On April 9th Mark and I set off from the Waterton Canyon trailhead to attempt a spring ski traverse of the Colorado trail. Less than a month later on May 6th, we arrived at the southern terminus of the 486 mile trail in Durango!
The most remarkable part of this experience is that there is no brief way to describe it, thus the lengthy blog post. (Take note of the different pages on this post and be sure to click through all of them to see photos from the whole trip and read about it from start to finish!) At no point did the trip become easy or predictable; we encountered almost every type of weather and ski conditions along with a variety of other challenges that greeted us along the way. This post is meant to share our personal and reflections about the trip. I will look forward to publishing another account that outlines the logistics of our trip for anyone looking to do something similar!
From the outset of this trip, Mark and I were met with quite a few challenges. Mark first thought up the idea to ski the Colorado Trail while I was thru hiking the CDT. When he brought it up I was excited at the idea of another thru hike, but I shortly informed him that my little experience with winter camping was terrible, and I really doubted our true interest in undertaking something of this nature. We kept the idea on the backburner and Mark, having never gone winter backpacking, kept the stoke alive while I came on board. Once we had decided that this was something we wanted to do, however, I was all in: researching, reading, planning, and buying gear to make an attempt possible. Based on the nature of the trip, and the fact that it had never been done before, we were fairly convinced that it would take us multiple tries to actually complete it. The fact that if we finished it would be the first ski traverse of the CT added to our motivation to be well prepared, and stoked our excitement for the challenge!
We spent almost every one of our free weekends learning to winter camp and dialing in our systems and gear for this trip. We bought skis, a tent (actually gifted to us for Christmas from Mark’s mom), sleeping bags and pads, a stove, and a variety of other miscellany specifically for this trip. I sewed a backpack specially for this hike too. Most weekends, Mark would drive up from Denver to Leadville and we would load up our packs and walk into the woods to spend the night and maybe do a little skiing. By the time we were ready to leave on the trail, we felt confident in our gear choices and comfortable using everything we had in our packs.
So when the day came to leave, we were as ready as we’d ever be and not a bit more. Our departure date was primarily determined by my work schedule and Mark’s ability to leave his mom and niece. Mark has spent the last year and a half with his mom and niece in Denver while his mom has dealt with a variety of health issues. During this time, Mark has been the full time caregiver for his mom and niece, so this trip would be the first time he was leaving home and that responsibility. Leading up to our departure, we were relatively unsure whether Mark and his mom would be ready for him to leave, so we told very few people about our plans while we continued to asses the situation.
On April 6th, I finished my last day of a PSIA level 1 exam (a certifying exam for ski instructors), packed up all my stuff from Leadville and drove to Denver. Once there, Mark and I immediately began making preparations to leave by the 9th. On the 7th we spent the day packing our resupplies for the whole trip, but during the day got a call from Mark’s mom, Kelly, that she had dislocated her hip (a recurring issue for the past year) and was going to need to be taken to the hospital and, we would later find out, need surgery. Mark took care of his mom while I continued to pack our food and supplies, unsure we would actually be leaving. By the end of the day, however, Kelly’s friends and sister had reassured us that we should certainly still go and that they would be there for Kelly and Mark’s niece. It was hard to accept that we would be leaving while Kelly was in the hospital, but we took the good word of the people around us and continued preparations. On the 8th, I spent the day delivering our resupplies while Mark took care of his niece and prepared his stuff at the house to leave. I drove most our resupplies to friends who would be holding and delivering them to us, only having to mail one to Silverton, the only trail town where we did not have friends to cater our needs! When I got back to Denver after the day of driving, we still had lots of finishing touches to make and found ourselves up past midnight working to be ready to leave the next morning. At 7 am, a friend of ours picked us up to take us to the trailhead– a last minute ride since originally Mark’s mom had planned to drive us–and we were, despite the trials of the past days and year, on the trail!
