In the fall of 2024, I completed the Tahoe Rim Trail, my first thru-hike, and started wondering what was next. I wanted to do something that would continue to push my hiking abilities, since the TRT went well. I'm not sure how I eventually decided on the Colorado Trail, but there were several things that appealed to me. In particular,

Logistics and Planning

Timeframe

The lack of a permit was a blessing: it meant that I could start the hike whenever I wanted to: going later if it was a high snow winter in Colorado or earlier to get slightly longer days. With an average to below-average snow year, I decided to set out the last weekend in June to take advantage of my two corporate holidays around July 4th.

Getting there

I booked an early (6:30am) flight from SFO to DEN.

To get my gear through security, I picked up a box for free from a U-Haul store and basically put all my hiking gear in it, since I wouldn't need it on the flight. Upon getting to Denver, I repacked my pack and recycled the box.

Carry-on and checked boxes with gear in DEN
Carry-on and checked boxes with gear in DEN

I took public transit most of the way from DEN to Waterton Canyon—the northern terminus of the Colorado Trail—the train from the airport into downtown, and then another train to Littleton, then rideshare to the trailhead.

Resupply

I semi-purposefully did not send myself resupply boxes. I didn't want to do this because I was worried I'd get sick of certain foods, but I also just ran out of time to put resupply boxes together, so I started with ~5 nights of food to get me from Denver to Breckenridge (my first resupply). I did plan my resupply points before the trip, but this wasn't necessary in retrospect. Since I didn't have any boxes, I could have figured it out on the fly. My original intended resupply locations were at mile markers:

Initial food loadout
Initial food loadout

Gear

Gear loadout
Gear loadout

Lighterpack

Most of my kit I kept from the Tahoe Rim Trail, but made a few notable gear changes.

Rain Jacket

For the Tahoe Rim Trail, which does not receive summer thunderstorms that are as intense as those in Colorado, I brought a cheap disposable plastic poncho (which I never used), and a wind jacket.

For the CT, I wanted something a little more dependable. Some options I considered with my notes at the time:

I ended up getting the AntiGravityGear jacket, having been convinced by Andrew Skurka that non-DWR rain gear is actually superior in the types of storms that Colorado gets. I was turned off the LightHeartGear jacket by numerous reports that the arms were too short.

Shoes

I used the original Topo Pursuits while hiking the TRT and loved them. They are no longer available, so I picked up the Topo Pursuit 2s for the CT. I used these basically stock, not even replacing the insole, which I sometimes like to do for running shoes.

Bear Bag

I was required to carry a bear canister on the TRT. This was actually nice for my first thru-hike: it's a foolproof solution so I didn't have to think about it.

The CT is less restrictive with food storage. There's a Forest Service order that was put out in 2023 that says that all food must be hung or stored in a hard-sided container, but the consensus online is that bear-resistant/proof food storage bags are allowed. I called one of the Forest Service stations to confirm, and they also said this was fine. In practice, many hikers did not even bother to hang their food bags, bear-resistant or not, and I never saw any rangers that checked food storage.

I bought a 14 L Adotec black bear bag for food storage. I considered an Ursack as well, but the Adotec bags are lighter and higher capacity than the equivalent Ursack (7.6 oz for 11L of storage in the Ursack Major vs. 6.6 oz for 14 L of storage for the 14 L Adotec black bear bag). The Adotec bags are also rodent resistant, while rodent resistance requires buying a higher tier version of the Ursack (the "AllMitey").

I supplemented my bear bag with rope, since I was interested in learning bear hangs anyway, despite warnings I've heard against them.

Puffy

I didn't really use my puffy much on the TRT, so I decided to drop it from my kit for this trip. Puffys are useful when static in camp, but I don't tend to spend too much time sitting in camp, and figured that my fleece and rain jacket would be good enough insulation if I needed it before I got into my quilt to sleep.

Skills

They say the most ultralight piece of equipment is the thing between your ears, so I picked up a few new skills before heading out.

Bear bag hang

In particular, I wanted to learn bear bag hangs and associated skills for this trip.

I watched a few videos on Youtube of hangs I wanted to learn:

There actually can be quite a lot of gear associated with some bear bag hangs (rock sack, locking carabiner, etc), so I learned some additional knots so I just had to bring the rope.

During the hike

Hiking stats

I started hiking on Saturday, June 28th, 2025 shortly before 15:30 and finished shortly after 13:00 on Monday, July 21st, a total of 23 days. Here's a brief daily synopsis, including start and end trail miles. Note that the Collegiate West is an alternate of the Colorado Trail which has its own mileage:

Day Description Start mile End mile Trail distance (miles) Tracked distance (miles) Tracked gain (ft) Link
0 Unacclimated and hot in Waterton Canyon. 0 12.5 12.5 13 1600 Strava
1 South Platte River; exposed segment 2; fire station. 12.5 36.5 24 25 3800 Strava
2 Up above 10k ft for the first time; major hail storm! 36.5 57 20.5 22 4400 Strava
3 Kenosha pass; bad bug night. 57 78 21 22 2900 Strava
4 First time above treeline (Georgia pass); push to Breckenridge. 78 102.5 24.5 25 3600 Strava
5 Zero in Breckenridge. 102.5 102.5 0 0 0
6 Almost double passes; Copper mountain. 102.5 124.5 22 23 6300 Strava
7 Extended section above treeline; bad bug night. 124.5 146.5 22 23 3300 Strava
8 Holy Cross and Mt. Massive Wilderness; bad bugs but escaped by night. 146.5 169.5 23 24 4900 Strava
9 Mt. Elbert side trip. 169.5 179.5 10 16.5 4000 Strava
10 Zero in Leadville. 179.5 179.5 0 0 0
11 Collegiate West; big day; bad bugs to Hope Pass; Lake Ann Pass. 179.5 CW 23 25.5 26.5 7200 Strava
12 Pushing over 12,000 ft+ passes; windy then smoky. CW 23 CW 49 26 27 6500 Strava
13 Rush to Monarch Pass by nightfall. CW 49 CW 76.5 27.5 28.5 6200 Strava
14 Zero in Salida / Monarch Pass. CW 76.5 CW 76.5 0 0 0
15 Bring on the big miles; approaching cow country. CW 76.5 286 30.5 32 5000 Strava
16 Sargents Mesa; cow country. 286 317 31 31.5 4100 Strava
17 Escape from cow country; San Luis Peak. 317 340 23 25.5 5900 Strava
18 Snow Mesa with storms all around; Lake City. 340 356 16 16.5 3700 Strava
19 Lake City shuttle; San Juans; CT high point. 356 375 19 18 3300 Strava
20 Classic Colorado storm; CT/CDT divergence; Elk Creek Canyon. 375 404 29 30 5200 Strava
21 All the way back up above treeline; drizzle. 404 432 28 29.5 6600 Strava
22 End of San Juans; hot and dry; peer pressured into additional miles. 432 469 37 38 5700 Strava
23 Downhill roll to Durango. 469 483 14 15 1500 Strava

Some of the stats in graph form (see this spreadsheet for interactive versions).

Distance hiked per day on the CT

Tracked distance is from my watch and the trail distance is from FarOut. My watch tended to track a mile or so more of distance than I traveled on FarOut. There are a few days with larger differences (9 and 17): these are days that I did side quests to summit Mt. Elbert and San Luis Peak respectively.

Elevation gain tracked per day on the CT

Time hiked per day on the CT

In this graph you can see my moving time start to close in on my elapsed time as the hike goes on. I stopped taking lunch breaks after my zero in Leadville (day 10) and ate lunch on the go, which explains a lot of this gap.

Pacing and strategy

I didn't plan the distance I would hike before the hike started, but rather went resupply by resupply, so I could carry the appropriate amount of food to get me to town. As a baseline, I used 20+ miles per day, which I figured I could sustain because this was a lower bound on my daily volume on the TRT.

As I expected, I increased the average daily distance over the course of the trip as my body got more accustomed to hiking and I felt more confident I wouldn't injure myself, ramping up to 25-30+ miles per day in Collegiate West and beyond.

I took three zeros:

I had two partial days going into and out of Lake City. I wouldn't call these nearos, since I did 15+ miles each day, but I finished in the afternoon on the first day and started just before noon on the second.

While again, I didn't plan each zero, it's basically what I expected would happen. I badly needed the zero in Breckenridge and wouldn't have said no to a second. In contrast, by the time I hit Lake City the time-off was mostly for town chores. While some hikers don't like spending time in town, I like the creature comforts, and I tend to sleep better in a bed than in the backcountry.

I originally had planned to do one more town day in Silverton, but ultimately decided against it while in Lake City. A few other hikers said they were planning on hiking the 120ish miles through, and other people I had talked to said Silverton wasn't really worth the stop.

Physical condition

Overall, I felt good for this entire hike, and never felt like I overextended myself or dealt with anything beyond being a bit tired at the end of the day.

I did have a few minor physical issues, some of which I have not root caused:

Mental condition

This trail is difficult. Going SOBO into Breckenridge, I was lulled into a false sense of security by the relatively cruisy trail featuring just one pass above treeline. My rude awakening came in Collegiate West, which was one of the hardest parts of the trail for me.

Overall, I was a bit stressed on this trail. This was partially due to external factors; I felt like I was always looking out for storms. Partially, it was internal: I like to push myself physically, e.g. to do an extra peak or just get into town a day earlier. While I enjoy the process of setting and achieving these goals, I sometimes need to chill a bit more. I'd always feel a huge sense of relief when I finally found my camp spot for the night.

Food and nutrition

I aimed to eat at least 3000 calories a day. I have a high resting metabolic rate, and I suspected that even with this intake I'd still lose weight, but at least I'd get a baseline of my caloric needs.

I suspect I lost around 5-10 lbs. I don't know precisely how much since I didn't weigh myself before and after, but I noticed as the trail went on that I was increasingly cinching in my pants.

Despite this, I never experienced "hiker hunger". On trail, I never had to stop myself from digging into another day's food. I would eat a good amount in town, but not significantly more than I eat in general.

While hiking, I converged around eating breakfast and lunch on the go, with something more meal-like for dinner. A typical day of meals would look something like:

Potentially TMI story: My last night on trail, I wanted to use up the rest of my dinner supplies, and had probably 2-3 fl oz left of olive oil that I had been putting in my beans and rice. I decided to use all of it, not wanting to let the calories go to waste. About an hour after I had gone to bed, I sat up, feeling that something was not right. I eventually realized that dinner was not going to stay down and got out of my tent and returned it to nature. We'll see if beans and rice is still my favorite trail dinner the next time I do this.

Spend

I spent about $1300 hiking the CT, not including the cost of gear or flights. My spend breaks down in the following ways:

Spend on the CT broken out by categories

The categories on the graph represent:

I was not trying to stick to a specific budget while hiking this trail. I have a well-compensated corporate job, and was happy to spend money eating out when I was in town and to pay for a bed to stay in. There are certainly ways to cut back on spending: a truly economical hiker should probably spend as little time in town as possible to reduce cost of lodging and food and drink close to zero, and should instead spend basically all money on resupply.

Camping

I camped 16 nights: 15 on trail and one in a BLM campground outside of Salida. Of the 15 nights I camped on trail, I put my food up in a bear hang 12 nights, and tied my bag around a tree three nights. I never saw any evidence that animals had gone after my food.

I solo camped 12 nights out of 15, with the three nights I camped with others coinciding with the nights I didn't do a bear hang. This was not coincidence: camping near/above treeline and not being able to do a proper bear hang makes me feel more exposed to night critters, so I like the security of camping in a group. The third night I didn't do a bear hang was my last night on trail, when I hiked with someone else until past sunset and used an established campsite. I didn't want to bother others by attempting to do a bear hang when it was late, and I was tired, so I tied off my bag to a tree instead.

I have two camping stories.

On the night of day 12, between 22:30 and 23:00 I suddenly heard footsteps right outside my tent. I immediately went into a panic because hearing unannounced footsteps when it's dark and I'm vulnerable in a tent immediately makes me think I'm gonna get knifed, especially since my camp was relatively accessible near a forest service road that evening. But there was no flashlight, so my mind ruled out human and jumped to bear given how loud the footsteps sounded. I yelled outside a few times to scare the creature off. It had run away by the time I got my flashlight ready, so I never got to see it. Upon further reflection and talking to other hikers, it was probably a deer. I'm just not used to how loud deer footsteps can be because I'd never heard them so close.

Some other creature bothered me on the night after day 17, coming up to my tent three times before I scared it off. It was probably a marmot, since I was near treeline at that point. I'm not sure what it wanted, since my food bag and smellables were tied to a tree away from where I was sleeping. Another hiker reasoned that because marmots like salt, it was probably interested in my sweaty clothing.

Weather

In contrast to many other people that I met, I was actually pretty excited about getting to see monsoon season storms in Colorado. I love watching thunderstorms roll through and rarely ever get to see them in the bay area. Having spent a lot of time in Flagstaff as well, I'm familiar with the rhythm of monsoon season storms as well: the storms come through in the afternoon, and the dangerous parts (the thunder and lightning) often pass quickly. Often the rain will pass quickly as well.

I was a bit disappointed then that the monsoon was rather anemic this year. While I did stress more than I thought when I saw menacing clouds, there were really only two times that I had to stop due to storms appearing. Locals confirmed that this storm season was on the less active side.

A couple inches of hail on the ground after a major hailstorm on day 2
A couple inches of hail on the ground after a major hailstorm on day 2

There were some storms at night, but these were rather weak as well: I probably could have slept with my tent vestibule open, but closed it only to keep my shoes dry.

The temperature was also not too extreme. I was very comfortable in my 20° quilt, and actually a bit too warm the first few nights. I didn't wear any of my warm clothes while sleeping, just a light shirt and shorts. The temperature never got below freezing where I camped, though I purposefully avoid the popular spots near water, which tend to collect cold air. Other hikers near streams did experience freezing temperatures.

Here's a temperature graph from the small thermometer I carried on the outside of my pack:

Temperature graph on the CT

While this graph purports to show some incredibly high temperatures, these are probably not accurate. Official temperature measurements are taken in the shade, but my thermometer was on the outside or my pack, and I suspect it measured the higher temperatures in the sun.

Bug pressure

Unfortunately, despite having a drier hike than I expected and trying to camp away from water sources, I experienced several days and nights with rather unpleasant mosquitoes:

My experiences with bugs generally agreed with what I read online: the mosquitoes are bad around Leadville, with my one addition being that they were also bad for me around Georgia Pass. I did see some mosquitoes on the second half of the CT, but in general, they seemed a lot less aggressive. They were lazy and slow enough that I could usually just blow them away if they got too close.

Overall, I would not describe the bug pressure as bad, but it was still worse than I expected, especially after seeing essentially no mosquitoes on the TRT last year. I never applied DEET or permethrin but did find it useful to use my rain gear as a physical barrier. I was also very glad to have a tent instead of a tarp as a shelter. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing mosquitoes struggle against netting while trying to bite you. They do tend to go away when the temperature drops at night, but the shelter was nice in the evening before the temperature dropped.

Trail conditions

The Colorado Trail is quite well-marked. Numerous CDT hikers commented on how much easier it was to follow than the rest of the CDT.

Sign marking the southern/western junction of the CT and CDT
Sign marking the southern/western junction of the CT and CDT

That said, it is not quite as meticulously maintained as the TRT. The grade is steeper in many places, leading me to start calling it "Wall-orado". While AT and eastern US hikers will probably laugh at this characterization, the grade really killed my ambitions of hiking 3+ mph (5 km/hr) as I did for basically the whole TRT. The trail itself runs the gamut from muddy in a few places (annoying but usually avoidable), to pure talus, to mountain bike-rutted, to nicely-dusted in pine duff.

There were sections of snow, but most posed a minor inconvenience at most. The only exception was a large snowbank on the north side of Lake Ann Pass, which required some routefinding and class two hiking to get around.

Looking down the north side of Lake Ann Pass
Looking down the north side of Lake Ann Pass

Plants

I expected Colorado to be like the Flagstaff area: a clear underbrush with well-spaced pine trees. This was not true at all—the majority of trail is actually quite wet, with short water carries due to numerous mountain streams, and lots of lush plants below treeline. My other nickname for Colorado was Co-lush-rado, given how thick the undergrowth was at points. Ironically, the driest parts of the trail tended to be at lower elevations.

Lush plants below treeline
Lush plants below treeline

July is wildflower season, and here Colorado delivered. My dislike of the brush below treeline was tempered by the fact that even it was flowering, but I saw the most picturesque scenes of wildflowers above treeline: yellow, white, purple, pink, and orange/red dotting backgrounds of green mountains.

Wildflowers above treeline
Wildflowers above treeline

With flowers usually comes sneezing for me, since I am sensitive to plant pollen and usually deal with seasonal allergies in the spring. Usually it wasn't too bad; I never took any allergy medicine, though at night my nose was often stuffy. My worst night was actually when I set up in a grass field and could not stop sneezing. I woke up the next morning and found my belongings dusted in pollen.

The least aesthetic parts of trail were the rather large sections that have been devastated by bark beetle, mostly between Monarch Pass and Spring Creek Pass. This can get quite bad—north of San Luis Pass I'd guess that 90%+ of the trees are dead. Beyond looking grim, it's dangerous to camp among so many dead trees. I didn't really have a strategy to deal with this. I just hoped that nights were not windy and crossed my fingers that the trees would stay upright since there is no snow loading in the summer.

Animals

Rodents are the most common animal on the CT: squirrels and chipmunks are all over. Pika and marmots are easy to spot above treeline.

A marmot above treeline
A marmot above treeline

Of the larger mammals, I most frequently encountered deer. I did see an elk herd one morning, but never saw a moose, though I leapfrogged another hiker who said he saw one shortly after I passed him one day.

I saw three bighorn sheep on the trail right after the road walk at Waterton Canyon and some mountain goats in the Collegiate West.

I only caught a glimpse of a bear. While hiking on the side of a hill, I heard some crashing in the brush downhill from me. I looked that way, expecting to see a deer running off, and saw a large black shape instead.

Community

There were plenty of other people hiking while I was on trail. While I never picked up a tramily or made plans to hike with anyone, I started to see more of the same faces as I hiked. I suspect with a few more weeks I would have settled into a rhythm that matched some other folks. I found the community presence strongest in Lake City, which is a city where half the population might be hikers during peak hiking season. Having a longer timeline to find a crew that matched my style of hiking is a goal I'd have for a longer hike.

Some other hikers in Lake City
Some other hikers in Lake City

Getting into Town

Here's a list of how I got to and from all my resupplies:

Overall, I preferred getting rides by meeting people in-person first and then asking, and found this to be much more effective than the traditional thumb-out hitchhiking style. It's much easier to ignore someone sticking out a thumb on the side of the road, and there's basically no opportunity for a personal connection before making the ask.

Towns

While I wasn't in town for very long, I enjoyed passing through them to get a sense of the vibe of each of them. Some quick reviews:

A house in Leadville
A house in Leadville

Retrospective

Gear

I had no major gear issues on trail, but I'm planning on making a few minor changes in the future:

What went well

What could go better

Where I got lucky

My subjective trail review

This trail is hard. I came into it thinking from my experience on the Tahoe Rim Trail that I could crush this trail in like 20 days, but the realities of dealing with the terrain put an end to those goals, especially after leaving Breckenridge and into the Collegiate West section.

The first 80 miles or so are pretty cruisy, which is a good warmup if going SOBO, but the trail gets much more interesting after Breckenridge. While the climb out of Breckenridge is hard, it's extremely rewarding, and the next above treeline section around Kokomo pass is one of my favorite sections of trail.

I still think my second day in the Collegiate West section (day 12) was my hardest and most stressful day of hiking overall. I set myself up for this: I didn't want to camp below treeline and so had to push through a 15 mile above-treeline section at the end of the day featuring at least four 12,500+ ft passes.

Coming over one of the passes on my second day in the Collegiate West
Coming over one of the passes on my second day in the Collegiate West

One of my least favorite sections overall was Sargents Mesa, which traverses a ridge from mile ~280 to 300. While it's not high elevation, it's slower going than I expected because there are steep, loose ascents and descents. These have very little payoff since they ascend to hills along the ridge that are in the trees and have no view.

While the next section with its numerous cows and cow-contaminated water is much maligned, I didn't find it that bad: there are some open sections with nice views, and it's quite flat, so pretty quick going.

Flat, open section around mile 310
Flat, open section around mile 310

The San Juans were probably comparably difficult to the Collegiate West, but I found them much more beautiful and therefore enjoyable. There are a lot more flat, alpine sections with wildflowers, which includes the section featuring the CT high point. This makes them feel like much less of a grind than the Collegiate West section. I also just bit the bullet and camped near treeline for my first night out of Lake City, which let me take on several of the high passes in the San Juans earlier the next day when I was less tired.

In the San Juans
In the San Juans

The majority of people hike the CT SOBO, and this is for good reason: the San Juans are great to save for last, when you've maximized your acclimation and so the trail finishes on a high note.

How did I do on my goals?

I chose to hike the CT for five reasons

  1. Longer: I did manage to hike my longest day on trail yet at the end of the CT: 38 miles. Despite this, my legs never felt as good as they did on the TRT. In terms of resupply, I definitely started to get the hang of what to get and what I enjoyed on trail, though I did get tired of the food I was eating by the time I finished trail.
  2. Higher altitude: I do well at altitude. It only took me a couple of days to get adjusted and I never suffered any major ill effects beyond just slowing down.
  3. Storms: While I was always looking for storms, I only had to deal with a couple of major storms on trail.

  4. Peak hiking season: The CT has a much better community around it than the TRT. Partially, this is because the CT is a longer trail. This gave me a chance to run into people multiple times and find a few people who were hiking at a comparable speed to me. Even with people I didn't see multiple times, the experience of being on trail naturally gives me something to talk about with others, which made it easy to connect with people even if they were heading the other way.

    I'd guess that the CT also draws more people than the TRT. While the TRT section that overlaps the PCT has more hiker amenities, the smaller number of thru-hikers in other parts of the TRT make it hard to create businesses that cater specifically toward hikers. A town like Lake City, where hikers form a not-insignificant chunk of the population, just doesn't exist in the Tahoe area.

  5. No permit: This is one of the best parts about the trail. While there's definitely a bubble, I never felt like the trail was too crowded and it's still possible to find solitude, so I hope the CT remains permit-less, or at least quota-less, for the future.

What's next?

By the end of the CT, I was ready to get off trail. While a lot of folks feel the ending of the trail is bittersweet, I love my creature comforts and was ready to return to them. I was a bit worn out by the stress of "where am I gonna camp tonight?"

A couple days after getting off trail, though, I was already thinking of what my next adventure would be. I have a few on my short list: