Colorado Trail: Reflections from the trail and how it changed us

Editor's note: This is the final installment of The Denver Gazette's seven-day series to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Colorado Trail. Revisit all the dispatches from Denver Gazette and Gazette staffers: thru-hiker Kyla Pearce and mountain biker Jonathan Ingraham, features writer Seth Boster, photos and videos from Tom Hellauer and Skyler Ballard, and maps from Nichole Montanez here.

Eight-time Colorado Trail completer David Fanning and Colorado Trail Foundation Chairman Steve Staley both shared how a person can't complete the Colorado Trail, either via hiking or biking, and not undergo some kind of personal change.

“If you complete the trail, you’re different,” explained Steve Staley, who has completed it four times. “It’s hard to explain to people until they’ve done it, but you are a changed person after.”

Reflections from the trail

Kyla Pearce: It feels cliché to say "the trail changed me," but it doesn't do it justice to say anything else. Finishing a long trail like, especially the Colorado Trail, has to change a person. How could it not?

In the last stretch particularly, I spent a lot of time reflecting, staring at my feet trying not to trip, while mulling over the good and the bad, the best and worst days, the times I wanted to quit and the moments I spent wondering if I could thru-hike forever.

I'd expected to come off the trail with some big life revelation. Maybe I would realize I needed to move states or countries. Maybe I would find a new career goal. Maybe everything I thought I wanted would be upended.

None of that happened, and for a while, post-trail, I struggled to find identity and purpose in what I'd done and how it moved me forward.

All I knew is that the trail changed me, but I wasn't exactly sure how. That in itself became the first lesson, and one that I didn't realize I needed.

Jonathan Ingraham: Why did I not mountain bike the Colorado Trail 10 years ago, before kids, middle age, with younger, stronger knees and less responsibility in my life?

Was the choice no then because the trail was waiting for me to ride it in 2024? With all of those accoutrements attached? Was it supposed to be an even larger challenge now?

Apparently, the answer is yes.

The Colorado Trail is a challenge, but it wouldn't have been the same challenge if I had attempted to ride it in 2014. Back then, I was in between careers, living in Louisville in my friend's basement, being a 30-something with no cares in the world.

I could have packed up my bags, my brand new bike (same one I rode the Colorado Trail with this year), told my roommate I would be back sometime before the end of the month, and just figured it out.

But waiting 10 years was the right choice, and now I have a different perspective about the CT.

KP: Needing to just be — I spend every day of my life a little too self aware for my own good. I think we all do. We have to act a certain way around some people and a different way around others to maintain social circles and professional hierarchies. We have to dress a certain way to present how we hope to be perceived. It's part of being a social creature, and it's exhausting.

Being on a trail for as long as we were — away from "normal" life, focusing on survival, being constantly aware of our bodies and everything around us — simplifies everything.

I didn't need to be anything in particular on the trail, or dress in any way, or present myself "properly." I just needed to be. I needed to wake up each morning, fuel my body and walk.

Every movement in and around me, every ache and pain, every temperature change and every step were part of my awareness in a way they aren't in everyday life. They had to be.

The wildflowers weren't there to judge my appearance. The mountains didn't care that I sang out loud. They just were. And I could just be, as well, and that was more than enough.

I met many other thru-hikers who shared a similar lesson.

Chickpea, a hiker I met near Silverton who had done the Pacific Crest Trail the year prior, phrased it perfectly, saying thru-hiking "demands our full attention."

"When I'm climbing a steep mountain, my focus is solely on taking the next step, the next breath," Chickpea said. "I engage all of my senses — I notice the trees, I listen to the birdsong and the gently rustling of the wind, I feel each breath and every step."

Chickpea's mantra on the trail was simple, she said.

"I am here."

JI: Find the time — Honestly, I don't think the trail changed me much, at least this time around.

It did, however, mostly gave me a space to be alone on two wheels for 10 days, experiencing travel through parts of Colorado I had never seen, even for this native who's been to a lot places in the state.

If the trail is supposed to change you, well, then, the only thing that changed was that I left something out there: Time.

Time left on the trail, in eight-hour increments on 10 of 28 segments from Denver to Durango.

Time left on Blackhawk Pass. Time left on the third avalanche chute of West Lime Creek.

I also left time at Soldierstone, the Vietnam War memorial 0.2 miles south of where Segment 16 turns into 17, dedicating time to those who have fallen.

I left time watching llamas walk past me near Little Molas Lake, and even more on the silty sands of Chalk Creek outside Mount Princeton Hot Springs.

The time I left on the trail is cherished memories for me and meant be shared with readers because being out on this trail system is about time.

It's about time with the dirt under your tires. It's about time among the forest, the wildflowers' smells, the running rivers and in the shade under the clouds.

It's about time finding what you're made of, one pedal stroke after another.

It's about finding your time, your place from Denver to Durango.

And now I must go back: To leave more time on the Colorado Trail.

KP: A Journey in self trust — On the trail, every step you take is a decision. And your life, or at the very least the quality of your day, can depend on it.

Deciding to hike extra miles could mean pushing your body beyond its limit and getting injured. Deciding to wake up an hour later could mean being above tree line in a lightning storm. Deciding to skip a resupply town could mean not having enough food.

A fellow thru-hiker, trail-named Hummingbird, said the trail taught her to trust her gut, and I couldn't agree more.

"My decisions are entirely my own, and I don't have to be influenced by others or worry about influencing others," she told me. "We write our own stories along the trail."

A big part of life on the trail is accepting what is and going from there. We made constant decisions, and sometimes they were the wrong ones, but we had no choice but to trust ourselves. And if it was the wrong decision, we had to trust ourselves to make a new one, change the plan, get over it and keep moving.

I had to trust strangers, and trust my gut when it came to trusting strangers.

I had to trust that my body could keep moving, even when I struggled to believe it could.

I had to trust my pain telling me something was wrong, and trust myself to stop and address it.

In trusting myself to be strong and capable, I was strong and capable — more so than I ever give myself credit for.

Chickpea shared this sentiment, as well, saying the trail gave her the confidence to handle new challenges, along with the rare time and space to reflect on and process the challenges, both on trail and off.

On the Colorado Trail, Chickpea got more rain in her first week than she did on the entire Pacific Crest Trail, which is five times as long as the Colorado Trail, she said.

Dealing with thunderstorms in the alpine with only a tent for safety, learning when to hunker down and when to keep pushing, figuring out how to stay alive in those kinds of conditions were all new to Chickpea. She learned as she went, and felt more and more capable each day.

The challenges were also mental on the trail. With so much time spent in one's own head, there is ample time, for better or worse, to reflect.

On top of mountain passes, she often experienced an emotional rush — "gratitude, loss, grief, beauty, awe," she said.

And there's nowhere to hide from those feelings or silence them.

"The mountains don't let me run away from my problems. They make me face them head-on," she said. "I'm fully present, ready to feel it all."

We hiked 500 miles, something I wasn't sure my body was capable of. Along the way, we faced every hurdle we'd worried about, from sickness to gear failure to injury.

Despite it all, we still hiked 500 miles because of the stubborn belief that we could. Sometimes, that's all it takes.

KP: Loving my body...it got me here — I have been a very small person my entire life. As a kid, I was bullied for it. Now, it doesn't bother me as much, but I'm left with the residual body image issues, as is every woman I know.

Hiking all day every day was a learning lesson in appreciating my body for exactly how it was. I heard this echoed among other thru-hikers, as well.

My legs are scrawny, but they took me up and down steep mountain passes. I'm tiny, at five feet tall and 100 pounds, but I carried for 500 miles everything I needed to survive, upwards of 30 pounds, on my back.

I used to hate my legs, now I look at them with admiration. They haven't changed in appearance at all, but I know how strong they are and what they're capable of, despite how they look.

A trail friend one morning said, "Yeah, I have a lot of cellulite. But my body is taking me up huge mountains, so it doesn't matter. My body is perfect."

At the top of the tallest mountain passes, I gave my body an emotional hug. My body is strong, capable, resilient, and tough. It is exactly the way it needs to be.

KP: Renewing my belief in people — As a journalist, it's often easy to get lost in pessimism — specifically in regards to the goodness of people. With each shooting I cover, each homicide, I find myself diving deeper and deeper into mistrust of people around me.

On the trail, every person we met was willing to go out of their way to help each other. We hitched rides with total strangers, all of whom were excited to help us out and be part of our journey. Other total strangers offered us food and water, places to stay and rides out of their way.

Every time we needed something, there was a person — hiker or otherwise — there offering it. Trail angels offered us water in two of the longest dry stretches of trail. Strangers gave us cake after two of our longest, hardest days. A lady we'd never met gave us a ride out of her way back to the trail one morning when we struggled to hitch a ride. She then offered up her house to us, in case we needed to wash anything or sleep somewhere dry.

The trail was a refreshing — and needed — reminder that there are so many good people in the world. It also inspired me to go back to the sections of trail where we needed trail magic most and give back to the trail and its travelers.

I'm filled with warmth and gratitude knowing that the trail is a balanced cycle of giving and taking, and just as I could be a part of the taking, I can also return and give. Caring for others is so important, and being willing to accept care when it's needed is equally important.

A trail friend I made day one, Sharii Peralta, said something similar, recalling a day when a person offered her a ride that saved her thru-hike.

Peralta started the trail solo, finding herself oftentimes hiking or camping alone. On one particularly difficult day, she found herself several miles off trail, lost and about to pass out. As she felt worse, storms rolled in, leaving her to hide in some bushes to stay safe. When she eventually reached a trail junction, two strangers offered her a ride into town.

"Even though it was just a ride, in that moment it felt like a miracle, almost like magic that all of these bad things happened, but these wonderful people were sent my way," Peralta said. "It just reminded me that there are still so many good people on the planet. I think sometimes that's easy to forget."

KP: One final love letter to the trail — The Colorado Trail handed me some of the best days I've ever had, filled with the warmest sun, the kindest people, the hardest laughs, most beautiful wildflowers, most dazzling lakes and happiest joys.

It also dealt me some of the hardest, most demanding days I've ever had, testing my ability to keep myself alive in sub-freezing temperatures, while violently ill, leaving us above tree line at the mercy of terrifying lightning storms, demanding me to keep moving when I didn't think I could take another step.

I have never felt more present, more grounded or more alive.

I felt every single step, for better or worse. My body ached and I felt my muscles grow stronger. The pain was relentless, somewhere new on my body every day, and I embraced it.

The trail, and the earth beneath me, provided when I needed it to. Strangers and family helped me when I couldn't help myself. The sky cleared and the sun warmed us up after the coldest, wettest nights.

I still have dirt embedded in my trail shoes. It's never coming out. Like the dirt in my shoes, I left a part of myself on the trail, embedded in the flowers, the trees, the towering rock walls, the rivers. I came off the trail feeling more grounded than I ever have.

Thru-hiking the Colorado Trail is the hardest thing I've ever done, and it was worth every single second.