UPDATED (6-Sep-2020) – Jeff set a new FKT (unsupported) on the Colorado Trail today with a time of 9d 8h 18m. Watch my post-trek interview with him here:
Original Article:
At 6:30 am US Mountain Time today, Jeff Garmire started an unsupported FKT attempt of the Colorado Trail (related forum thread). Jeff is hiking from west (Durango) to east (Denver).
Jeff elected a W-to-E strategy in order to get the more challenging San Juan section out of the way on fresh legs (albeit with a heavier pack).
This is particularly notable because it’s an unsupported attempt – Jeff is carrying all of his food and gear for the 485-mile trail on his back. There will be no resupply or other outside support.
In 2004, Demetri “Coup” Couponas became the first (known) person to have completed an unsupported attempt of the Colorado Trail. He completed it in about 20 days, which wasn’t exactly a race pace, but it set the bar.
The current unsupported record is held by John Zahorian, founder of Pa’lante Packs. John’s record, established in 2016, is 9d 12h 32m. He traveled east to west. A claim on John’s record was made by Bronson Hargreaves in 2016 for 8d 18h 17m but is not recognized by the FKT community due to incomplete tracking information.
- More: FKT source data, and the history of FKT on the Colorado Trail here.
Why the CT?
From Maggie:
Jeff chose the Colorado Trail because there were so many things that didn’t happen this year. He had big goals (PCT FKT, AT FKT, Barkley Marathons) that were crushed by COVID, so he recalibrated and started training again a few months ago without a real goal in mind other than he wanted to go after a prestigious trail record. The Colorado Trail made sense in the amount of challenge it presented with elevation gain and distance, as well as adding the challenge of doing it entirely unsupported as both an extra challenge and pandemic precautions.
The Challenge
In addition to the obviously physical and mental challenge associated with a hike like this, energy management and figuring out how much food to take is critical.
At 485 miles with 75,000 feet of elevation gain, the Colorado Trail has an energy-mile equivalent of about 605 miles. If a hiker expends about 200 Calories per energy-mile, you’d be looking at more than 120,000 Calories required to complete the CT (not including basal metabolic needs at around 1,500 to 2,000 Calories per day).
Highly-trained athletes undergo extensive training in order to minimize the “number of Calories per mile”. So getting this number down to 150 would be entirely reasonable – for a long-distance hiker. But this is an FKT attempt, so additional fitness is going to be invested into additional speed.
Jeff’s starting pack weight is about 30 pounds, of which 18 pounds or so is food (his average Caloric density came out to around 150 Cal/oz). He budgeted about 5,200 Calories per day for 8 days and 4,000 for a ninth day. That’s 45,600 Calories, or 75 Calories per energy-mile. That’s a razor-thin margin that will require a careful balance of minimal sleep with maximum time on the trail. Such is the nature of modern-day FKT attempts on major trails like this.
So with Jeff carrying 45,600 Calories, that means he may need to make up 70k or more with body fat reserves. That could be up to 20+ pounds of body weight (less if he moderates his pace), depending on how efficiently he can burn fat vs. muscle. Jeff is highly trained, and lean, so he won’t have access to much more than that. If he moves too fast (too many Calories per mile), he’ll run out of body fat. If he moves too slow (higher basal metabolic load), he’s going to run out of food. This topic is addressed in more depth in Roman Dial’s How Far, How Fast, How Heavy: Calculating the Range for Unsupported Long-Distance Hiking.
The Colorado Trail climbs more than 75,000 feet of elevation as it traverses eight distinct mountain ranges. Its average elevation is more than 10,000 feet. Modern FKT attempts are enormously challenging and debilitating. Coup lost 25 pounds on his 20-day unsupported CT hike in 2004. Paul Pomeroy – a highly-trained athlete – lost 16 pounds on his 9+ day unsupported FKT in 2006.
Jeff’s Gear List:
Pack/Pad:
- Custom tiger-striped LiteAF pack and 1/2 length foam pad
Shelter/Sleep:
- Six Moon Designs Deschutes Zero-G tarp
- Katabatic Gear 20F quilt
Tech:
- Coros Vertix GPS watch
- SPOT Gen3
- iPhone 8
- AirPods
- Nitecore rechargeable headlamp
- Charging cords
Clothing:
- Walmart shorts
- Tiger hoodie
- Marmot Bantamweight rain jacket
- Custom LiteAF rain skirt
- 9-year old REI synthetic insulating jacket
Food and Water:
- two Smartwater bottles
- bleach drops
- no cooking – all food is cold snacks, and includes almonds, mixed nuts, chocolate, peanut-butter pretzels, and high-fat protein bars
Other gear:
- Pocket Osmo camera
- Gossamer Gear LT5 Trekking Poles
Discussion
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(Not sure this is the place for a meta discussion FKTs etc but…..)
There’s an argument to be made that there is nothing athletic about FKTs or for that matter most ultra races in the sense of a 100 m or a 5 k track race (to stay within the realm of running). FKTs etc are their own thing………
FKTs can be for any configuration you desire.
I, for one, am very impressed by someone who can complete this effort “unsupported”.
I am no less impressed by someone with a small logistics team competing (informally) against others with similar support.
When the “logistics team” includes a helicopter, IVs, masseur, and cook, I begin to lose interest.
I’d disagree. If you’re not sleeping, that means you’re moving. Moving 50 miles at a chunk is athletic in my book. Getting 8 hours of sleep a night is not a viable option for covering lots of country.
I’d love to feel what Jeff is feeling right now. He’s entered a whole other realm, one where he’s on a hypnotic adrenaline high that doesn’t allow him to feel much pain. His feet will hurt for weeks afterwards, but right now Jeff is running in a semi hallucinogenic altered state that feels better than any drink or drug ever could (not that a little caffeine or ephedra would be bad along the way). Man I wish I had the youth and legs to do what Jeff is doing right now.
Keep pushing Jeff, not long to go now.
Jeff is pretty incredible (afterall, his nickname apparently is “the legend” :) and I sincerely hope he accomplishes what he’s set out to do and without any harm to himself. It will be a testament to the capability of people, Jeff, in particular.
I have to say, though, to me hiking in the mountains isn’t and never will be about records–how fast I can fly by the beautiful views, flowers, interesting scenery, etc. It will always be about those beautful views, flowers, interesting scenery and that I made the sacrifice necessary to witness them, and taking the time to savor them.
We keep records for people who do things faster than anyone else and we put them on a pedastol. Hours and minutes and days are things we can measure and so it’s easy to do that. What isn’t so easy but is much more laudatory to me is measuring the deep appreciation someone has for the experience of being in the mountains (or sea or desert or jungle). If we could measure that in the same way, I’d much rather highlight the guy who has the deepest appreciation. However, it isn’t even about that. Each one of us appreciates the experience in his or her own way. That’s enough. Maybe speeding through the mountains is the way Jeff appreciates them the most. Who knows.
Jeff passed the North Fork Swan River a few hours ago. At that time he was about 7d 13h in and had covered 394 miles.
He has 91 miles to go in about 48 hours to beat the current unsupported FKT.
Right now he’s still on pace to beat the FKT by about 4 hours, he’s holding strong.
The next day and a half will be interesting as “horse sees the barn” syndrome kicks in!
Down to the last 40 miles…
Is he still on pace to break the record?
Yes!
Excellent!
Jeff had about 22 miles to go as of a little over an hour ago. Looks like he was able to get a few hours of sleep last night based on his tracking info, which bodes well for a strong finish.
He hit the 9d mark at 6:30 this morning and has until 7:02 pm today to beat John’s FKT.
I’m sure by now he’s hobbling on pretty mangled feet but barring any wrong turns, things are looking pretty good!
amazing effort. Go Jeff!
One more mile.
Jeff did it!
Best I can tell from his tracker the new Unsupported Colorado FKT is 9d 8h 22m 53s.
Great work Jeff. What an unreal accomplishment.
I wonder if he had any food left…
I wanna know how much weight he lost!
most excellent! will be looking forward to hear the story :)
Official: 9d 8h 18m!
2.16 miles per hour average or 51.9 miles per 24 hour day at 75,000 ft elevation gain? Wow! Jeff’s The Daddy. I know he was bummed about not being able to go for the PCT/AT FKT’s this year, but I believe the CT is at least a top 5 American FKT (correct me if I’m wrong).
that is incredible; there are a few (very few actually) people that could do that for a couple of days, 9 days straight- superhuman!
Here’s my post-trek video interview with Jeff from earlier today.
Very interesting the tactic of aiming to finish his food with 12 hours to go. 12hrs is a long time… I guess he weighs up the slightly reduced pace from having to run off burning muscle and body fat, for that period, over the lighter pack for the duration of the attempt. Certainly finishing food before finishing is probably optimum, though I would have thought that aiming for only a few hours would make more sense. He’s certainly a tough cookie especially with how it panned out!
NUTS I tell ya!!! Hahahaaaaa. I am amazed by this. When I am trudging a 10 mile day.. The Legend will burn thru my head and give me motivation to continue on and finish what I started.
Amazing accomplishment! It shows what a human body is capable of.
Some may not understand why people do FKT’s. But, do we really need to understand everything? or judge? Just know that what was accomplished was extremely hard and superhuman.
Everything in life it relative. To the person who is doing 10 miles a day, 20 miles seems crazy. To the person doing 20 miles a day, 40 to 50 miles a day seems crazy.
I for one, love these hard efforts and the people who seek out such efforts. Takes a special kind of person to set out and accomplish these seemingly impossible tasks.
Congrats Jeff!
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