Training for the Colorado Trail

The Trail to Long Lake - September, 2024

​​Last August my daughter joined some friends for the final 75+ miles of the Colorado Trail from Molas Pass (near Silverton) to Durango. You can read about that in my post The Million Dollar Highway. Her friends completed the entire length of the trail, 567 miles, over several weeks. At the time, I hadn’t realized that the Colorado Trail, or CT, wasn’t completed until 1987. Though its conception was in 1974, the project languished due to lack of interest and funding until Governor Dick Lamm in 1985 pushed for its finish. Golden spike ceremonies in September 1987 marked the completion of the CT.

This July I’m trekking a few miles of the CT with my adventure-loving daughter. We’re planning five nights on-trail, covering about 60 miles. To be clear, Charlotte could do the 60 miles in three days. I’m feeling very lucky that she’s willing to meander next to me, barely breaking a sweat, while I huff and puff up and down the climbs. 

I’m not sure about you, but I tend to get a wee bit anxious with a trip like this. So I’m taking my training seriously. Dumbbells in my daypack give my legs and back that extra challenge as I hoof it up Mt. Werner or Emerald Mountain. I climbed Emerald twice last Sunday, and messaged Charlotte in a panic on Monday that my sore muscles might not be up to the task at hand on the CT - multiple 12-mile days. She calmly explained that no, you don’t get up in the morning with a spring in your step feeling like a million bucks. You are sore, tired, and use duct tape on your blisters. This is life on the trail.

When I asked a friend of Charlotte’s who is doing a portion of the Continental Divide Trail, also in July, what she’s doing for her training, she told me, very kindly, that well, at her age she really didn’t need to train. Ah, yes. Youth and its many benefits.

But training has its benefits too. I notice that hiking with my weighted pack, though challenging, has actually helped my legs feel better - stronger and more balanced with the need to recruit every one of those leg muscle fibers not only on the climbs, but stability on the descents as well.
I can feel my back getting stronger. And my home strength training is supercharged with the new goal of being as strong as possible for the trail.

On my way up Lane of Pain near the top of Emerald the other day, I was counting my steps, a little trick when I’m tired to get me to the top of a climb. In my tuckered-out state, I was moving pretty slowly through a shaded area and caught a lovely whiff - of the wild pink roses blooming all along the trailside. There were dozens of small orange butterflies taking delight in the almost imperceptible moisture on the ground. Were it not for my training and heavy pack, I might have missed this little piece of paradise.

Learn More
Colorado Trail Foundation: Key Events in the History of The Colorado Trail