In the coolness of late afternoon at 7,700 feet in the Buffalo Creek Recreation Area, a golden light filtered through tall pines, accentuating the intricate shadows of rock outcroppings looming over the Colorado Trail. Thirty miles into a trek she hopes will take her to Durango in 21 days, a young woman from Breckenridge wearing a floppy hat with “Junior Ranger” on the front came upon an unexpected reception.
Five men in their 60s were gathered on the trail, reliving an adventure they had as high school students from Pennsylvania when they spent a month working to help build this section of the trail. After hearing what they did there 49 years ago — when they were younger than she is now and the Colorado Trail was little more than a good idea — the hiker gave them props.
“You guys are awesome, thanks,” said Sage Lafleur, 19, who borrowed the National Park Service Junior Ranger hat from a friend because she thought it was funny.
The men who worked the rock and dirt there in 1975 encountered a dozen other trail users this past Tuesday who shared similar sentiments. Thus the men of the reunion got a sense of what the Colorado Trail has come to mean to so many.
“I’m just an outdoorsy person, and this calls to me,” Lafleur said. “I love being outside, I love walking and I want to see how far I can push myself. I just think that’s really fun.”
For the group, shoveling and raking three miles of trail in this peaceful setting 20 miles southwest of the Denver area in the Pike National Forest was life-changing.
“When you’re doing a thing, and you’re having fun at it, or you’re having an adventure, you never know where that falls in with the best times of your life,” said David Graves, 64. “We were having such an incredible time. We didn’t know we were having the time of our lives.”
A force of nature
The Colorado Trail Foundation dates the inception of the trail to 1974. There had been previous discussions about it, but the notion moved forward that year with the establishment of the Colorado Mountain Trails Foundation. Indefatigable Gudy Gaskill, a passionate hiker who lived on Lookout Mountain until she died in 2016, became known as “the Mother of the Colorado Trail.” She has often been described as a force of nature.
“She had a magnetism,” said Bill Manning, executive director of the Colorado Trail Foundation from 2006 until 2022. “Gudy was a lifelong hiker She just loved the mountains. She latched onto the concept, along with others, and worked toward establishing the Colorado Trail. As things progressed and proved to be very challenging, she kept working at it tenaciously.”
Today the trail extends from Jefferson County, near the Strontia Springs Dam in Waterton Canyon, to Durango. Depending on how it is done — there are two options for navigating the Collegiate Range — the full distance is either 485 miles or 491 with 89,000 feet of climbing. It passes through eight mountain ranges and six national forests with an average elevation of 10,300 feet. Its highest point rises to 13,271 feet in the San Juan Range near Lake City.
“It started with this passion of Gudy saying, ‘Coloradans need something that’s theirs, that we can hang our hat on and say, ‘We’ve got this trail across the state that’s uniquely Colorado,’” said Paul Talley, current executive director of the Colorado Trail Foundation. “That ethos evolved and lives in us right now.”
But, 10 years after the effort to build it was born, it looked as if it might never be completed. Progress had stalled, and a 1984 cover story in the Denver Post’s Empire Magazine took note, calling it “Trail to Nowhere.” Writer Ed Quillen described in detail how the effort to build the trail had run out of steam despite Gaskill’s passion to finish it. Quillen conceded: “If there ever is a Colorado Trail, it likely will be because Gudy Gaskill hasn’t given up.”
The nerds of high school
In 1975, a dozen students from Marple Newtown High School, 12 miles west of Philadelphia, traveled to Colorado in late June accompanied by their science teacher, his wife, and a college student whose job was to drive the boys in a van. They were members of the school’s earth and space science club. They had put on car washes and bake sales to fund their trip. They weren’t entirely sure what they would do when they got out here, and had no clue they would be put to work as volunteers. Apparently their teacher had made arrangements with the forest service. While they were here, they collected rocks which they still have five decades later.
“We were the nerds of high school,” said Graves, who came out for the reunion this week with brothers Rob and John, both of whom were part of the 1975 trip. “Who else would join a science club? I took summer classes voluntarily. Who does that?”
The trail section where they would work had already been surveyed. A young man from the forest service supervised their work. It was hot, and they took salt pills, as football players of the era did on hot days. Though the work they did was hard, they often climbed a 400-foot rock outcrop near their camp at the end of the day. The five who took part in the reunion — including the three Graves brothers, Roger Lord of Portland, Ore., and the ringleader of the reunion, Monty Estis of Evergreen — reclimbed that imposing rock while they were here. They swear it wasn’t nearly as tall then as it is now.
At night they would play pinochle for hours. They ate PBJs for lunch and Hamburger Helper for dinner. On weekends they went up to Bailey for showers, laundry and visits to the Knotty Pine, a shop with a long history that is still there.
“I do not ever remember being bored,” David Graves said. “When you’re raking and shoveling all day, it’s very easy to fall asleep at night.”
One afternoon as they huddled in a tent during a thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning struck a tree nearby.
“Suddenly there was a huge bang and bright light at the same time,” Estis said. “It hit a tree about (30 feet) from our tent, made a huge scar down the tree. I thought it was really cool.”
Completing the whole thing
That 1984 story in The Denver Post provided the impetus to get trail construction back on track. That’s because Gov. Dick Lamm and his wife, Dottie, read the story, spent some time volunteering in trail construction and started pulling levers of power in 1985.
“He hosted a fundraiser and let it be known that he was behind it,” Talley said. “That’s where we started to get some traction.”
A two-year plan was devised to complete the remaining 60 miles of trails. Some 400 volunteers worked on 20 trail crews in 1986. Nearly 1,000 joined 46 trail crews in 1987. The trail was completed in September of 1987 and dedicated in 1988.
The Colorado Trail Foundation doesn’t know how many people have hiked the entire trail over the years. It does invite completers to fill out a form to receive completion certificates on the honor system. More than 5,500 names are on that list, but the number of completers may be many more than that.
CTF does track the number of volunteers, though. Last year, 736 volunteers worked on maintaining trails, logging 17,284 hours.
The Colorado Trail is not to be confused with the Continental Divide Trail, which was established by Congress in 1978. It stretches 3,100 miles from Canada to Mexico, 800 miles of it in Colorado. It has 160 miles of gaps, which Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse is trying to fill through congressional action. One of those gaps is in Colorado, a 15-mile segment at Muddy Pass just east of Rabbit Ears Pass.
Both trails are prized by avid hikers hardy enough to take them on.
“I happened to mention to my across-the-street neighbor, when we were planning this trip, that I was going to a reunion and that we had built this trail,” said David Graves, who lives in Philadelphia. “He said, ‘You mean the Colorado Trail? I’ve hiked that trail.’ I thought that was pretty interesting. He did the whole thing.”
Changing lives
Of the 12 from Pennsylvania who came out to work on the trail in 1975, five made the trip this week. They used Facebook hoping to get in touch with some for whom they had no contact info. One of their alumni was killed in 1995 by an avalanche while mountain climbing in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park. Of those who made the trip, David Graves is a cloud engineer. John Graves, 66, works for the EPA in Philadelphia. Rob Graves, a twin to David, is a pilot for Southwest. Roger Lord, 65, was inspired by the 1975 trip to pursue a career in forestry and lives in Portland, Ore.
Estis, 66, was so inspired by the 1975 trip that he vowed to move here someday, and he did, 30 years ago. He has lived in Evergreen for the past 11 and says he’s the smartest one in the group because he lives in Colorado.
“In high school they asked me, ‘Where are you going to be in 15 years?’ said Estis, who worked in the telecom industry until retiring and currently tutors young math students. “I said living in Colorado. It took me 14 years to get out here. I just love it. I camp and backpack, I ski and snowboard, I kayak and mountain bike. I just love being outside.”
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