The Denver Orbital Trail is a 177 mile circuit around the Denver (CO) metro area on paved greenway paths, dirt trails, and some streets. It highlights the outstanding trail network of this area, and crosses through countless public parks. The trail has an excellent, no nonsense website here, which breaks the route into 28 segments, and provides information on access to these segments, as well as possibilities for resupply along the way. Most of the DOT is on the plains, so relatively flat, but Segments 1, 2 and 6 venture into the foothills to the west of Denver, and involve some more up and down. The entire DOT is accessible year-round EXCEPT the 6-mile Black Bear Trail in Deer Creek Canyon & Hildebrand Ranch Parks (Segment 6), which is closed February 1 - July 31 for nesting raptors. Hence, an FKT of the full DOT would need to be done outside of this window, most probably in the fall, though someone might establish a "spring" route with a work-around for the closure. Also, some public parks are closed during nighttime hours - for example the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge is open "sunrise to sunset", Chatfield State Park is open 5AM - 10PM, Jefferson County Parks (e.g., Apex, Lookout Mountain, North Table Mountain) are open from one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset. No doubt there are other restrictions for smaller parks along the way, making a strictly legal FKT attempt rather complex. Which would be part of the challenge!
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The DOT was created by Michael Tormey, who moved to Denver from the UK pretty recently. A good article about it here:
https://gearjunkie.com/outdoor/denver-orbital-trail-urban-thru-hike
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Tormey likely has the FKT of about 3 months.
https://www.denverorbital.org/
I'll be attempting an FKT of the Denver Orbital Trail very soon. If all goes according to plan, I'll start on the morning of Saturday, 8/9/2025 in Golden at Vanover Park and will complete the loop the evening of Tuesday, 8/12/2025. I will have family and friends drop me off each morning and pick me up each evening as camping is not allowed almost anywhere along the route. I will also plan to have family and friends meet me at about the halfway point each day for a resupply break.
Hi TheHikingAgent, I just did the DOT this past weekend in supported style from Aug 1-3 for an elapsed time of 2d 13h 19m. I submitted my time and waiting for verification right now. Just want to give you a heads up in case it impacts your plans.
Hey Theja, interestingly enough I'm just seeing this post-effort. Frankly, I'm glad I didn't see your post beforehand as I may have abandoned my plans because of it and missed out on quite an experience. I've done my share of long trails, but I never went for an FKT before (or at least what I thought would be one), and this ended up being one of the hardest efforts, if not the hardest, I've ever done. I'm grateful for the journey and the challenge, at least now that I've had a chance to rest up for a couple of days, but man did my feet and legs hurt when I wrapped up things in Golden this past Tuesday!
I knew a runner--especially someone that trains for and runs ultras on a regular basis--could go sub-3 days, and it's awesome to see that you did it in that time! I imagine it was extremely hard to average running almost 60 miles a day, especially with all the running you had to do on concrete. I always intended to do it as a hiker/walker instead, and I didn't end up running any of the route, so I'll lay claim to the FKT for walking the DOT at this point. I know there's technically not a different category for walking/hiking versus running, but I'll take that unofficial title for now until someone else can walk it faster. For my support crew, with the season of life I'm in with young kids, besides dropping me off to start each day and picking me up to end each day, I only was able to have my wife meet up with me once a day as my one-person support crew. Because of this, I carried a decent amount of food, water, and gear (probably 15-20 pounds total) to start each day and coming out of each midday resupply.
Congratulations on your huge accomplishment! Hope I get the opportunity to connect someday and congratulate you in person. Way to go!!
Cheering for both of you. Have fun!
Thanks David! Theja did absolutely amazing and definitely bested my time, but I'll lay claim to the fastest walking time for now!
I ended up completing the trail in 3 days, 15 hours, and 44 minutes as a walker/hiker.