DAY 1- 71 Miles
I started my hike at midnight and actually felt a raindrop when I started. The night was breezy, but it didn't rain until much later in the afternoon when I entered the Lost Creek Wilderness. My clothes were pretty wet after the first storm and I changed into my only other dry shirt. The rain would return and although the forecast said it should stop by 9pm, the rain continued all the way through 11pm when I arrived at Kenosha Pass. I cached my sleeping and cooking gear under a bridge at the trailhead so I had to get to Kenosha on the first day. I cowboy camped under the overhang of the bathroom and actually had decent sleep here.
DAY 2- 53 Miles
The original plan was to make it down near Cataract Creek after Kokomo Pass, but that didn't happen. I made it past the highway at Breckenridge and halfway up the climb to 10 mile ridge when I stopped for water, food, and to reset some gear for potential weather up the rest of the climb. As soon as I sat on the log for chores, it began raining hard. Thankfully this storm didn't last too long and I made it up and over the ridge. On the descent down to Copper I took a bad step and thought I broke my ankle (likely sprained). I made it down to Copper and the detour on the bike path where I hid my second cache. I grabbed everything and kept walking while I emptied the contents into my pack and refilled the jar with trash. After disposing of the cache at the gas station, I continued on the detour through Copper. I was pretty tired and only made it 6-7 miles from Kokomo Pass. When I laid down I started coughing and dry heaving terribly. It took me a few more days to realize, but I believe I may have gotten mild pneumonia from the long first day in the rain for almost 10 hours.
DAY 3- 53.6 Miles
I made it to Twin Lakes pretty late this evening. The day had some hard climbs through Holy Cross Wilderness and slow descents with lots of rocks. My ankle had a lot of pain when I woke up and I realized the injury was maybe a bit more serious. When I got near Mt. Massive a thunderstorm moved through and I took a pretty good fall. As I got closer to the road to Twin Lakes I became pretty tired and had to work pretty hard to stay up and get to the store. I camped outside the store and had contacted the owner of the General Store who left my resupply box out to retrieve after business hours. It was pretty late when I got to the box so I saved the 1.3 mile road walk back to trail for the morning.
DAY 4- 40 Miles
I had good sleep going into this day, but I felt flat heading out around the lake this morning. I swapped to a new pair of shoes this day and still had pain in my ankle. I also was dealing with some blister issues. Before I began the climb up Hope Pass I stopped by a creek to perform some self care for blisters, eat food and I soaked my ankles and knees in the creek. I felt better after this and began the entry into the Western Collegiate section. I struggled being motivated and just tried to hike and enjoy the views and being back. I made it to Cottonwood Pass near 10pm and could/should have continued across the street. I remembered when I arrived there wasn't very good camping options for at least 9 miles after Cottonwood and decided to sleep at the pass and wake up early.
DAY 5- 51 Miles
I overslept all of my alarms, creating a pretty undesirable situation once I finally got hiking. I also realized there were at least a couple of camping options that could've worked had I continued the night before. Having a late start, the day turned out okay with 51 miles and making my way back to the red line from the alternate. I hid a cache just before the highway at Monarch Pass for a 42 mile carry and spent 10 minutes outside the closed store processing the resupply and disposing of trash. I made it a couple miles past the east/west junction to the shelter/cabin and camped outside of it.
DAY 6- 54 Miles
I had somewhere around 40 miles to my cache near Hwy 114, where I had a 3rd pair of shoes waiting and I shook down some things from my pack that I hadn't been using, but carrying the whole time. I struggled again with energy before I got to the highway. I think I was tired of some of my food and wasn't eating as much as I needed. I tried to be quick at the cache and cooked a big meal that I ate while I walked. Once I made it up the climb on the other side of the road I moved very quickly until sunset downhill and slept in the farmland area before the climb through the aspen grove and into La Granita / San Luis Valley. After switching back to a similar pair of shoes I wore when I hurt my ankle outside Copper, the ankle pain seemed to return.
DAY 7- 57 Miles
Everything started okay this morning as I made it towards the climb up San Luis. As I began climbing I began feeling ill again. I had been having tingling in my back I believed was soreness from my pack, but may have actually been my lungs and pneumonia. At this point I was generally dirty and felt that maybe germs from my hands were also getting me sick. I was on top of San Luis pass around 10 am and still not feeling well. I became worried and began considering getting off trail, especially since it would've been an easy exit down to Creede from where I was. I was quickly talked out of this by a friend and picked my pack back up and continued through the south San Juans. The sky was moody and soon after I kept going I had my first scary crossing of a high pass near a thunder cloud. There was another thru-hiker making the pass around the same time who also felt nervous about continuing. We made it over safely together and I continued my push across snow mesa, Spring Creek Trailhead and up towards the High Point. I felt that I had to get past the high point this evening to stay on track for my goals on this attempt. I also still felt sick and as it became later and I got closer to the High Point, I began struggling with my illness and lung issues. I was quite nervous and almost completely out of water by the time I crossed over the High Point just after midnight. I continued down to Carson Saddle where I camped in the road but still had no water. It began raining on me here an hour after I laid down.
DAY 8- 51 Miles
I didn't sleep long or well after going over the high point. I made it maybe 1 - 1.5 miles where I found a great water source and sat down to rehydrate, make breakfast, and do some foot and knee care with the cold water. The achievement making it over the High Point gave me confidence about my effort and the addition of the scenery for pretty much this entire day made it one of my favorite hiking days on trail. From sunrise, the beauty of the San Juans took center stage of the morning. It was cool and cloudy and the scenery was stunning. By the time I made it to Stony Pass, the clouds began to melt away. Then as I began the descent to the Animas River and up to Molas Pass, it began to rain. My last cache was near the pass and I arrived around 6 pm. I spent a decent amount of time at the cache cooking food for the last time and caching a lot of my gear for sleeping and cooking that I didn't plan to use until the finish. At this point I decided the best way to ensure I achieve my goal was to forego sleep and push hard through the night. I left the pass by 7pm and enjoyed the hike until it got dark and I began getting tired. At midnight I was at 51 miles for the day, leaving 59 left until the finish.
DAY 9- 59 Miles
With the help of caffeine and music I was able to stay focused on my pace and keep pushing through the earliest hours of the morning. By the time the sun began to rise I was incredibly tired and pretty sure I had maintained a speed to allow a 20 minute dirt nap. I laid down in the middle of trail but was unable to actually sleep and was very cold when I got moving again. I knew I'd have a cushion as long as I didn't take too many breaks and that I tried to stick around 3mph while hiking. My food situation wasn't great and I basically only took snacks with me from the cache. I was tired of everything and probably didn't have enough calories as it was. I was incredibly grateful to find a man hanging on the ridge in the morning offering trail magic. I hadn't seen any trail magic the entire hike, but this came once and only at the time that benefitted me the very most. The man named Rick gave me a bag of potato chips, 2 sodas, brownies, a bagel I covered in beans, 2 apples, and a bunch of grapes. This was all enough to balance out my remaining snacks and give me the confidence that everything may actually work out. I continued off Orphan Butte and up to Indian Ridge. There were thunderstorms forecasted for the Durango area this afternoon and just around 1pm I was getting ready to descend off of Indian Ridge down to Taylor Lake when the sky finally opened up with heavy hail. Fearful of lightning, I took off running down off the ridge. The water by the lake was red flowing mud and I eventually found clear water to take several miles later. After passing Kennebec Trailhead and beginning the 20 mile descent to the finish it began to hail and rain even harder. This cycle happened twice in the last 20 miles and made it hard to keep my water-logged feet moving fast or well. As I neared the finish in the last mile, it began to rain again! Finally in the last several hundred meters I had my phone out ready to film my finish and I saw a man standing around who began to jog with me. I quickly realized it was Brent Herring, the current record holder who came to watch me finish! This meant so much to me and we were able to hang out for a while and share stories over a beer before it became too dark and cold to stay.
NOTE:
I first hiked the CT in 2020, preparing for what would be my first FKT in Washington on the PCT. In 2021 I hiked the CDT and spent more time on sections of the CT. In 2023 I did a yo-yo across much of the CT getting ready for my FKT on the Oregon PCT. When I first hiked the CT, I peeked at the records for the trail and dismissed them as something I could never personally attain but loved the trail and the idea of using it for preparation of other pursuits. Eventually I felt like I maybe had what it took to contest a record and that if I ever did, I would want to go the same direction I had the first time I hiked it in 2020. The CT is one of the best trails around and I am beyond grateful to have returned for this achievement. I'm looking forward to hiking it much slower next time!
Happy Trails,
Janis Joplin