed in some serious good karma along the way and I am
very grateful to everybody who loaned me some of theirs (I’ll pay you back)!
The stars may never align like that again, but I’m already hoping they do next summer.
Stefan Griebel combined biking and hiking, to cover the
entire official CT in 7d20h from July 28 to August 5, 2006.
His report is here.