5 things to know about hiking the Colorado Trail
In summer 2024, the Denver Gazette’s Kyla Pearce hiked the winding, mountainous 500+ mile path.
As the 2025 season begins for hikers, cyclists and equestrians preparing to adventure out, here are five things you should know if you are recreating on the Colorado Trail.
1) The trail is 567 miles long, but many do the path’s 33 segments in separate attempts.
The Colorado Trail is about 500 miles, goes from Denver to Durango and takes most people about 4 to 6 weeks to hike. It took Pearce about five weeks.
“A lot of people will also section hike the trail, which just means splitting it up and doing it in sections rather than doing the entire thing in one go,” she said.
2) High elevations increase the difficulty.
The average trail elevation is above 10,000ft, and the highest point on the Colorado Trail is actually above 13,000ft.
“So if you’re thinking about hiking the trail, it’s a good thing to prepare for the high elevation, which means less oxygen,” she said. “And it makes it a little harder when you have a really heavy pack.”
3) Be prepared to share the trail and find community.
The Colorado Trail Foundation estimates that about 500 people complete the trail each year, which is just a small portion of the people who are using sections of the trail on horseback or on bicycles as well.
“Just doing day hikes, shorter backpacking trips,” she said. “So if you’re going to hike the Colorado Trail, be prepared to share the trail with a lot of other users.”
This also means that the Colorado Trail has a really strong community, and there’s a really good chance that you’re going to make some awesome lifelong friends.
4) The season without snow is short and monsoon season causes late afternoon thunderstorms.
The season for the Colorado Trail is relatively short. It’s primarily a window in July and August because Colorado can have some really troublesome snowpack even into July.
Kyla Pearce poses for a photo along the Colorado Trail in the Collegiate Peaks on Aug. 20.
“It’s an important thing to note that you should be aware of how to read snowpack if you’re going to hike any earlier than July and any later than August,” she said. “Colorado also gets a pretty heavy monsoon season, and you spend a lot of time on the trail up at high elevations. That means that you should be aware of the thunderstorm forecast and know what to do if you end up caught in a lightning storm.”
5) As always, leave no trace.
The Colorado Trail was built and is mostly maintained by volunteers.
“Before you hit the trail, make sure you research leave no trace principles, and that you’re following those when you’re out and about on the trail,” she said. “There’s also so many ways to give back to the trail and give back to the hiking community and that’s such an important part of being a through hiker, caring for the hike the people around you.”
The Denver Gazette’s Kyla Pearce hiked the winding, mountainous 500+ mile path last summer. Here are five things you should know about the Colorado Trail.
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