THE COLORADO TRAIL
Denver to Durango
August-September 2018
DISTANCE
583Â miles
DURATION
13 days
ELEVATION GAIN
80,000'
The Colorado Trail is a beautiful and dynamic trail with diverse topography and landscape throughout the route. This trail is both physically and mentally challenging. The trip's difficulty can change by splitting the trail into larger or smaller sections potentially changing the trips enjoyability.
Be prepared to push your bike!
Some highlights include wildflowers, high mountain passes, wildlife (Elk, Moose, and Bears- Oh My!) and the diverse terrain and trail.
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NEED TO KNOW
CAMPING
There are plenty of places to "wild camp" along the route. We never had an issue finding camping spots
Hotels and hostels are also options in the various towns along the route (we stayed one night in a hostel in Breckenridge)
FOOD/WATER
We re-supplied in town about every 3 days
IMPORTANT: Pay attention to water along the route (availability changes seasonally). There is potential for long stretches without a fresh water source for refill
NAVIGATION
Navigation is easy on the trail. The CT has its own symbol and is well marked
We brought the Colorado Trail pocket maps (waterproof) and pre-marked them where we wanted to camp each night to stay on track. It is also helpful for marking water sources
We brought a Garmin InReach SE+ so we could send texts each night to family to let them know we are safe, mark our GPS coordinates of camp each night, and also used to it follow our pre-dowloaded track
I used a Cateye Cycling Tripometer to record how many miles we actually pedaled (and pushed) each day
DIFFICULTY
There is a lot of climbing (80,000 feet)
For the amount of climbing, we used a 1x11 with 26t up front and 11-46 in the back (highly recommended)
We pushed our bikes a lot, about 30% of the time
This trail is NOT for a beginner skill level
FYI
Bring sun protection (we used arm sleeves and stick sunscreen for our faces)
There are bugs but they were manageable
You could do this trip without a stove
In monsoon season (August) it rains every afternoon (usually not longer than 1 hour)