Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1148: The Colorado Trail - First Through Hike with Abbey Galloway

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Ep. 1148: The Colorado Trail - First Through Hike with Abbey Galloway · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:07
[SPEAKER_00]: you're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with the ventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
0:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey friends, thanks for listening in today.
0:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It is about 830 at night, and I'm just starting this edit right now and the reason is because of Thanksgiving weekend, we just got home.
0:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm thankful for a lot of things.
0:35
[SPEAKER_04]: There is so much to be thankful for.
0:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just stop and pause for a moment.
0:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I think about all the opportunities that we each have.
0:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I think about the fact that the world is still holding together somehow.
0:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And the fact that love still reigns, there's so many things to be thankful for.
0:54
[SPEAKER_04]: But here's another one.
0:55
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the reasons it's so late is because we're in a blizzard right now in central Colorado.
1:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm excited the first big snowstorm is hitting right now as we speak and we drove through it on the way home.
1:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Beautiful snow.
1:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's game on for the ski season.
1:13
[SPEAKER_04]: How exciting is that?
1:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's super super fun.
1:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, an update on the fundraiser for we see hope this will take 10 seconds.
1:24
[SPEAKER_04]: First of all, the Adventure Sports podcast family has raised $1200 that's nearly double where we were a week ago.
1:33
[SPEAKER_04]: We're making progress that's $1,200 out of the $20,000 goal.
1:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And all the climbers together have raised about $83,000, what a beautiful thing that is.
1:47
[SPEAKER_04]: That's $83,000 out of the $300,000 goal.
1:53
[SPEAKER_04]: So we still have a long way to go, but I also want to be thankful.
1:57
[SPEAKER_04]: for the money that has been shared to help the impoverished kids in Africa through we see hope.
2:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you want to know more about that, I published a special episode.
2:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We see hope in Kilimanjaro.
2:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Listen to that.
2:12
[SPEAKER_04]: He gives all the details.
2:13
[SPEAKER_04]: That's enough for now.
2:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Abby Gallaway is the guest today, and we're talking about the Colorado Trail.
2:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Abby shared tons of good advice about doing through hiking and how to get started on it.
2:28
[SPEAKER_04]: The Colorado Trail was her first big through hike.
2:31
[SPEAKER_04]: and it really had a deep impact on her life.
2:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Abby and I met in person when she was on the trail because I was in the forest and we just bumped into each other.
2:40
[SPEAKER_04]: It's so rare that I actually get to invite someone face to face to be on the podcast.
2:45
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's how this transpired, which of course we're going to talk about in the episode.
2:50
[SPEAKER_04]: But Abby did a fantastic job.
2:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Abby thank you so much for your time and joining the Adventure Sports podcast.
2:56
[SPEAKER_04]: If you are someone who would like to share your unique adventure,
3:01
[SPEAKER_04]: then please do contact us at info at adventure sportspodcast.com and uh tell us what your adventure is listen we have a lot of guests now who would like to be on the adventure sports podcast because they've done big amazing things and i mean it's no joke
3:19
[SPEAKER_04]: huge 8,000 meter mountaineering expeditions and trips around the world human-powered and crazy bike rides that cover tens of thousands of miles and you know all those things are wonderful and we want to keep that content coming but I also want to make sure we always include
3:39
[SPEAKER_04]: people that are just enthusiastic about their hobby, their adventure sport, and I really believe in focusing as well on adventures that we all can do, and that's one of the things I love about Abby's interview.
3:55
[SPEAKER_04]: She walks us down the path of how we can get started doing accessible adventures.
4:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's jump into the episode.
4:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey friends, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
4:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Today, I have Abby Galloway with us, and this is such a cool thing.
4:13
[SPEAKER_04]: My son and his girlfriend, fiancee now, and I were in the woods, and Abby walks by because she was a throughhiker on the Colorado Trail, and she agreed when she finished the trail to come on and talk about it.
4:24
[SPEAKER_04]: but she also has a very unique outdoor focus lifestyle and I think she's going to be an excellent guest on the Adventure Sports podcast, but we have not talked about the Colorado Trail in forever.
4:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think it's very timely as well to talk about that trail.
4:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It really is a treasure.
4:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So Abby, welcome to the program.
4:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for having me, Kurt, and very excited to be here, and very excited to be able to talk about the Colorado Trail again.
4:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It was such a significant point in my life and truly life altering.
4:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Good.
4:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's what the adventure sports podcast is about.
5:02
[SPEAKER_04]: It's about having an impact on our lives, right?
5:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Doing meaningful things that help us in some way.
5:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So before we dive into all of that, where are you now?
5:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm living outside of Detroit in Michigan, and I believe when I met you, our meeting was very brief, as you know, I was in a rush to crush the miles.
5:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I shared with you, though, that I had intentions already of moving to Colorado, and that's still very much in plan.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll take a few more months, but I'm really looking forward to it.
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I've lived most of my life on the East Coast, so I've lived in Michigan, Ohio, and I actually spent the last six years in Tampa, Florida.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have family in Michigan and Florida, and I'm back with family now, and really enjoying being back with my family in Michigan.
5:53
[SPEAKER_04]: that's fun.
5:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So you visited Colorado and you did the Colorado Trail.
5:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Why don't we start by just defining what the Colorado Trail is?
6:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So the Colorado Trail goes between Durango and Denver Denver Metro and it's roughly 500 miles and Abby, you probably have all the stats I don't have, so fill in the gaps there.
6:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly, so the Colorado Trail is eight mountain ranges.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I have national parks and five major waterways.
6:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It is 500 miles.
6:23
[SPEAKER_01]: The mother of the trail is Judy Gaskell.
6:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So she is credited with establishing the trail along with the Forest Service and the Colorado Trail Foundation in 1974 and she made quick work of getting it together.
6:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Prior to her stepping in the Colorado Trail.
6:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It had kind of hit the brakes in terms of forming, and it took several years to get to the point where Judy Gaskell could step in and really transform it within a year.
6:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So her story is incredibly impressive and along the trail you'll find some signage and some information that fills you in on what Judy did.
7:08
[SPEAKER_01]: for Colorado Trail hikers.
7:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's actually quite exciting to be informed along the way when I first stepped on the trail.
7:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't really know much about the Colorado Trail.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: A year prior, I had traveled to Colorado and
7:23
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of in a wayward way, I was just exploring different places.
7:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I spent a week and a half in an Airbnb in Durango and being that Durango is the terminus of the trail generally speaking, generally speaking, most people would go southbound from Denver to Durango.
7:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I spent that time in Durango, I found out a little bit about it and I actually did a section hike of Copper Mountain, which is segment eight of the Colorado Trail.
7:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so incredibly challenging.
7:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually couldn't finish it.
7:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just one segment.
7:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it was either 15 or 16 miles and I anticipated that I would finish it in a day and this is a year ago, like I said.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got an injury.
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I hurt me about seven miles in because the elevation is no joke.
8:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean you think you can easily crush 15, 16 miles but then you realize that the elevation is 4,000 feet and halfway in you're like oh my goodness Am I going to be able to finish just just this day?
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I realized what a challenge it was I think that's when I became truly obsessed
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: with the idea of doing the Colorado Trail in its entirety, and I spent the three months before stepping back onto the Colorado Trail really preparing for it.
8:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So being that I'm a certified personal trainer, and I have a background in CrossFit,
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm no stranger to pushing my body to the absolute limits, but I will say that doing it for days and days and days on end is an entirely different story.
9:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I prepared in a lot of different ways for the Colorado Trail.
9:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I did a lot of stair climbers.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I did a lot of, I know it sounds silly but stretching.
9:11
[SPEAKER_01]: creating that intense flexibility so that if there is, there's always going to be a concern for injury when you're through hiking a trail.
9:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So when it comes to,
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Preparing for that, you want to have flexibility when you're in motion so that any time that you let's say you take a tumbler a fall not only are you able to fall correctly, but your your ankles support is there you're able to move through that in essence.
9:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And I found that that was incredibly important to the trail.
9:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm really glad I did that.
9:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
9:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the trail's no joke.
9:49
[SPEAKER_04]: It's long.
9:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And when I met you, you were crushing it.
9:53
[SPEAKER_04]: You're doing like 20 mile days, something like that.
9:56
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a pretty much 20 mile days all the way through.
9:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It was later in the season.
10:00
[SPEAKER_04]: So you did need to move because, you know, the snow isn't imminent threat.
10:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to say I was doing 20 mile days consistently.
10:09
[SPEAKER_01]: There were definitely days that I did well over 20 miles.
10:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there were days where I was coming into town where I maybe only did nine miles.
10:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would say I averaged probably closer to 17 to 18 miles.
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But regardless, I decided super early in the trail that I wasn't going to be the type of hiker to crush miles.
10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually, oh, geez, the first day I took a break at mile two.
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: the very first segment.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We were by the south-plat river, so I decided I really wanted to take a dip into the river or curts, and I didn't realize how epicly cold that water was going to be.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was just an insane jolt.
10:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and the south flat has been through several reservoirs by the time you get to to Waterton Canyon, which I'm sure is where you were.
10:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's still cold.
11:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I've had so much fun on that river.
11:01
[SPEAKER_04]: We've we've kayacked it.
11:02
[SPEAKER_04]: We've tubeed it.
11:03
[SPEAKER_04]: We've hiked it.
11:04
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we've fished it.
11:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything you can imagine.
11:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So anyway, the watering Colorado is cold.
11:10
[SPEAKER_04]: It will get your attention.
11:12
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's refreshing.
11:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes.
11:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So for the people that are not familiar with Colorado, you know, Abby mentioned 4,000verts and she was talking about the amount of elevation gain, not how high she was.
11:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So the segment of Trello that you were talking about was probably well over 12,000 feet at the top.
11:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Would you agree with that?
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: In the highest points of the Colorado Trail, if I'm remembering correctly, it's 13,200 feet of elevation.
11:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You can always go off on the side trails and do those 14ers that are on the side of the Colorado trail.
11:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I personally didn't.
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt very much challenged just by the trail itself.
11:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know a lot of hikers who did, either.
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We call them bagging 14ers.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how...
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You bag 14ers on the way and I met a lot of thru hikers who did.
12:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I met a lot of triple crowners and for those who aren't familiar a triple crowner is a thru hiker who has done all three long trails.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Appalachian Trail.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And those were generally the through hikers who were doing everything outside of the trail every single 14 or actually the first day that when I took that break on the South River and I remember just being on this little rock and trying to dip my toes and just being very, very hesitant to get all the way in but I was like also very determined because I took this 10 minute break and that's that's frankly that's so much time out
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I see this guy just absolutely booking it on the trail about, you know, 50 yards away.
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I call it to him because it's very obvious when you see a fru-hike.
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right, they have a backpack, they have their trekking poles.
13:03
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not a day packer, right?
13:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I call it to him.
13:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, hey, are you thru-hiking?
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, yes, I am.
13:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And he, are you?
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm in my bathing suit and I'm just like on this little rock.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And he, and I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
13:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And he, he was a triple crowner.
13:21
[SPEAKER_01]: His trail name was Lama.
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up meeting him later.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was just absolutely crushing myles.
13:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're talking like 25, 30 miles a day.
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And we ended up meeting back in Bailey, yes.
13:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: but by the time we kind of tagged along with each other for the first few days and then by that time he was so well ahead of me with his hiker crew that I realized I'm not going to be that type of hiker who I had no intentions of finishing the trail earlier than I had already designated.
13:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a way, I was definitely in a transitionary point in my life, so I had just moved out of Tampa, Florida.
14:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything that I owned was sitting in a storage unit in Tampa.
14:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I told you a long hike.
14:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, so so I was really I was looking for where is my next face camp right where am I going to set up camp I working remotely it was it was definitely an absolute blessing to be able to go anywhere and I definitely had my eyes set on Colorado from that trip in the in the year previous.
14:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was something that I was looking to in a way kind of window shop that the towns that I was coming across, all these hiker towns that were right off the trail to see where would be the best place for me.
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was in no hurry whatsoever and I kind of accepted that in the very beginning.
14:44
[SPEAKER_04]: So the continental divide trail does overlap the Colorado trail for long segments.
14:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And so you're going to find people that may have been doing the continental divide trail instead of the Colorado trail.
14:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Was that pretty common?
14:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so the CDT actually overlaps a significant amount of the Colorado trail.
15:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's 300 miles and I would say a little bit closer towards the end of my through hike which it's probably important to mention.
15:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I started on August 12th and ended September 21st.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was my window, which is a great window, generally speaking, because you miss the monsoons.
15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You miss really implement weather like snow that can happen in early June and July.
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: At least you're expected to miss them, right?
15:34
[SPEAKER_03]: We had a very wet view.
15:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a chance.
15:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but I didn't need a couple of people who were doing the CDT.
15:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I met some really incredible people.
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: There was one lady, her name was Heidi.
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: and she was from Australia.
15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see, I met her in Salida and she was doing the Great Divide Trail, which is a series of different trails that can be connected together.
16:02
[SPEAKER_01]: She was biking it, but basically going from Canada to Mexico and beyond, her trail was significantly longer than anybody else's.
16:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking 5,000 miles.
16:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I met her in the middle of her journey and I was just like she was one of the happiest most inspiring and impressive people that a person that I had ever met.
16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just just being able to sit down and talk with her.
16:30
[SPEAKER_01]: She's got her little notebook out and she's sketching different plants and animals that she's you know on the way.
16:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just so cool to to see into the minds of these people that probably three or four years ago I would have
16:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, never expected to be not that my journey is super similar to hers, but to be on this journey with with people like this being able to kind of brush shoulders, it was just a really cool experience.
16:57
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, one thing that I am going to highlight already is that we started talking about the trail, but in every other sentence you're talking about the people on the trail.
17:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say more the people that I met than the trail, which is ironic in a way because my reason for doing the trail my why was to get better at doing things alone.
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Wherever I go, wherever I end up, I generally try to build a community, whether that's through volunteering, or just myriad of different ways, to be able to build community and socialize.
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am a very
17:37
[SPEAKER_01]: so it came to be that I wanted to learn how to do things alone and the trail did end up teaching me that but it also taught me that you know the old a dodge no man is an island or woman for that matter and and so you you don't get by without other people and so those people were truly inspiring to me especially you seeing who on the trail was
18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: while you did at the time I was running out of food.
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We met right outside of, it was the end of segment 17.
18:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really, it's a hard balance.
18:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a hard interplay trying to figure out how much food you need for however many days you're going to be out on trail.
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So those, you know, just, I think you guys gave me like cashews and maybe some some module dates and a couple like energy bars and it meant the world to me.
18:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually remember walking away from that, from that experience and having tears in my eyes, because I was so grateful that I had run into you guys and also,
18:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Something interesting about those few segments that I had been going through.
18:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was segment 16 through 19.
18:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It's what I like to call the gated community, community, because it was currently, so once you enter through a gate of segment 16, once you get out of monarch paths, you enter into cow territory.
19:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, not necessarily significant other than the fact that every single water source for those next 50 to 60 miles is going to be impacted.
19:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And unfortunately, having come into the trail with just a very minimal amount of backpacking experience, I didn't realize that that type of water, co-affected water, requires double filtration.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't know that.
19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just going in with my soy or squeeze, which is a squeeze filtration system.
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Very, very simple and easy to use.
19:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, I'm running into a couple other hikers that are like, no, you need to double fill to your water, you're going to get incredibly sick.
19:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't have any backup filtration system aside from the soil squeeze.
20:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we met, I was incredibly anxious because
20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I, while I'd run into a U.K. couple, David and Judy, who ended up giving me three extra aqua mera tabs.
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And those were pretty much what I got by on for 60 miles.
20:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So, those tablets, the way they work, they only filter one tablet, will filter one liter of water.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think about that, would just be right, you have three
20:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it got to the point where I was really, it was a nail bator because I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, or maybe I would have to hitch into a nearby town to buy tabs, and that's just not something with the schedule that I wanted for myself.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That was not something that I wanted.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to trust the process.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the older hiker saying is that basically the trail will provide, right, to stay on trail and let the trail provide.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was something that I was starting to comprehend, and I stayed on trail, and I made it work.
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And those three tabs lasted me quite a while.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I also, of course, ran into several other hikers that offered help when, and if I needed it, which was amazing.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There was one in particular, a hiker named Sky.
21:26
[SPEAKER_01]: She was only, well, she is only 20 years old.
21:29
[SPEAKER_01]: also a female solo hiker and I come to find out so she was doing northbound and I was going southbound.
21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We only met for that day and we actually can't write next to each other so we got a chance to have a more elongated conversation.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And she shared with me that she had started the trail with her best friend and her best friend bailed on her on day one.
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, unfortunately she got a knee injury which is
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not physically prepared for the trail things can go awry really quickly, right?
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Sky made the decision with all borrowed gear, you know, a very heavy tent, probably a 45 to 50 pound pack that she was going to continue on.
22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And she ended up having, I was completely out of Aquamera tabs.
22:19
[SPEAKER_01]: She had this little chemistry set with like chemical A, chemical B, and she was like, I'll leave this out for you.
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the morning, you can filter it as much water as you want and get on with your height.
22:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I did that.
22:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was literally just enough water for me to make it into town the next day.
22:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, that's a cool, no it's interesting Abby when I move to this valley then I learned that ranching has been a major part of the history this valley for over a hundred years
22:52
[SPEAKER_04]: and it's prized ranching land because of the quality of the beef and the cattle, etc.
22:58
[SPEAKER_04]: etc.
22:59
[SPEAKER_04]: But I have come to question just because of what you're talking about, the cattle found the streams.
23:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, if you look at the number of cattle per acre, it seems pretty sustainable until you find out that the cattle crowd into the streams.
23:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And
23:15
[SPEAKER_04]: This area is to my arid, the streams are not huge, right?
23:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We do have the Gunnison River and lots of big waterways, but the streams that feed those, they're kind of small.
23:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And so they're not too hard for the cattle to fall, and I hadn't thought about the impact of that on through hikers, until you brought this up.
23:33
[SPEAKER_04]: It's fascinating.
23:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And...
23:35
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I have had to filter felled water before and they're there are ways to do it right, but it's not like you're at the pristine stream and all you're trying to do is get rid of a little bit of GRD or bacteria or something.
23:47
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's a little bit messier than that.
23:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So.
23:51
[SPEAKER_01]: that and you you don't expect so as a thru hiker right you you anticipate that if you see a stream that's running off you know that's coming down a mountain that if you hike a little ways up off trail well maybe the cows won't be able to get there so that's safe water right no absolutely not apparently cows are incredibly athletic and they could just go anywhere they like like mountain goats essentially.
24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're lucky on the Colorado Trail to have so many water sources along the way, that's usually not typical.
24:27
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, the PCT, I think there is like a 70-mile dry segment where you're just going through desert essentially.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are times where you'll have caches of water and you're really what you're doing is you're relying on other human beings to have a stock and inventory of water for you as you're hiking some of these trails with the Colorado Trail it's very different you have
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: on average, probably a water source every five miles or so.
24:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But once you enter that gated community, it gets very, very technical and that's where you really need to know what you're doing and where you're going and that's where hiker math comes into play, right?
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're constantly thinking about where is my next water source?
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: How many miles do I need to do today to not be able
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is essentially where you're you're just camping away from a water source.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't you use a lot of water when you're camping, of course, because you have to make meals.
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to do hygiene stuff.
25:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're using a lot more water than you would generally while you're just walking.
25:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So dry camping can be technically difficult.
25:40
[SPEAKER_01]: just depending on hiker math, right?
25:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to be able to set yourself up for success so that you don't have less water.
25:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But I found there were times where I had to rock rash and water quite a bit.
25:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was no point where I became uncomfortable or like, you know, essentially dehydrated, to where I was like super concerned about it.
26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was that was due to the rashening and the fact
26:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single step I would just be thinking about, okay, where is my next resupply access point, my next water source, how many miles am I averaging, and how long will it take me to get there?
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And that kept my brain very busy.
26:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, a couple of years ago, Travis, the original co-host of the Adventure Sports podcast 10 years ago.
26:35
[SPEAKER_04]: He and I are still friends, and although he's not part of the podcast anymore, we went on motorcycle camping trip.
26:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And we were in the forest land, and we traveled for miles and miles and miles and kept coming across streams that were fouled.
26:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And so like, oh, that's not camp here, but we had a motorcycle, so we just keep going and eventually we found a spring that was coming out of the grounds.
26:56
[SPEAKER_04]: We were at the source.
26:57
[SPEAKER_04]: That's like, okay, let's do here.
26:59
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, but I never thought about the impact on through hikers shifting just a little bit.
27:05
[SPEAKER_04]: What about the scenery?
27:06
[SPEAKER_04]: We haven't talked about what it's like to hike the trail as far as just Colorado and the beauty of the trail.
27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an incredible experience for an east coaster because you have to understand we
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: especially in Michigan and Florida where it's so incredibly flat and we're talking about not the upper peninsula of Michigan which does have mountains but the the places that I've live on the east coast don't have anything like Colorado does.
27:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's truly a diamond.
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a gem.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There were so many moments where I would summit and be on the peak and just be overcome with emotion because everywhere a 360 view everywhere I'm looking there's layers and layers and layers of mountains and it does it it reminds you of how small you are in the in the broad scheme of things, but it also.
28:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes you realize, like, in terms of, for example, when I, when I would summit and the weather would be good, it would be
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I would be so grateful for it because there were several times where I would summit and I would be fogged out and that would be great too.
28:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But just the the ability to get up there, right, and be physically able and be and be mentally capable to summit these mountains.
28:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I was still beyond grateful because before I started, I wasn't sure I would be able to do it.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no point where I was like, oh, you know, they're at no point
28:47
[SPEAKER_01]: feel like quitting or talk myself or try to talk myself into doing something else I was very determined but I think it was such a novel experience that I wasn't quite sure like I said if I was going to be able to complete the entire trail.
29:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It was also my first through hike.
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So coming into a lot of different elements that I wasn't so sure about but definitely there
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: interesting aspects of the trail that I didn't quite expect.
29:17
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, there was a widow maker forest, which was a stretch of dead trees from from beetle kill.
29:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And that that was interesting to me because I've never seen anything quite like that.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So from what I know of the beetle kill, it had started and creed and then expanded out.
29:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It became very dangerous at a certain point because I think it was about a hundred mile stretch, or maybe a little bit less, but regardless, there was no possibility of me making out of this widow maker forest without having to camp near dead trees, several dead trees.
30:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So at one point, I just kind of accepted it and realized, okay, I'm going to be camping near,
30:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Little Makers, which are named very aptly because if one falls, if you have wind gusts over, you know, 20 miles per hour, a tree could easily come down and there was actually, we call them the beatbox crew.
30:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a crew of Cali kids from Tahoe and they were extremely exuberant and energetic and friendly and they later heard a story about how,
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They were sleeping in the widow maker forest and they decided, okay, well, let's go around and shake the trees just to make sure that none of these are like ready to come down.
30:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, low and behold, they're shaking one of trees and it comes down.
30:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
30:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they were like, well, that's one less tree to fall on us, I guess, and they slept there.
30:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Hopefully lightning won't strike in the same place twice.
31:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
31:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the crazy thing I want to just, the audience needs to hear this.
31:05
[SPEAKER_04]: When you shake a tree, sometimes you'll break the top out of it.
31:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't fall over from the ground.
31:10
[SPEAKER_04]: The top falls off and comes right on you.
31:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So look out.
31:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Just be aware, look up.
31:17
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we have that issue.
31:18
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're cutting down a tree, anyone that's, that's cut down dead trees knows this.
31:22
[SPEAKER_04]: That the top can fall on you as the tree goes over.
31:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So you have to just pay attention.
31:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just a safety thing, you know, I have camped in some crazy places, Abby, to avoid the dead trees.
31:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You see this beautiful campsite and he look up and it's, oh no, and move on and move on and move on and you wind up having to camp in some some crazy places sometimes.
31:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you don't have the wind storm, the odds of getting hit are very low.
31:52
[SPEAKER_04]: But there was one day that a group of us were climbing Mount Meeker.
31:57
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a 13er next to Long's Peak.
31:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And on the trail there, there was a tree that was, I'm going to say about two feet thick.
32:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So 24 inches across.
32:10
[SPEAKER_04]: We hiked up the trail, came back down the trail on the way out,
32:14
[SPEAKER_04]: the tree was still there.
32:15
[SPEAKER_04]: We walked by it.
32:17
[SPEAKER_04]: No one touched it.
32:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we heard this tremendous crash.
32:20
[SPEAKER_04]: A boom like we all jumped out of our skins turned around and the tree was gone.
32:27
[SPEAKER_04]: There was no wind.
32:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
32:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We knocked over the tree by walking on the trail next to it.
32:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh.
32:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I believe it.
32:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe it.
32:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So.
32:39
[SPEAKER_04]: It can happen, something to be aware of.
32:42
[SPEAKER_04]: The probability of getting hurt is low, but people happen hurt, so be smart, right?
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, sometimes the soil composition, too, the way that the trees are rooted in the soil, it can just be a really dicey situation.
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of the hikers, they're determined to never sleep by dead trees.
33:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That was something looking back.
33:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I definitely should not have done, but given the situation, it was just something that had to be done.
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, I would have been hiking through the night, and some people absolutely do.
33:19
[SPEAKER_01]: to conserve energy, though, and thankfully, you know, I made it out, but there were some very dicey situations that I found myself in.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: One particular time, right before Cottonwood Pass, I was really having a hard time finding a campsite.
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: There are several designated campsites along
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: locations are more popular than others for, you know, day packers to come in and camp.
33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was the situation just before cotton would pass.
33:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And every single campsite that I would come across was already taken.
33:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I came up along, there's a app that a lot of through hikers used called far out, far out is a very popular map that also has community notes in comments.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So
34:13
[SPEAKER_01]: specific area to be called Moose Meadow.
34:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what everybody was calling it because there was a moose who had bedded and had had a baby moose.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So I actually saw the two moose and they were grazing, they were eating just before I set up camp in this Meadow and the only reasonable place that I could find was basically right off trail.
34:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like this divot of what I'll call a ditch because there's no other way to really explain it.
34:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a ditch that I decided to camp in and once I set up camping got all cozy and warm in my tent, I realized like hmm.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: was this such a good idea?
34:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm probably about 300 yards out from the moose that I just saw.
34:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And if this is their meadow, there's definitely the bowl.
35:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so we have three moose.
35:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So now, now I'm in a ditch surrounded by bushes.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And if a moose were to just come across the trail, it could easily trample my tent.
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are not things that you really think of as
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: given the little experience that I had outside in the woods and as a backpacker, but then, of course, when you're in the, in the thick of it, you're thinking of all the
35:33
[SPEAKER_01]: rational or irrational things that could happen.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And thankfully again, I was able to, I will upsafe and sound, but there are times where you're setting up camp where you realize, okay, maybe this isn't the best situation that I'm putting myself in, maybe I need to find somewhere else.
35:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So it, it does get tricky, and that's where the apps like far out are so important, because people are
35:58
[SPEAKER_01]: constantly taking community notes on this is the best campsite or this campsite is where my trekking poles got eaten up by a porcupine, do weir, you know, like yeah.
36:10
[SPEAKER_04]: are lots of risks and you can be you know varying degrees of risk tolerance of course, but most of the things they're not likely to hurt you like the the news for the most dangerous animals in Colorado it's true and a cow with a calf is a potentially more dangerous than you know you would want because the cow wants to protect the calf.
36:35
[SPEAKER_04]: but they're not going to mess with you if you're not messing with them.
36:39
[SPEAKER_04]: As a rule.
36:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, it could have stumbled through and tripped on one of your guywires, guidelines, you know, for your tanned or something.
36:47
[SPEAKER_04]: But odds are, it would avoid you if it could.
36:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So there is some risk, but it's not an intense risk because they're not aggressive, they're just offensive.
36:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But those are the animals you have to watch out for.
37:01
[SPEAKER_04]: They're more dangerous than bears, more dangerous than mountain lions.
37:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the human moose interactions don't always go that well.
37:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So don't approach them, let them have their space.
37:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I remember at the very beginning of the trail being a little terrified of wildlife, not that I consider myself a pretty courageous person, but some of the comments that I was reading on far out, like one of the very first rest points that you get to on segment one, which is Lenny's rest.
37:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sitting there eating my snacks, going through comments, just trying to get
37:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, relaxed and into the life of the trail and I'm reading about how one of these hikers got approached by a bear while he was eating his lunch and it, it, it, it left charge ten and he had to like throw a rock out at it to get it away and I'm like sitting here like, oh my gosh, like a bear and I'm like looking around, you know, like peaking in between trees to see if one's coming out in you right now and eventually
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: bears and mountain lions, and those are not the things to be concerned about.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: What you need to be concerned about is weather, water, food, and that very quickly became a reality.
38:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
38:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
38:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of fun when you're interact with the animals in nature.
38:25
[SPEAKER_04]: You begin to get a feel for how they're likely to behave.
38:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And most of the time, like you said, that's not what you
38:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, lightning strikes and hypothermia, those two things.
38:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think falling is also something that people don't anticipate falling off of high places is a big deal here too.
38:47
[SPEAKER_04]: You can get in trouble.
38:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Huge huge there there was one point where I really risked it for the biscuit.
38:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I learned my lesson.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, um, Kenosha pass.
39:02
[SPEAKER_01]: which is segment six.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was going along the trail where you have this huge cut off point.
39:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Essentially, you're on a trail and then about a foot away, you just have this massive drop down rocks.
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you tumble, you're, I mean,
39:23
[SPEAKER_01]: The likelihood that you're going to be okay is very slim.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So you want to stay on trail, and you think it's easy enough, right?
39:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You just keep moving forward.
39:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my shoe,
39:36
[SPEAKER_01]: got caught on a stick that was coming up out of the ground and not only did it rip this huge hole in the mesh the top mesh of my shoe but it it kiltered me towards that cliffside and I think got ahead my poles because if I hadn't have had my poles I would have easily gone over easily and so I learned my lesson on it and
39:59
[SPEAKER_01]: There were times where I didn't want to necessarily use my poles.
40:02
[SPEAKER_01]: There's sometimes it's easier to not have them because if you're just kind of going, if you're not ascending or descending, it's your much faster going without your poles, right?
40:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to worry so much about your hand movements, your feet just go a lot quicker.
40:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But I realize those are kind of a fail stop.
40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And an emergency action plan if you're if you're going to be in any kind of situation like the one that I was in.
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was very thankful that I had those polls to stop my fall and even though I did kind of fall, I fell to the right side instead of going off the cliff and then
40:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Later on, you know, I had a huge hole in my show, which was kind of an issue.
40:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I used these last Vortiva Baszido 3s, which it's very common in with your hikers now to opt for the trail runners instead of the boots.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: but they don't have any Gore-Tex.
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not waterproof, okay?
41:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was working with this hole in my shoe and I ended up whip stitching it because I wouldn't get into town for for six more days.
41:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And then even beyond that, I wanted my gear to last as long as possible.
41:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kept going with those shoes for a while, but that one singular moment taught me so much, not just about
41:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you're not always going to have the gear that you expect or that you start out with, so, you know, be very rational and try to make that gear last as long as possible and understand that sometimes you're going to have to make do with less, but but also.
41:38
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're in a situation like that, not to panic, that you do have the gear that you need to make it through, and quite frankly, if through hiking teaches you anything, it's that you don't need as much as you think, right?
41:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
41:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, really the most important thing that you can carry with you is what's between your ears.
41:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
41:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, it's having a sound judgment and experience and there's only one way to get experience and that's to go do it.
42:06
[SPEAKER_04]: But experience has a real life saver and you find all these little innovative hacks that can help you along the way as well.
42:13
[SPEAKER_04]: 100%.
42:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And so Abby, you told us that your why was largely about learning how to do things alone.
42:25
[SPEAKER_04]: But many people hike for many different reasons.
42:27
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you think some of the top benefits are from doing a through hike like this?
42:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think the the ones that people
42:38
[SPEAKER_01]: could expect from doing a through hike is obviously physical ability and just proving to yourself that you can.
42:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very long goal to have doing a trail for anywhere between a month to six months.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, some of the longer trails can be easily six months long.
42:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And to have that dedication and determination to walk every single day for that long, I mean, it does it proves to you that you have the ability to really achieve any goal that you want in life, as long as you keep at it, as long as you keep doing it every day.
43:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But maybe something that people wouldn't necessarily anticipate is the amount of just being
43:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the trail, the trail taught me how to be more patients, more compassionate, more balance to practice humility, to compromise, and also how to execute under extreme fatigue, because you're incredibly tired.
43:40
[SPEAKER_01]: After you hit a certain point, you do get your hiker legs,
43:49
[SPEAKER_01]: transitions.
43:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you're not physically exhausted, you're mentally exhausted, right?
43:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's this weird interplay of how am I going to bail and sell all of these different elements, all of these things going on with me, so I can keep going and continue on.
44:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And that becomes something that
44:16
[SPEAKER_01]: a challenge in a battle with the self, if that makes sense.
44:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's so much.
44:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how many times I've made it to the end of a big hike, and it's like, man, I don't know what I need more sleeper food.
44:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you don't do the food, you're going to be in trouble because you need the recovery.
44:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You need the calories.
44:38
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's so hard to prep that simple meal when all you want to do is fall down and you're sleeping bag.
44:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
44:45
[SPEAKER_04]: No one's going to do it for you.
44:46
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what you learn from these experiences is I have to do the thing that has to be done Even though I would rather not right now, but what does that teach you about Abby when you go through those experiences?
45:01
[SPEAKER_01]: That you can do it anyway even if you don't feel like doing it right so there were so many nights where
45:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to set up my 10, even though it takes 5 to 10 minutes and you can absolutely cowboy camp even on the Colorado trail and go without a tent, but every single night I set up my 10 because it I knew that it.
45:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It helped me feel more comfortable and it also, it would give me a better chance at the next day.
45:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It was constantly thinking about how can I step myself up for success the next day.
45:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really a crazy thing to think about because you're, I mean, you're constantly
45:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the next day, I'm thinking about how can I set myself up for success tomorrow.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just an interesting, it was almost like I was stringing myself along.
45:51
[SPEAKER_01]: My past self was stringing my future self along if that makes sense.
45:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a really interesting thing to see my brain.
46:01
[SPEAKER_01]: try to talk myself out of certain routines that I had and then just doing it anyway and being very grateful in essence that I had done it exactly as I intended.
46:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And for what it's worth there were definitely times where maybe I lapsed and you know
46:23
[SPEAKER_01]: There were times where I tried to, especially in the very beginning of the trail, something that's very common is you don't feel very hungry, so you're just not eating as much.
46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, geez, I started to feel faint coming into Solida.
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I had these serious GI symptoms, and to the point where I was concerned that I was going to be going off trail.
46:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I was wondering if it was
46:49
[SPEAKER_01]: an issue with the water quality, or if I was just not acclimating correctly, and thankfully I hunkered down in Salida for an extra day, so we call them zero day as doing zero miles, and I visited
47:05
[SPEAKER_01]: a health food story and I picked up so many different things.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I picked up garlic tabs, I picked up probiotics, I got a ginger shot, and just really nursed myself, and practice is much self-care as I could, and I carried that into the rest of my trail experience.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I took impeccable care of myself on the trail.
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Establishing routines like waking up super early at 430 in the morning,
47:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Generally speaking, that's something I do off-trail too, but keeping that routine was incredibly important to me not only because if I If I didn't I would feel kind of lazy if I were Getting on trail, you know, later on in the day I would just feel like I had wasted my morning or I wouldn't be able to do as many miles But also because waking up early in the morning allowed me to
47:59
[SPEAKER_01]: usually make a pass before that window of time where the afternoon thunderstorms would become a huge issue.
48:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So establishing those routines in the very beginning was incredibly important.
48:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very happy that I have the structure to be able to do that.
48:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I will say there were plenty of thru hikers and camps like tents that I passed through those early morning hours of people who did not do that and they made it just fine.
48:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't necessarily have to be the early riser to do if you're hike but you do want to establish routines that makes sense to you and help you be able to achieve that goal.
48:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, for sure.
48:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I've seen lots of people do things they should not have done and they got away with it.
48:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly.
48:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Generally you will, but you know when you have a lightning strike within a hundred feet of you and you find yourself lying on the ground and you don't know if you jump down there or we're knocked down there.
49:10
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a life experience that, you know, it's one of those things where you say, okay, maybe I should avoid lightning from now on.
49:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I had a friend on Mount Evans who we were climbing in and the storm was coming in and people's hair was standing up and we were not in a safe place.
49:27
[SPEAKER_04]: and i said let's forget about the last twenty feet there let's go find shelter you know and he goes no i'm gonna go up and there are survey plates brass survey plates and the rocks at the top of these mountains and he was being a little melodramatic but he decided to kiss the survey plate
49:43
[SPEAKER_04]: What he didn't realize was that the plate was so charged with all the atmospheric energy.
49:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It burned his lips and threw him backwards off the rock and he tumbled down the mountain.
49:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was like, well, dude, that's kind of what you get.
50:01
[SPEAKER_04]: So these are the sorts of things.
50:03
[SPEAKER_04]: We get away with way too much, but maybe we learn from it, you know?
50:06
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's wise, if you're gonna go to a high exposed place
50:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I, there were, there were definitely times where I was out running thunderstorms, particularly through swirl incochromo pass, which was the longest pass that I had, it's two passes actually, and there's about, when I say 11 to 12 miles above treeline, where you're just kind of, you're booking it if there's inclement weather.
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So that,
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That was definitely an experience for me because I had never, I had never done that before.
50:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I had never been above treeline trying to outrun this storm that was creeping up behind me.
50:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And thankfully, I made it out of there in time, but there were other hikers who had much more
50:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Intense in extreme stories than I did, in particular, I met a lady in Silverton, Elizabeth, who I still keep in touch with to this day, but she had a really interesting story.
51:06
[SPEAKER_01]: She had lost her trekking poles.
51:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was going through the San Juan's, which is the few segments right before Silverton.
51:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And when she lost her trekking poles, I mean, that's really an issue because she ended up falling.
51:20
[SPEAKER_01]: She hurt her ankle.
51:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
51:22
[SPEAKER_01]: She hurt her hand and both her ankles.
51:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was in such a pickle because the San Juan segments, we were in extremely adverse weather conditions.
51:36
[SPEAKER_01]: They were calling for severe thunderstorms, hail, fleet, snow, you name it.
51:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And the sand ones are definitely the most challenging part of the Colorado Trail.
51:45
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of depending on the different circumstances, but just overall you're above treeling for about 20 to 30 miles.
51:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So she actually had her partner, call 911, and they had like every sheriff in the area was was trying to figure out where she was, because she had become unresponsive right after that extreme thunderstorm.
52:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Because she fell asleep in her tent.
52:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So she, I, I talked her out of a full quent because I met her the next day as she had wrote into town into Silverton and she was just absolutely frazzled.
52:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that is quite the experience for sure for her.
52:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But I ended up being able to talk her out of a full quent because she She was truly impressive.
52:32
[SPEAKER_01]: She was one of the people that was
52:35
[SPEAKER_01]: hiking every single 14 or alone the way and i think she ended up doing like something crazy like 60 to 70 days on the trail because she was just taking her time doing everything she could notice like you cannot stop now look at everything you've accomplished right so that was
52:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That was really interesting to hear her story and kind of the, well, definitely the different experience that she had.
52:59
[SPEAKER_01]: She was solo hiking the San Juan.
53:03
[SPEAKER_01]: When I had actually assembled a crew of three other hikers at the time, because
53:09
[SPEAKER_01]: going into that we knew the forecast right we knew that they were going to be severe thunderstorms we knew what they were calling for and I personally didn't feel confident going out there alone so I decided I was going to take some of their hikers with me and I'm glad that I did because we had a gentleman who I nicknamed Alaska Dan he's from Alaska and he was very very well first in all of these in in hiking in snow in different conditions and in particular during that segment
53:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We, it only snowed maybe an inch, but I was completely out of my element with that inch of snow.
53:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, I woke up that morning in an absolute, I mean it was just, to me it was the worst thing that could happen because I looked out, we were maybe only 50 feet away from the trail, but I looked out of my tent and I was like, I couldn't see the trail and I just,
54:08
[SPEAKER_01]: not really just just realizing how little I knew about hiking in those conditions and how incredibly different they could be.
54:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when I learned about what the purpose of careants were, for example, because I had never known what careants were to be used for.
54:22
[SPEAKER_01]: They're up there for a reason, right?
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They're stacked up there so that you can see where the trail is.
54:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So Alaska Dan came in clutch, but I was very happy to have that experience with them because without them,
54:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Even with my why of getting better at doing things alone, it became very much a thing of okay, let's learn from these people who have more experience from being and so I did.
54:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's awesome.
54:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, we only other people as well, and just this last weekend, I was actually writing motorcycles with Travis again, and we were talking about how every time you're writing a motorcycle you're writing alone, even if you're in a group.
55:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Because, you know, you have a helmet on, there's noise, and unless you have some sort of a Bluetooth connection, you're not talking to anybody, so every ride is kind of a solo ride.
55:10
[SPEAKER_04]: That's part of what's so appealing about it.
55:12
[SPEAKER_04]: But at the same time, I love the groups.
55:16
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I love the chatting and the conversations and what we learn and the interactions and, you know, all that kind of thing.
55:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know where that's going, except that both experiences are good.
55:26
[SPEAKER_04]: and i found over and over and over again talking to people that they take off an adventure and it's about the adventure it's about the trail it's about the accomplishment checking the boxes or the the experience they expect to have and by the end it's the friendships that made along the way it's the people that match and it's just so rewarding, so beautiful, so
55:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, Abby, let's learn a little bit more about what you have going on, we believe it or not have already burned through most of our time, but, um, you have a website, which is Fredahites.com, now Freda, F-R-E-D-A, I assume that's your trail name.
56:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Fredahites.
56:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Fredahites.
56:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Fredahites.
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a Fredahites, but less so now after doing all of that, how did you earn that name?
56:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so on copper mountain, it's kind of a silly story, but somebody was taking a picture of me on the summit of copper mountain.
56:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, right by the edge, and I realized in this moment, I'm like, gosh, I see people on Instagram taking these photos, and I think to myself, what an idiot.
56:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
56:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, why are you so close to the edge?
56:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So dangerous and here I am doing it and and this very sweet guy is trying to take this picture of me and he's talking to me And he's trying to make me feel more comfortable and he's like asking me questions and I all I can do I'm like in this crouched physician super uncomfortable not a great picture And I I couldn't hear what he was saying so I just said I'm I'm afraid of heights.
57:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes that's a great trail name for you
57:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think of it now.
57:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a silly name, but at the same time, the purpose of keeping that trail name is truly to help people understand, like, no matter how afraid you are, of what you're about to do, still do it.
57:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Still do it.
57:30
[SPEAKER_01]: The challenges worth it.
57:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, and you gave us several accounts of how you learned things about yourself, learn new skills, got through things you'd never done before, had the experience.
57:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And now you look back, say, oh, I know I can do that.
57:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I've done it, right?
57:46
[SPEAKER_04]: That's only one way to get there.
57:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's how we learn.
57:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So you are a freelancer.
57:53
[SPEAKER_04]: You do blogs and help with websites and social media marketing and a little SEO.
57:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Give us a little information about that.
58:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so during actually during the pandemic was where I got very lucky and started doing remote work and just kind of took off.
58:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So it started with fiber, which is a freelancing community of people who you can just go on the website and really just.
58:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything that you want to do on the internet, you can pay somebody to do it for you, right?
58:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So I became that and I've always had a knack for writing.
58:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I learned how to code very early on in life.
58:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I was 10 or 11 years old when I was on Neil Pets.
58:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And was building small web pages and guild pages for people, which is...
58:42
[SPEAKER_01]: not necessarily, you know, it's it created this tangent of learning how to create an online presence for other people.
58:52
[SPEAKER_01]: In Florida, for example, I met a lot of contractors, people who were doing boat detailing who were
59:00
[SPEAKER_01]: doing lawn work or yard work who needed a website and so I would talk to them and I would be like, hey, I realize that you don't have an online presence, let me create and manage that for you and so that became my job.
59:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And the blog writing started out as a passion project, but then I started getting paid for articles and blogs online and
59:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's incredibly rewarding because I get to use my skill, which is writing, I love to write, and I also get to expand my skill set in a way that I think is going to be beneficial down the road.
59:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, we're starting to use AI in a lot of different industries, and so am I, of course, in on a technical level, AI is something that I'm
59:46
[SPEAKER_01]: trying to learn about every day.
59:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So using automated workflows, APIs, and it's something that I hope will give me the opportunity to travel for the rest of my life and work remotely for the rest of my life.
1:00:01
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a cool way to go about it.
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the challenge is building up the initial, some people might say book or clientele, or whatever it is, but building the relationships where you have that momentum, but good for you.
1:00:15
[SPEAKER_04]: That's fantastic.
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_04]: You're also, you already mentioned, CrossFit Certified Personal Trainer, which helped you to get ready for this.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_04]: But you mentioned something to me before we started about making a decision in relation to alcohol.
1:00:31
[SPEAKER_04]: doing things like this.
1:00:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
1:00:35
[SPEAKER_04]: You want to share that?
1:00:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, so, and I think this is really important for other people to know who may be struggling with addiction.
1:00:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Prior to COVID and the pandemic, I was a bartender.
1:00:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was definitely living the bartender lifestyle.
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going out every single night with other friends who were working in restaurants and we would just tear up the town.
1:00:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be a constant endless cycle of drinking, serving drinks, drinking, serving drinks, etc.
1:01:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized that I was really going down this path of no return, that I did not like for myself, and I knew where it was going.
1:01:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, my family does have a history of alcoholism, and it became very evident to me that this is exactly the way that my life was going.
1:01:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, I was struggling to find something
1:01:30
[SPEAKER_01]: in my life that gave me purpose.
1:01:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And so essentially, I read this very awesome book that opened up a lot of things for me.
1:01:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhig.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And it talks a lot about replacing bad habits with good ones, and not to be so dawn on yourself, because I struggled so much with doubts and self-esteem issues.
1:01:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And just a huge lack of confidence while I was going through this.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_01]: The book really helps me to take the toxic shame and guilt out of the situation and realize that it's a little more simple than I was thinking.
1:02:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And life transitions never seem simple, but in the thick of it.
1:02:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually went on this annual family camping trip and it was just a post to be a sober October which is a fun little thing that was started by a different podcast.
1:02:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The jerry, and it's just supposed to be a month of no alcohol or whatever your affliction is.
1:02:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Just one month
1:02:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how it started and in that month I joined a CrossFit gym down in Florida and I became
1:02:52
[SPEAKER_01]: more or less addicted to fitness.
1:02:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized, as it was happening, oh, I'm replacing this bad habit of drinking with this good habit of extreme physical activity.
1:03:05
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever been to your CrossFit gym, you know what I mean?
1:03:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's an hour of just suffering.
1:03:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But I became very much interested in that, as opposed to the lifestyle that I had led prior to, and
1:03:23
[SPEAKER_01]: there was no looking back.
1:03:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I started doing, I actually became a little too addicted to fitness.
1:03:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I was doing two a days, which is two sessions of cross for the day, and no recovery time and between them.
1:03:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that led me to a couple of issues, which I assessed out and I was like, okay, we're not going to make ourselves secure with this.
1:03:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started introducing yoga and meditation in a couple more balanced ways to get to that point still, and I maintained that to the stage.
1:03:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's probably the reason why you could pick up a heavy pack and walk 500 miles.
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the reasons, although I will say Kurt, this is something really important for me to mention before we get off here.
1:04:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people look at me or other through hikers and think, oh, I could never do that.
1:04:11
[SPEAKER_01]: The honest to God truth is you can, as long as you are physically able, and physically able is subjective, right?
1:04:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We just because I do cross-fit.
1:04:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not necessarily the reason I can do a trail.
1:04:24
[SPEAKER_01]: At somebody can get off their couch.
1:04:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, do stair climbers for a month or two and easily do the trail as well.
1:04:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just want to pass along the message that people can do long trails if you have the interest to do them.
1:04:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It is very much an achievable goal and not something that just, you know, athletes or people who are physically
1:04:51
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a person who's physically more able to do this than others, it's something that you have to have the mental capacity for more than the physical ability.
1:05:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that make sense?
1:05:04
[SPEAKER_04]: That makes perfect sense.
1:05:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
1:05:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And Abby, what does it mean to you now?
1:05:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Kind of as a wrap-up question, what does it mean to you now that you've done the trail?
1:05:13
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it was a goal you accomplished it.
1:05:17
[SPEAKER_04]: As you reflect on it, how's that added to your life?
1:05:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's given me a lot of opportunities at number one, I have a lot more confidence setting out into the goals that I have.
1:05:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to think that my goals were very far reaching, you know, wanting to make a career out of my writing or wanting to, there were a lot of things that I felt like I couldn't do before the trail that I once I stepped off the trail, I realized, okay.
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_01]: every big goal that I have in life can be broken down into smaller objectives and achieved.
1:05:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Long-term, absolutely.
1:05:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to take a while, but that's something that hadn't really clicked in my head before doing something like a through hike.
1:06:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I had also been the type of person to look at other people who had achieved great things and say, oh, I could never do that.
1:06:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
1:06:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And then also just being more open to experiences.
1:06:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There were so many times where I was so full of fear and anxiety that it actually came to a transition point where I was feeling so much fear and anxiety that I almost couldn't...
1:06:32
[SPEAKER_01]: feel fear and anxiety anymore like I had to wash it all away and just understand okay this is the experience that I'm experiencing and that's okay eventually it will end and the sun will rise again.
1:06:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
1:06:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So true.
1:06:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And what's crazy about that is we fear things we don't understand or haven't experienced before or things we don't know.
1:06:55
[SPEAKER_04]: But once you've gone through some of these things in the next time, it's like, oh, this isn't as scary as it used to be.
1:07:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I kind of knew what to expect now.
1:07:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So wow, sounds like Abby, you grew a lot as a person.
1:07:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I love your motivation, your insights, your ideas.
1:07:11
[SPEAKER_04]: The color of the trail is a remarkable trail.
1:07:14
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the things I love about it is the length.
1:07:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's long, it's doable.
1:07:18
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not 3,000 miles, right?
1:07:21
[SPEAKER_04]: It's 500 miles.
1:07:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And it goes through some of the most remarkable scenery in the United States.
1:07:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So why not?
1:07:26
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a beautiful experience.
1:07:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And thank you so much for sharing that with us today.
1:07:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
1:07:34
[SPEAKER_01]: This is really fun.
1:07:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a hit.
1:07:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you have ways that people can get in touch with you or follow you things you would like to let them know about?
1:07:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Greatly, so Instagram and TikTok right now at Freida.Heights and it's F-R-E-D-A.
1:07:51
[SPEAKER_01]: at dot heights and then freightahights.com, which will eventually probably sooner than later be type 2 fund.com where we're transitioning into more of a wet site style as opposed to a blog.
1:08:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's really exciting.
1:08:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I just want to make a quick mention of the Colorado Trail Foundation.
1:08:12
[SPEAKER_01]: If anybody is interested, you can go on their website and donate.
1:08:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They're a fantastic foundation and it's all volunteer work.
1:08:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So that entire trail is, you know, it's essentially something that's being maintained only by volunteers.
1:08:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's something that's a program that I love to support and hopefully others will too.
1:08:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
1:08:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And for all the listeners out there, find out what your thing is, like Abby did.
1:08:42
[SPEAKER_04]: It makes such a difference in life.
1:08:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Get out there and have some fun.