150 Miles of the Colorado Trail

[burrohiker]

Just got back from a fun two week adventure through Colorado with the Burros. We did 150 miles of the Colorado Trail from Denver to Leadville. A little over 25,000 feet of climbing.

The trail is 95% super well engineered, with great switchbacks and functionally no deadfall. The first few days working through the front range were very busy with lots of mountain bikers but it tapers off beyond that. Logistically challenging trying ot find water and grass in those first few days but after that not to bad.

The bugs ate us alive for a couple days, due to the high rainfall and wet year the front range had. Black flies and horse flies gnawed on one of our burros pretty bad so we ended up with a couple 16mile back to back days to get out of them. We also were able to contact some local friends and get a delivery of bug dope at Kenosha Pass.

Of the 300+ people we ran into on the trail, we only had one Dbag, everyone else was exceptionally friendly. Met up with one guy doing the full trail (480miles from denver to durango) with his horse from Missouri.

All the burros got more and more fit as the trip went on. We had one shod, the rest barefoot. At the end of 14 days we did have one burro get pretty sore feet from a couple exceptionally rocky sections. I'd plan to shoe fronts on all the animals if I did it again. Horse guy from MIssouri reported the same issue.

Overall it is a great trail and I might have the long ride/hike bug now. Something wonderful about the simplicity of hiking each day for many days in a row.

Ten mile pass, the toughest climb. 2,500ft of climbing from Breckenridge, up and over.

 

[burrohiker]

Our final mountain (Mt Zion: 12,126ft).



Kokomo Pass - elev. 12,027ft



Trail goes through Copper Mountain Resort on day 6. Over 1,000 people in the main village but a burger and beer.



Georgia pass, day 4 and our first alpine area

 

[sodaksooner]

Nice, I have a buddy that is through hiking the continental divide trail. You may have passed him going the other way as he just went through that area as well. Weve spent some time in the leadville area hunting those units and it's a good way to transition from one spot to another for sure. Elk don't seem to mind it either....lol.

 

[burrohiker]

We may have crossed paths! The CDT would be awesome, lots of true alpine and way more solitude. The CT has a pretty major social component and you kind of hike in waves and get to know the people near you pretty well. To do the CDT with animals would take the right snow/water year for sure though.

 

[Brooks]

Spending a lot of time on the trail with your horse or mule will definitely make them one of your best friends, they will show you how faithful and trustworthy they are.

 

[Wolf_trapper]

The guy from Missouri tried riding his horse barefoot through that??

 

[burrohiker]

The guy from Missouri tried riding his horse barefoot through that??

No, the Missouri guy's horse was shod. Still ran into foot issues though.

Spending a lot of time on the trail with your horse or mule will definitely make them one of your best friends, they will show you how faithful and trustworthy they are.

Absolutely it does. Builds trust on both sides. It is fun to spend that much time together working for 8-12 hours a day towards a goal. You both get into routines.