I hiked the Colorado trail, a 500-mile trail from Denver to Durango, in July 2022. This is by far the longest backpacking trip I’ve done and also the only one I’ve done solo! Doing this trip alone was really rewarding and a great experience, and the trail was amazing. Getting to spend all day every day in the Colorado mountains for a month was really special. I sometimes wished that I could share moments on this trip with a partner or close friend, but I think hiking alone made the trip extra special in its own way. It was nice to have a lot of solitude and time to think and to get to make friends on the trail on my own.
The Colorado Trail guidebook made planning really easy, with detailed information about water sources, resupply towns, and more. I stopped in Breckenridge, Twin Peaks, Salida, Lake City, and Silverton along the way to resupply. There is bus or shuttle service between the trail and Breckenridge and Lake City, and the trail passes through Twin Peaks. I was nervous about hitchhiking from the trail to Salida and Silverton, but it ended up being fairly easy to get rides. A nice dad drove me to Salida, and a group of hippies took me to Silverton. There are also buses from Breckenridge to Denver, Salida to Denver, and Silverton to Durango, so I had the option to stop hiking at a few different towns. It was nice to have this flexibility and not be locked into walking all the way to Durango.
My favorite section was probably the West Collegiate mountains between Twin Peaks and Salida. I hiked and camped this part with four other people my age, and it was fun to get to see and hang out with the group throughout the day. The weather happened to be amazing for this part, with only a couple of storms. The San Juan mountains were also beautiful, but it was much rainier during that part. The weather in Colorado is wild, with very frequent afternoon thunderstorms and sometimes even hail. This made the hike more exciting, I think, at least when I wasn’t super wet. The worst parts of the trail were probably the several-mile section where motorcycles were allowed on the narrow trail, the time I got really bad blood blisters on my feet and had a painful 10-mile walk to lower ground that would be safe with lightning (my feet then miraculously completely healed overnight, though - it was epic), and the long day in cow territory in heavy rain and hail between clean water sources.
Beyond the awesome trail, everyone on the trail was so friendly, and I met so many great, interesting people. I really enjoyed the community aspect of thru-hiking. I love how it is normal to stop and talk to every person you see while backpacking in remote places. It is so different from being in a city or suburb where it is often unusual to even say hi to people you don’t know on the street. I got to know and spend time with so many people that I would never meet in my everyday life, ranging from 16 to 80 years old with all different occupations.
It was fun hanging out with other hikers in the resupply towns too. I remember feeling lonely and unsure what to do with myself during the first several hours in Breckenridge, the first resupply town. Then I ran into some hikers in town that I had met on the trail, and they invited me to eat dinner and hang out with them, and it was so nice to be included. Everyone was really inclusive, so I always had people to hang out with in the resupply towns. The hostels mostly had hikers, and we would often do group dinners and sit around talking. The towns we went through were really nice and fun to explore too.
Hiking the Colorado trail was incredible, and I would definitely want to do another long trip like this in the future!