Metamorphosis, openness to feeling, and the point of struggle on the Colorado Trail

The scene at Junction Creek the morning we finished the trail

It’s been 191 days since me, my worn down Altras, and my trusty backpack walked into the Junction Creek Trailhead parking lot in Durango, the southern terminus of the Colorado Trail. That moment marked the end of my 500 mile thru hike of the Colorado Trail. It was an exuberant scene: there were some 18 hikers, the “Dirty Bubble” as we called ourselves, who finished the trail that day. The parking lot was full of joyous, stinky hikers: backpacks strewn about and Coors, the unofficial beer of the CT, scattered around to celebrate. People were throwing away their broken, tattered gear in celebratory rituals while others hugged their families and partners who had come to Junction Creek to welcome them home. Photos were taken, lots of hugs were given. I learned a handful of hikers’ government names for the first time after knowing them only by their trail names for weeks. It was simultaneously nothing like how I imagined it, yet exactly how I imagined it.

I didn’t cry the day I finished the trail, but I cried a lot in the days leading up to the end. My CT thru ended with a scene full of joy and community, but it didn’t start that way. When I think back on myself in Breckenridge, about 100 miles into the trail, I know that I could not have imagined my hike would end the way it did. At that point, I didn’t think I would make it to Durango. At that point, I wanted to quit.

Which leads me to what I believe is one of the most important ingredients of my experience on the CT: that it was hard. A lot of people romanticize the realities of thru-hiking before their first long walk, and I was one of them. I had been backpacking a number of times before, and I felt like I knew what I was getting myself into. The first 100 miles of the trail were some of the most challenging miles of my life. My body wasn’t used to covering 20 miles a day, and my spirit wasn’t used to being alone. I recall moments spent sitting on the side of the trail genuinely feeling like I couldn’t take another step. I had blisters on most of my toes, my right knee was starting to kill me, and I was already dehydrated. Much harder, though, was the mental and spiritual challenge. I’ve always been an introspective person by nature, and alone on the trail day and night, a lot came up for me. It was uncomfortable, and I was reflexively looking for a distraction that didn’t exist in the 3-foot-wide, 500 mile long world I had found myself living in with nothing but a backpack. I was homesick for the first time in my life, but homesick for a place I wasn’t sure existed. I missed my friends in Durango, missed my family who had just sold my childhood home, and was completely disoriented while trying to settle into my life on the trail where I would live alone for a month. On day 9, I wrote in my journal: Okay, I’m admitting that this is really hard. I miss my friends so much. I’m homesick. It’s hard being alone. I’m scared. I don’t know if I can do this.

I really, really didn’t want to keep going. I say that without shame because thru hiking is hard, and it’s normal to want to quit. I had exchanged conversation with a hiker near Kenosha Pass who told me the age-old sage advice passed on from thru hikers across generations: never quit on a bad day. But by the time I had hiked 120 miles, every day felt like a bad day. I don’t know how else to say it other than I truly didn’t think I could keep going. I hit my lowest low in the Starbucks at Copper Mountain (which anyone who’s hiked the CT will likely chuckle reading). I was unbelievably lonely and struggling so much through the physical and spiritual pain of the walk until that point. Choking back tears drinking my iced chai, I vowed that if I still felt that way when I got to Twin Lakes in a few days, I would quit. I wanted so badly to hop on a bus back to Denver and be done. But somehow, some way, I found some strength to get up and keep walking. The strength that pushed me to get back on the trail on my worst day is one of the most important things I found on the CT. Here’s what I wrote in my journal that day:

This is so hard. I’m feeling so much discomfort and it’s transitioning from physical to emotional. I felt anxious, scared, and doubtful today. And holy shit, I’ve never felt homesickness like this before. I’m honestly so close to quitting. And so, courage. What would it be like to feel the fear and do it anyway?

There’s a saying in the thru-hiker community: The trail provides. I found the strength inside myself to leave Copper and keep walking instead of hopping on a bus to Denver, and as I was walking away from the resort, the trail provided to me. Two girls around my age approached me, asking if I knew the way back to the trail after seeing my pack. I didn’t, but we worked it out together, and I hiked with them for the rest of the day, meeting some other hikers later that night at their camp. My hike changed that day because I met my tramily. Lilly and Isabelle, who would eventually get the trail names Beefcake and Jug, were like angels to me that day, finding me exactly in the moment that I needed them without even knowing it. That night, I met Jess (trail name PB) and Aidan (trail name King Snail), and I even finally got my trail name: Gack, after my love for GAQs (go around questions). I felt it in my bones that my hike had just changed. Our tramily ebbed and flowed with the trail in the weeks to come, but from that day on, I had a tramily to count on.

Some of my tramily and I: Undies, Enigma, Jug, Beefcake, and PB

I believe so deeply in the divine timing of meeting my tramily, because if I hadn’t spent 11 days almost completely alone in a period of intense struggle, my hike would not have been what it was. The struggle of the trail opened me up to feel. The struggle is what helped me find that spark of strength deep within my spirit to keep walking when I wanted to quit. It helped me find courage and showed me that there is more in me than I could have possibly known. I think for many people, thru-hiking is less like the Hero’s Journey and more like the metamorphosis of a butterfly. Before the caterpillar turns into a butterfly, it turns to unrecognizable, nearly-dead mush in its cocoon. It must go through this before it emerges a butterfly. Thru-hikers, as well as us all, go through our own metamorphoses. We just have to trust the walk. The trail will try to break you open. Let it. See how much you can feel. See how much you can transform. See how much strength is truly within you.

For the weeks that followed my metamorphosis, the trail got easier. I got my trail legs, got some Injinji socks to manage my hellish blisters, and became much more comfortable walking alone. I found inner quiet and connections with the beautiful souls around me. I laughed until I cried, saw some of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen, and every day felt like a good day (even the hard ones). I commiserated with my new friends hiking through cow ponds for days, I climbed 14,000’ San Luis Peak and cried tears of astonished gratitude for who I am and where I’ve been at the top, and I had anything-but-a-hat dinners with trail friends. We had a party in the woods outside of Silverton that twenty-some hikers showed up to, wept over the deliciousness of town food, and spent hours talking about GAQs on the trail. I kept to my promise of meditating and journaling every day along the way, and I figured out the most ridiculous ways to be as lazy as possible with my fellow not-so-lazy thru hikers. I felt deep, lasting presence every day. And I finished the trail, arriving at Junction Creek to a joyous scene that meant more to me than I could have ever truly known until that moment.

The reason the Colorado Trail meant so much to me is because it was so hard. The parts of myself that were revealed to me on the trail never would have shown themselves if I hadn’t felt so close to quitting, if I hadn’t been forced to dig so deep. I'm thankful for every single moment of my first thru-hike, even and especially the hardest parts: the parts that showed me who I really am.

The “Dirty Bubble” at the southern terminus of the Colorado Trail