August 21st, 2016

Over the years I’ve met a few hikers who hike casually (or so it seems) 40-mile / day, every day for weeks at a time if not months. I’ve always wondered what that actually entails. What does it REALLY mean for your body, for your mind?
The original plan wasn’t to hike for 24 hours straight obviously – although come to think of it, it would have been a valid plan as well – but just to hike a 40-mile loop and be done by 9pm which was plenty enough. I even had a shortcut planned to save a few miles if needed.
Things didn’t quite go as planned though. Shortcut wasn’t really one because of all the route finding it triggered. Crossing the valley (felt like marshland really) at Snowmass creek / West Snowmass creek was a disaster. Trail around Haystack Mountain was nowhere to be found so I improvised an alternative route…at 11:30pm. Final mile count reaching the car at 4:30am? 47 miles and 12000ft elevation gain total.

The good:
• Fantastic scenery and definitely my favorite part of Colorado in that regard.
• Hiking with trail running shoes (Altra Superior 2.0) worked great. New pants (Arc’teryx Perimeter) seem like they could be worn for weeks at a time. I still have to wash / inspect them to see the damage since I did quite a bit of bush whacking along the way.
• Feet and legs did just fine in the context.
The bad:
• Tracing a route with Garmin tools gives a distance estimation about 15% too low. I should have seen that coming really.
• One source of trail information is not enough. Need to double check everything for this kind of exercise.
The ugly:
• Took a spill at mile 10 and fell on my side. Few ribs are not doing so hot.