EP 192: Hiking 140 Miles In 5.5 Days - FULL STORY

[00:00:00] Tayson: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Live Ultralight Podcast. Powered by Outdoor Vitals. Today, we have a very special episode because we were recapping our OV 100 mile hike on the Colorado Trail. So, every single year we do 100 Mile Challenge where we get hundreds and hundreds of you guys listening to this, to join us and go to a big effort. It's a really really cool program. We have tons of interactions in our closed Facebook group and just It's a lot that go on, but we get excited about this every year because mainly we get to go to a sweetheart and share that with other people that are also doing this. So this particular episode we're going to be recapping that is pretty eventful year but we also have an old face and a new face in here. So we'll do some introductions. And then we're going to jump into the Colorado Trail this year. So Kayden, you're the new face around here. Why don't you let people know who you are? Where you come from? Where you stand for? You know, those kinds of

[00:00:57] Kayden: all right, sounds good. So my name is Kayden. I'm from Northern Utah. Came down here for school and have been working out, working it out, or vitals for us.

[00:01:07] Tayson: I've been working out. Yeah,

[00:01:08] Kayden: I've been working out Both. Just kidding. I'm a noodle

[00:01:11] Tayson: and challenge me at all sorts of contest.

[00:01:13] Kayden: Yeah. So yeah, I've just been working it. Outdoor Vitals for the last couple years just in the warehouse doing returns doing a little bit of marketing and I really like anything in the outdoors. Backpacking trail running mountain biking skiing anything, you name it and so really awesome getting another gear, the people and go on these kind of Adventures.

[00:01:36] Tayson: Kayden had backpacked a total of one mile before he started. The 100-mile challenge. Know, he had never done a as big of an effort so we'll dig into that in the show because Yeah, you went from minimal. I would say minimal backpacking, but maybe average person backpacking to really scale him up. And so there's, there's some lessons in there to dig into, but then got Derek. So who are you

[00:02:02] Derek: there you see him before. He was calling me, the old Facebook, turned 30, and I'm a dad now, but legendary mustache. Yeah,

[00:02:11] Tayson: but I think your mustache is more iconic now, what I rock? So

[00:02:16] Derek: yeah, I don't know. But yeah, you've seen me before I am the marketing director every now and then I hop on the podcast and Share my two cents. Yeah. Kayden's actually my cousin so I can pick him a little bit. He is single. It does work out and pretty active. So yeah, just put that plug in there but I can only date him if you live in Cedar because he needs to stay here. We grew up in the same place, you know, we grew up northern Utah and, and did a lot of stuff Outdoors. But yeah, you guys

[00:02:47] Tayson: for, for me before, so, Yeah, you will notice that only three people can fit in the frame, so we kicked Brigham off the podcast but not really, he actually kicked himself off the podcast. By not finishing the hike with us which is a big shocker to all of us. So we're gonna talk about that as well. And we have a follow-up episode of this one where I talk with another person that was on the hike that all so didn't finish the hike with us. So look for that episode to come out. Like we after this one. With Craig Obrist. Do you have

[00:03:22] Derek: to wait long? It'll be pretty soon so just keep your eyes peeled.

[00:03:26] Tayson: Yep. Okay, so yeah, let's dive in really quick. We'll talk about what the challenge is, and we'll talk about the hike that we plan and how it went. So, the challenge itself started for five years back down. I want to say with the concept of, you know, getting out there for a day or two to time, it's great, it's super beneficial to, you know, physical mental, emotional health, which is our purpose here, Outdoor Vitals see people in the outdoors to benefit those, but we've seen that when we go on these bigger hikes. You get more time to disconnect and that's really where you can make a lasting you know more meaningful impact with spending time outdoors. And so We had goals to go do some 100 mile hikes as a team and we just realized how cool it is to cross 100 mile Mark and we did some surveys too and realized that tons of people that our customers are the brand have never gone that far. Yes, we have through hikers, you know, through hikers, obviously like thousands of miles, but the vast majority of people listening to this have never done a continuous, 100 mile hike. And so we we have this idea to, you know, help people go and do that thing. Those things one to set a goal, but two to give them the tools that they need to do that. So we created this Challenge and it's been really amazing. It's grown by hundreds of more people, every single year that we've done it. And we you know, give them the tools to execute this to train, how to train troubleshooting, planning all these different kinds of things and then we just go do 100 mile hike. Now some people break that into What's called the Stacked method. At first, we didn't offer that, but over time by popular demand, we now offer a stacked version which means you could go and do a couple of trips to get to 100 Mi over the course, of kind of a summer, or the dates on this hike. But the Pinnacle for us is to get people to where they're doing a 100-mile continuous hike. So be us being the good. You know, students that we are of the course. We try to go do our own, 100 mile hike every year. And for the last couple of years, we have wanted to do the entire Colorado Trail. To do that. We want to do that in four years because there's a 480, Mile Trail. So we did that two years back and did the first 100 miles from Durango to Silverton place called Stony pass. And then last year me and Brigham were going to be the only ones that were able to go do to some people expanding families, and other things going on. And so, But I reckon my mountain bike and dislocated, or separated my shoulder a week before we were supposed to go. So that got canceled. So then we got to come back this year to do. Second segment of the Colorado Trail. And again, going back to that theme of, we kind of wanted to do this over four years. So this year we actually set out to do on paper 135 miles, which is the biggest hike we've ever done, you know, historically we've gone between about 100 and close to 110. So we've been right there at 100 though, not much past that. So this is going to be a huge jump to go from you know, 105 miles to 135 plus miles. So, we added a day, we added a day. We usually were doing this in a five-day window. We decided we needed to go to a Six-Day window, but even with

[Editor’s note: The OV 100-Mile Challenge format, Facebook group, registration model, bonuses, and participation language describe the program as discussed in August 2025. Check current official terms and availability rather than treating this historical account as a current offer.]

[00:06:44] Derek: that, this is going to be challenging, you know, I was telling my father in the law about it, a couple months before. Just saying, I just said something. Like, I've got a trip coming up, it's like 135 miles and six days or something like that is immediate question was like, well what are you riding? My feet, he didn't believe me.

[00:07:03] Tayson: Yeah, mountain bike, or

[00:07:06] Derek: yeah, exactly. And I didn't quite believe me at first, we were gonna do that. You know, we are kind of a crazy group of people because

[00:07:12] Tayson: sometimes she'll tell people stuff like that, and they just look at you and they're like, Why, why do you do that? You know, or or when I write like a little never forget, is when I was running my My ultra. 100 mile ultra marathon. I had a family member that literally in very seriously asked if I was okay. Like are you okay? Like wondering if I was like Like, I don't know, like, mentally ill, you know what I mean? But when you know, you know, when you go do some of this stuff and we don't recommend you just cold turkey this stuff but the more you go, the more you learn to love it, the more you realize how possible it is. And it's just crazy how how far you can walk in a day if you just walk the whole day, you know, it's nothing that hard per se in terms of, you know, everyone, everyone can typically walk. Well, most of us can typically walk and so, they'll walk all day long. You can do that, you can cover some crazy mileage and do some amazing things especially if you're willing to do it day after day. So So, yes, that's on this trip. We're looking at over 135 miles, it ended up, being about 140 with about 22,000 feet of vertical climbing, and about 25 and a half thousand feet of descent because we were going to start lower Trailhead for us. This year, actually started at about 12 and a half thousand feet. So we went, we drove straight to 12 and a half thousand feet. Got out of the car and started hiking from there, which is pretty different. But this year, we had five of us that were set out to go on this hike. Kayden tried to bail. He was pretty on the fence and I had to, you know, threatened his life a little bit, but we got him

[00:08:47] Derek: Tayson mentioned that, you know, we're kind of doing our own homework here. We're, you know, learning ourselves as we put out this course for the Hundred Mile Challenge and to help people prepare and we're preparing as well. You'll see us in the Strava groups or anything doing our own training, but one of the rules is you got to do a shake down trip. Be able to go on the actual 100 mile trip that way. You have a good idea of what to expect but big mild days what they're gonna feel like and so Kayden had done is Shakedown trip and that's kind of what shook him up because we we had him do a Shakedown trip that in reality was harder than most of the days that we but someone planted. It wasn't in this room. We didn't we didn't plan that another guy planned it. And anyways he did well. But that wasn't. I mean an understandably. Wasn't as fun as maybe he was expecting. Originally by the time I got through that shake down trip and there's some other things we found out, right? Kate about maybe some nutrition and nutrition as well that all

[00:09:51] Tayson: Of this course, what was the biggest thing you really quick? Or the biggest things you took away from your shake down? Trip to the carried into Actual trip.

[00:10:01] Kayden: I think he was just that, even if you're feeling fine, you're not, which sounds so dark. They're like, so ominous, but it was like, I don't know if you're only gonna be doing one or two days, then nutrition is important but it doesn't matter as much but what I've found specially on the Shakedown was that I felt fine and so I was like oh I'm probably fine I'm probably eating enough and then Next day, I was just so much more tired and so much more sore than I was on the actual, oh, we 100 every single day, you know? and so I think I just didn't drink enough and I didn't eat enough, even though I felt fine, I should have been proactive about Recharging and having snacks, having a full meal for dinner and said of just getting to the camp and being like, all right? Hello. And I don't want to attract bears and I'm just gonna eat snacks and go to bed, you know? So I think it was the big thing and also just mindset, you know, doing it. Doing it solo and just more focused on the grind. And the actual scenery, I think, Put me in a negative mindset. Whereas on the we want 100, it was good to be with people and be experiencing it and all. So I was just really focused on having a good mindset and For. Like internal dialogues or whatever. Just always trying to be a positive with and that really, really helped the trip for sure. Yeah.

[00:11:25] Tayson: Yeah. So you came off that Shakedown trip and you're kind of like I don't think I'm gonna go guys because you are you're thinking it was way harder than you thought you were out there solo which you didn't like as much. I love solo hiking but it's not for everyone. And and yeah, I mean it was kind of brutal. And so, then I remember we kind of looked at the stats and looked at like man you really have like a rough day. There's a long day. And we looked at a little bit more and it was just like it was like, okay, it's not going to be as hard as your shake down. Really should come plus. I think Derek pointed out like you're training more than almost anyone of us right now. You're probably in better fit Fitness than all of us this year in particular so you know you should come. And anyway eventually we got you to commit, come on it was a big event Milestone to get him. He

[00:12:15] Derek: pulled up the maps and everything on onX and like, look, this is the real elevation. We can just trace it right here and prove to you that it's gonna be less than your Shakedown trip. And that's like the final Tipping Point. I think it's from what I saw. Yeah, he's like oh, it's okay. That proves it is gonna be easier. Yeah. Well, A day by day, at least a single day.

[00:12:37] Tayson: But I mean, honestly, I was pretty nervous myself going into this one because, you know, years past, I've been training for an ultramarathon and this year, I didn't sign up for any ultra-marathons and so my training just wasn't as intense. Especially endurance, training wasn't as good as it has been years passed. And so, I was nervous about that and kind of to build on what he was talking about with nutrition, my strategy going into. It was look, I've learned a lot about nutrition the past few years for Endurance Sports. And I'm like, I just have to nail nutrition and that'll be, you know. Quote-unquote. My secret weapon to do well with the lack of training that I had, but I was, I was actually quite nervous. Brigham kept saying he's, like, I think you guys are all Too nervous. He's like, you guys, you guys are more fit or capable than you, think you are. But I think all of us are like, I don't know. He's been on some pretty rough day's had some pretty challenging times. So, Fitness is there. I think that kind of went for for you too dirty. Yeah that's how you felt like coming into this.

[00:13:33] Derek: It definitely how I felled. I definitely trained a lot less this year. My daughter turns one today actually but yeah. For the last year, I've kind of prioritized spending time with her in the mornings. Letting my wife sleep in a special in this first year. We've had a lot to do oh to learn and figure things out. More mornings have been historically when I've done training and a lot of it and then this year I just I still did but not nearly as much, if that makes sense. And so, yeah, I was definitely same as you, Tayson. I was nervous a little bit. Like this is like Definitely more miles and a ton of elevation still. And I feel like I've just trained last saw, I was a little bit like, we'll see how it goes, but Yeah.

[00:14:15] Tayson: And then, the last part of all this is we decided to bring someone, you know, quote unquote from outside the office for the first time we work with a photographer videographer and Craig Obrist Quite a lot. If you look, if you ever seen our catalog, you've seen Craig Or like, you know, let's bring him on this hike to help capture it. And so you know we Derek did some vetting of him, you know, he was, he’s a fit guy and we thought that he could we could handle it. So that was the crew. We had five of us heading out there and we started with five and on the way up to I remember this on the way up to the trailhead, I was already trying to talk Craig out of taking as much camera here and it works. He did. If? I can hold the camera body behind the other things. We dropped price, three to four pounds out of this pack before we got started. But we'll come back to that in just a minute, but we started with five of us. Beautiful weather was supposed to be rainy like the whole week so we were a little bit nervous about that, definitely expecting some weather, but when we started absolutely stunning views, absolutely beautiful. We won't talk about the fact that I missed marks the trail right out of the gate, but we got on the right Trail and, and started in the right general direction, but it's fun. I mean, very first people we met on the trail. I was a super nice lady from Australia who was carrying a satellite, so it was way cool. I feel like my days of being Incognito after shaving, the beard is gone now. Everybody still recognized and they were familiar with OV. Yeah, there was a while I feel like there's almost a year where we're not many people. Like I was just a dude, you know, it was, which I still own just the random guy. But but no, I was really cool to see see her. And then, right after that, we started up the hill and I remember kind of seeing Craig was a little bit in the back. Um, but Brigham was with them, and I was like, that's weird. That's not like Brigham. If, you know, if you've ever listened to this podcast, you'll never Brigham hikes in the number two position at all times. He doesn't like to be the guy in the lead. But he does not like to be anywhere except for in the second position on the trail. Like I kid you not I have seen him take the lead one time. I remember. Where was that? I remember what was going on? It was on the Highline Trail. He decided to go in front of us and that dude, like, took off like a rocket. We didn't see him until like, we stopped for like a meal. He was like, he was like halfway across a basin and I'm like, gosh, what is this guy doing? But usually, he's just always in position two. So to see him farther back hiking in the group was like, that's weird. I just noted that And then we go a little bit farther, and we hit the next Hill and he was in the back. And at that point, I was like, something's wrong with Brigham. Something's going on. And I, and I said something to, I think it was Craig. And it's like, oh, really like seems fine. I'm like, no. There's like he doesn't hike there, you know, so it wasn't maybe a few minutes later or Brigham's. Like all right. I gotta tell you guys something. I've been sick. The last few days and I thought I was gonna be, all right, I thought maybe I just wake up feeling better, but I haven't. And I'm already, like, filling filling it essentially, so then we were aware of it. And You know what, we continue to hike tried to hike, our continuous speed, because we had to average. 25 miles a day to do this. That was our goal is to average 25 miles a day and then that put us on what the last day still having to hike 10 to 15 miles. And that's if there was no issues throughout the whole thing. So it kind of for safety, it was better for us to plan to hike, 25 ish and then have maybe hair of safety for the last day. If we needed to do something or something happened, or if we just, you know, hit a lightning storm where I had to go to a complete, stop one day or something. So we're trying to just keep the pace that we needed to keep and bring them starts, then drifting off the back of the group and I'm just thinking, man, that is like he must be really hurry. I remember saying that a few times, he must be really hurting. Something's really not right and Think we made it was eight or ten miles. It was a Nine nine. Yeah, okay, so we made it at nine miles and bring him. I looked back. And he kind of held up his arms, to kind of signal us to stop. And so, we stopped, and he caught up to us, and was like, guys, I'm turning around. This is in the cards for us, for, for him, which was like crazy to me to see him turn around. Um and especially like what felt like turning around just so quickly. You know, so it's like, man something's something's really not, right? But it was a really inconvenient thing to do because we're in the middle of the Wilderness in Colorado, like the closest cities are tiny, tiny, tiny towns, you know, so I kind of tried to talk him into like what if you just go forward but slower and then we pick you up at the end of the week or something. You can solo hike or something, but he's like, now like this isn't good. And with the altitude and stuff. I'm gonna get out to sick. I can tell and so he He started to turn around which meant he had to walk the nine miles back of the trailhead and then try to get a shuttle down to the city. And if you can't get the shuttle down as the city, then it's another 10 plus miles. I shut him Jeep. Yes, by shuttle, I need hitchhike, I mean, you have to hitchhike with whoever's, passing him by, to get down to the city, which is I would say at least another 10 miles if not 15. So yeah, it's a big Endeavor and and it's anyways, it's This in a bag because then you get the Silverton silverton's. A Tiny Town in the middle of the mountains. I mean, it is far from anywhere. It's not like you can pick up a shuttle or a bus or an Uber, there's just not options. And so he basically is like I'm gonna have to call my my wife and have her come all the way out to pick me up. I tried to get it, you know, we tried to work it so that maybe our shuttle drivers could pick him up, but that didn't didn't end up working out, or, I don't know if you never really reached out to him. I don't think he ever really did, but Yeah, we sent him, we send him back. We don't know how he's doing or anything like that and we continue forward. But yeah, day one was awesome. We got some rain. The weather was really cool. A lot of like rain without lightning, which is pretty rare. I feel like out there, there were some rolling of Thunder off in the distance is, but never anything that felled Scary or closed, you know, which is like perfect because it's like, borderline cold. Which if you followed our trip from two years back on the Colorado Trail, we were baking. It was like 80 degrees at 12,000 feet, it was so hot. So the weather was just perfect border like cold, you can wear a rain jacket and I feel like you're overheating and so absolutely Perfect temperatures. But what do you guys remember about about day one in particular?

[00:21:22] Derek: I was loving it. I think day one was really really cool because of how high we were. And when we started out we kind of stayed that high and went through a bunch of Passes and basins, that were just really pretty. There's a lot of moose in

[00:21:34] Tayson: one of them like four plus moves in the one drainage and some of my favorite ways to see.

[00:21:40] Derek: New places is actually in cloudy or rainy conditions, for whatever reason, I just really appreciate how that changes everything. It just makes everything look and feel different. And and, Basically makes I don't know for me, it just does something different. I just really appreciate being in those kinds of environments because it's like, you know, sunshine and nice days. It's like, I don't know, it feels kind of like you're just at home almost but

[00:22:05] Tayson: specially when there's this much smoke in the air, it's not like we have amazing visibility too so you almost may as well have some kind of dynamic weather coming through and yeah, just really cool. Looking, everything was

[00:22:17] Derek: cool, it was. And then like you said, the temperatures, it felt great. It looks great just really nice fresh legs day. One, everything was good.

[00:22:24] Tayson: I really loved it. So me and Derek thought. The weather was great and was I can help you jacket shivering tea, know,

[00:22:31] Derek: I just feel about the one it was good. I

[00:22:35] Kayden: think I was struck by how cool the terrain was because the only other experience I had at that high elevation was on the Shakedown for parts, you know.

[00:22:45] Tayson: That's pretty but it's way smaller like there's like it's not nearly as expansive.

[00:22:49] Kayden: Yeah,

[00:22:50] Derek: and all. So day one, there's basically the world is your oyster in terms of Conversation. I mean, you're with the same for people whatever you want and it's fresh you know? It's

[00:23:01] Kayden: yeah. He talked about some weird stuff on this

[00:23:11] Derek: trip all over actually correction. Kayden talked. I did talk about

[00:23:16] Kayden: I'm a theoretical conversationalist.

[00:23:21] Tayson: Yeah, we'll get to our last days conversation as they're walking to the vehicle. I'll remember that one for a while.

[00:23:28] Derek: Yeah, but yeah, expansive views. Really, just thought

[00:23:32] Tayson: maybe you seem to be really excited about seeing some of the animals that we're seeing. We were seeing deer moose. Yeah,

[00:23:39] Derek: humans.

[00:23:40] Kayden: Well, you know,

[00:23:42] Tayson: this is Kayden's first time being on a Long Trail too. So you're kind of getting a taste of like the hiking culture and the people and you know, like seeing dirtbags in the wild you know, like it was so I mean what was that? Kind of like seeing some of that just miles?

[00:24:01] Kayden: Yeah, it's a kind of people that you could sit down with and they just have to take it right. You write a book about their life and their only 25, you know, and it's like that's, that's really cool to see. And I was, I was struck by how incredibly friendly everybody was, how it was. Just like every single person that you passed. With very little exception was just really excited to be there and they liked seeing the new face, you could start up a conversation with anyone. It was so friendly that when you got the person that was normal and like didn't start up a conversation or didn't say hello that? I just said, hi, or they just nodded, you're like, wow? What a journey. It was just. Yeah, you know. So by the end of the trip, it was like, wow, this is a really nice culture and yeah, seeing the animals was awesome. I thought, I thought seeing all the Mars was hilarious, so many Mormons

[00:24:54] Tayson: and not first day.

[00:24:55] Derek: They're so fat. They didn't really be a fox every day, every day. I was like, oh, it's red.

[00:25:02] Kayden: There was one that the puffiest tale. I was like that has to be a fox and then I got out of the grass where he could actually see it was like, oh no. It's a chubby gopher. Yeah, it's funny.

[00:25:20] Tayson: So we also had Craig with us and we had taken I think right out of the gate, we took a couple battery Banks and a couple things but he was he was carrying the camera here for the most part which is kind of like a camera guys. Usual thing, like they usually are carrying most of the stuff, they usually want it on them as much as we can. But so Craig, that's

[00:25:39] Derek: that's his work, that's what he does. And as a friend, we flew him out here. One of the hike together but he was used to carrying camera gear

[00:25:45] Tayson: for some context. That's just what he'd been training like a madman to come out here with us. He's I mean, he's run ultra marathon stuff like that, but he he had been training a lot. He was very nervous by keeping up and

[00:25:58] Kayden: he was a 600 feet.

[00:26:00] Tayson: Yeah. And I hear that much more hard on the body and whatnot. But he was doing great and but like, I didn't really know how much weight he was carrying. I do know that he was carrying this big chest rebelling and inside the chest rig, you have like A drone and a camera body and I don't know

[00:26:21] Derek: probably snacks or something that other things right? Yeah

[00:26:25] Tayson: batteries and the chest harness was huge. I was like holy smokes man I think is Big. Yeah but I'm just got it. All right here, you really liked it. But so we didn't I didn't really know how much weight he was carrying more than us but it was like a concern but he was crushing it. He was he was keeping up with this whole time doing well. So I'm feeling really good about that because I'm like I didn't know like, what if he gets out here and he's not, you know, I've never hiked with them in my life before none of us have. So that was like a really good thing to see, but as anything, I hold my breath until the start of day two, because we've had to kick a few people off Trail before and you know, you need, sometimes you need a whole day of hiking and then start the next day to really see if you know, they're gonna be okay with altitude. Altitude sickness is a fear of us to start at 12 and a half thousand feet is Unlike any High could ever done, we never really started that high. And so I think all day I was probably acting like Mama Bear just being like you guys drinking enough. You get enough electrolytes like because that's like the biggest thing you can control at the two does your hydration once you're actually on the trail and so really managing that and and you know, consistent calories as one of your best tools. And so really wanted to make sure that no one was going to get out to sick. And a lot of times, you don't know, tell me the end of day one when they're trying to sleep, or the start of day two, when they wake up and they tell you that they didn't sleep or they had issues. So I was kind of holding my breath the whole day, but Craig was doing great. These things I really remember from day one was we hit the high point of the Colorado Trail at 13,100 feet,

[00:27:58] Derek: I think was or a couple hundred feet so like 13 233.

[00:28:03] Tayson: Yeah, so so hit that. And then, right after that, we have these really beautiful views down towards Lake City. And it was just really pretty like sun setting. It had been raining, a little bit of smoke in the air, just super, super pretty and maybe off to pop a picture and I think we stopped and took a group photo at that point and yeah, just super pretty all definitely remember that. Part of day, one.

[00:28:31] Derek: Yeah. No. That was I love that part of the day when I was probably actually I mean the All of day. One was great, like I kind of already covered, but that was, by far my favorite This is a setting and that became a trend. I mean every day following sunset time was just that's the best time ever. No matter where you're at. I just love that. But I actually had a really good view when I took a pit stop. So that's all so memorable.

[00:28:58] Kayden: the other thing I remember from day one is a little Little difficulty experienced with my tent.

[00:29:06] Derek: So we got to the camp that night. And, you know, we kind of down by the water source. We went off, you know, a couple hundred yards or something. and found this nice pretty flat Meadow and Kayden, pulls out his tent and we're all setting up camp and All of a sudden you're here, can you go? Oh no. Just like it's like very yes. Like oh no. Oh no. Like I can't believe this. Oh no, I'm like what the freak happened, did he forget his sleep? Like like this could be bad, you know? And So eventually I'm like let’s go, Kayden, like what happened?

[00:29:46] Tayson: And I was literally being like, he definitely either pop this pad, cut his Pad, open forgot a sleeping bag. Something major like that. And what was it? Well,

[00:29:57] Kayden: so I we sometimes hang up our tents to dry and after a trip or if they've been it's been washed or something like that line back in the warehouse so you can just

[00:30:09] Derek: throw him over.

[00:30:09] Kayden: And so when you wash it like you got to take off all the guidelines so it doesn't get caught in the wash and Covered that. My tent that I previously held up to dry. At had the one, the one I normally use had all the guidelines and things. I left that one at the office and I growed one that had no guy lines and it That have you been in a trekking? Pole tent. That's really important. And so I was like, shoot, what am I gonna do for the next six days? If I can't set up this tent, am I just gonna Cowboy this for like, the next forever, you know, and, or am I just gonna get inside the tent? And it's just gonna be like a sheet over my face for the whole night. And so I was kind of, I wasn't really, I was pretty nervous. And then luckily, Derek had some extra guidelines and so we were able to get it all figured out. They there were really nice and helped me, helped me with us, set up, that worked for the rest of the trip. But I

[00:31:05] Tayson: nervous extra cordage and she just a little bit of line here. A little bit of line there,

[00:31:11] Derek: but this point also keep in mind and wasn't convinced. He wanted to be there, like we got him to come

[00:31:16] Tayson: after that. He was not gonna be mad at me and Derek. Slightly pressuring him to come so

[00:31:24] Derek: he didn't make him. First of all, there was no forcing anyone but yeah he wasn't sure he wanted to be there yet, for sure, like he was, he was still figuring that out. And then his ten he was really He was concerned.

[00:31:38] Tayson: Yeah. Yeah, I will say this, I I've kind of forgot about this, but when I got out on trail, I was I was just severely under packed for calories for The first couple days and I was like, what? I don't know. I think I just thought it was like we're gonna get on trail later or I was gonna eat a bigger breakfast before getting on trail or just a mess. I was like if I felt like I was like three to 500 calories under on the day and I can I can really notice that. And so that was like a concern for me was like oh man, did I pack like this every day? Did I not quite get enough calories in? What did I what did I mess up here? Because I I was like almost like on the Wind River trip. If you go back to that trip for me where I accidentally left food in the car I felt like I was almost kiting my calories kind of the scene way and yeah wasn't super happy with that on the first day and I was like this is going to be held a whole trip is like I don't know I I cuz I pre-pack all my food for each day. and, Yeah, for whatever reason I was really under on the first day and that made me quite concerned. Comparatively Kate and over here had like five star meals for every meal. Oh

[00:32:50] Kayden: yeah,

[00:32:50] Derek: pounds and pounds of Yeah,

[00:32:56] Tayson: he's feeding squirrels, and all sorts of things. I'm just walking around the squirrel. Yeah,

[00:33:00] Kayden: I mean, you gotta understand for, for everyone. I mean, they know at the office, I well, actually on this trip, I acquired the new Trail named bird feed from Days Inn. Because, normally, at the office, I don't eat hardly anything. You know, I'll have all the good breakfast but then I just have granola bars and nuts and For the rest of the day. Basically, like

[00:33:24] Tayson: a handful of nuts for lunch, like everyday weirdest.

[00:33:27] Kayden: Yeah. Yeah, and then I basically just don't have dinner pretty regularly and so I end up usually having I'd estimate like somewhere between 1500 to 22 100 calories a day. I'm a pretty active guy so I definitely am on a deficit most of the time. And so going into this I was like, all right I'm gonna make it for six days. I gotta pack everything, you know, and so I just had about 3,000 calories per day and I

[00:33:56] Tayson: think he had more than that. I might have a lot more like waiting food than me. And that's what I packed. So, okay, I had like four, plus

[00:34:02] Kayden: it, paid it paid off. It was quite nice, very cushy

[00:34:06] Tayson: off him, whatever he was not finished. Yeah. Anyway, so I was nervous about that on day one. And then yeah, we got to Camp finished off the day pretty well, we got into Camp a little bit later than we wanted that I wanted but but not now like late. We're setting up like just as it got dark. And then Yeah went to bed, woke up the next day and I was kind of like holding my breath that everyone was okay. And I remember hearing Craig, I think talking to you Derek about, like, yeah, I was, I was thinking, I was gonna have to go home or something like, oh,

[00:34:52] Derek: crap, like Craig's got off Tuesday. Oh, yeah.

[00:34:55] Tayson: And anyways, I get out of my tent and talked to Craig, and apparently for whatever reason. In the night, he had just had Like this. I don't know what you call he essentially decided it was like it, like from heat, like he was just all tucked up in his in his sleeping bag. There's top quilt and just got overheated and woke up in his heart rate was like really really high and he like was almost like panicking or something like that. I don't remember. how we described it, but Yeah, kind of like hard

[00:35:29] Derek: catching his breath kind of a thing like he was just sounded kind of like packing. Me. Like he's freaking up kind of panicking or something. I don't, I don't really know.

[00:35:38] Tayson: He said, he almost called out to us for help in the middle of the night, like 1 a.m. or something like that. And then he's kind of realized like I think I just like a way overheated and hot and silly like got out completely out of this top quilt and laid there for like. So it took him like 20 or 30 minutes to like calm, his heart rate down, and his breath and stuff, and then he was fine and went back to sleep,

[00:35:56] Derek: which was like That's pretty pretty. Don't know what that was. Yeah, I

[00:36:02] Tayson: think that the consensus was that he got overheated in his bag because it yeah, I mean I was sleeping in a 30 degree bag and I was pretty

[00:36:10] Derek: warm. Well, we had just we had just completed a Wilderness, first aid certification. Like a couple weeks before, right? But nothing he was saying, made me like recognized anything. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what's going on at all. So we still are kind of like clueless about what actually happened there. But

[00:36:30] Tayson: yeah. Anyways, so I was glad when I got the story and he was feeling totally fine. I'm like, oh good, like I was for sure. We were sending two people home off this thing Trail, you know, and that he wasn't doing well. So Started the next day. And I think we started a little bit later than normal and we grabbed some water pretty close to camp and they kept going. But overall started A2, really smooth sailing about half not halfway but late morning, we got down and crossed a highway as a highway that went I think is 114 or something. That went down into Lake City. And so yeah, I would cross the highway, we talked to a hiker there that was headed into town and so there's kind of a shuttle that would take people down into Lake City, which is pretty cool. This seemed like that was a pretty major stopping point for a lot of through hikers. And then we climbed a couple thousand feet up to this massive Mesa and the heist across, this crazy big Mesa. I don't know why this makes it to me was so unique. like because the best day to describe it is, you are literally like right at I think 10,000 feet, maybe it's more and he was 11 11 maybe but for like 10 or so Street miles it was just like flat and almost like in three directions I guess you could say it was just really weird. Like I've never been that high up in the mountains and felt like I was walking across Kansas a giant

[Editor’s note: Starting near 12,500 feet, hydration and calorie comments, and Craig’s nighttime heat, breathing, and heart-rate experience are historical personal accounts. They do not diagnose altitude illness or establish prevention or treatment; use current qualified guidance and seek appropriate help for concerning symptoms.]

[00:38:10] Derek: Prairie looking things.

[00:38:11] Kayden: Yeah. Like a Pioneer

[00:38:12] Derek: you bugs in the Heat and

[00:38:15] Tayson: it was very hot. We were crossing it right in the middle of the day and that heat was brutal. I could feel like beating on my

[00:38:23] Derek: legs and stuff. You can tell when it's gonna rain, if you really pay attention to, you know, some of the humidity and stuff and the heat. Because even if the the forecast is like, hey, you're the temperatures are going to be this today or whatever it is. It's gonna feel hotter because humidity is going to increase, and the Sun is going to feel a little extra brutal before the, the storm clouds actually roll in, which was the case, every single day this week, just about a lot of the mornings and midday would be sunny and get really kind of humid and hot. and then, Then the clouds roll in and have some storms in the afternoon. But it was one of those humid kind of feeling hot times across those exposed Plains, I guess Mesa whatever you want to call it. No trees, no bushes, no nothing For shade or any kind of break from that.

[00:39:20] Tayson: Now, remind me was there something Was anyone feel have an issues at that point was Craig. I remember Craig was behind us a little bit but I think that was because he was he was just validating. He

[00:39:29] Derek: was filming. What's going on with him? No I don't think Craig had any issues he'd stopped and did some drone work. And so that also put him behind because he was Flying his drone a little bit. The trail was super narrow. The trail was really narrow instead of made you walk like this little model walk kind of a thing but your feet way more in front of each other than you would when you're normally walking. Hmm. So the trail was just uncomfortable but I don't think there was any real issues. I I was kind of towards the back at that time with Craig just because You know, when we were talking neither one of us really felt like going faster on that trail and it was hot like we're just gonna go whatever Pace we want so we did, but

[00:40:11] Tayson: yeah. Yeah, so we came across all that about the time we were getting to the end of that Mesa. We stopped for some water ran into a guy with our CS40 pack. That was crushing miles. He's doing like 30 miles a day, all the way from Denver. So that was cool to see. And man, I mean that's a lot of miles man. A lot of he said he was getting up at like 4 in the morning to start hiking every day. Super dedicated dude, to get that trail done quickly. But Yeah, I think we stopped. We stopped for lunch somewhere. he ate lunch as I'm pointing, I don't remember where that

[00:40:47] Derek: was when we were climbing up away on Highway Crossing

[00:40:51] Tayson: that was not for water and then we went up through some really cool passes that were, there were some cool views and we cut her on this big kind of basin looking thing and and everything was going good. We're doing good miles. I was feeling good, at least and Yeah, no no real complaints. I don't think for many of us. We were just working our plan and We we get up to the top of kind of the climb and we could see some storm clouds rolling in. And so we're kind of thinking, well, let's try to get, you know, down and off the top and and whatnot. And so we start moving down and off the top. Derek and Kayden were in front. I was then hiking and Craig was in the back and we came around this band and I was like man that is so pretty like that would be a great picture shop. And there's a guy coming up and so I kind of stepped off the trail step back on the trail to keep going. And then I just hear like, some commotion behind me and like, oh, you, all right? And I turn around and Craig is just like the yard sales off of the trail down below the trail and I'm like, what the heck just happened? Like, he could tell he clearly had fallen. And so, we turned around, I turn around hustle back up there to see what's going on. And I just kind of thinking like, I don't know I wasn't thinking anything too severe just you know slipped or something like that and took a took a little tumble and like it up there. I can see his knees, like, cut up and bleeding and he's got like his drone like laying over here. His camera or something was laying over here and I mean, it's like yard sale and I was like, holy smokes and so that the guy that passing us like he stops and kind of Is there for a minute with us talking, but I wasn't sure how bad it was or what was going on. And he's just saying like, oh my ankle is really what's hurting And so yeah. He he had come around that corner and thought the same thing I had thought which is man, this would be a great picture and so he was going to pull out his camera, so he had his chest rig open. Grabbed his camera out and then right at that same time, it kind of sees the guy coming in the opposite direction and just totally stumbles on a rock. Kind of tries to catch himself twists, his ankle tumbles off the trail yard sales, the Drone and batteries out of his front chest pocket. And Yeah, he so he ended up massively twisting his ankle. These guys don't know, they're just kept cruising. We were concerned about Craig.

[00:43:22] Derek: We were like half a mile and we hadn't. We hadn't seen him fall. We couldn't even see those guys because like the curvature of the trail and the train, so we had no idea that they were right behind us. And and so we stopped at some point and we end up waiting there for like, 45 minutes. Like what what is happening here about to start hiking back up and and then we start. seeing and Craig Allen along and kind of the ridge over and

[00:43:49] Tayson: yeah, so we we kind of got him back up on his feet and at that point I took his tripod and I took his chest rig and just anything I could that was like camera gear and I put that on my pack and I was like Holy crap, this is so heavy. Like he had a lot of stuff like I was like, dude, your chest rate has to wait nine, ten pounds and you have that right on your chest. Which means It's not like in your backpack where you can use a frame to disperse that down to your your hips, like it's like right on your shoulders and then, is his tripod had to wait three four pounds. So I was like, dude, you're like hiking around with like 13 to 15 more pounds than us this entire time. But first thing I notice when I put that chest straight on to is I couldn't see my feet anymore. So I also the first thing, very first thing crossed, my mind was, like, I can't see my feet, like, it would be way easier to trip now, right? So I don't know that ended up being a factor or not, but so we got him up on his feet kind of walking down. We went, we walked about three or 400 yards to a flat spot. And then we sat down and pulled out the Leukotape and whatnot. And A try to tape up his ankle and then he put his sock on a real tight sock on but he was he was moving, slow moving real slow, real painful you could tell and he just kept talking about how he had already done this to his ankle where he torn a ligament before. And so he knew what that was like. and he's like I don't think that happened, you know, I didn't hear like this loud pop or, you know, Type of thing, but he's like, it's but it hurts as bad as that essentially. Yeah, we eventually catch up to these guys. They waited for us, and now we're filming. Like, we're like an hour behind schedule and on, and when you're doing 25 mile days, you don't have an hour of leeway. Allow leeway means an hour of not sleeping or something like that. Like not at camp in your tent or

[00:45:50] Derek: well. And the other thing those clouds that Tayson mentioned we'd seen. They were getting close and actually right after Tayson and Craig caught up to us. When I started just dumping rain and lightning. There's lightning all over the place. So we actually dropped low enough to get back into some trees for a minute, right? When they caught up to us, which was nice because then we could throw on a rain jackets and actually keep hiking. Uh, how do we timed it any differently? We would have been on top of something in the middle of the lightning or it just would have been pretty bad. Potentially, your feet. Were soaked. All those the water coming off on the trees. I remember my shoes were just stopping web with freezing water and it was, it was quite chilly. It was good.

[00:46:32] Tayson: Yeah, that's particular Trail Runners, right? Is like, You your feet are easy to get wet, but easy to dry. And you just have to kind of embrace that, because The GORE-TEX shoe a waterproof membrane shoe. Once they get wet inside, just don't drive like ever. It takes so much time. And, and he and, and are and stuff to drive them out. So, yeah. It is kind of an interesting thing. Especially when you throw on things, like rain pants and you're wearing show Runners, because rain pants, then basically funnel water down your leg. And we're going to land, it's gonna land right in your shoe, you know? Yeah, he get what pretty quick with that colder water. But, yeah, thankfully, we did not have to go across anything to expose or open when the lightning was there, because Have lightning. Whatever. Come a couple hours earlier like we could have been on that. Massive Mesa with not a single tree in sight. Yeah, for Miles. You know, it would have been Kind of there just was a lot more exposure early in the day. So we were pretty happy to have made it through there. But yeah, Craig was moving pretty good on flat ground and he was climbing pretty well. and then when we go to go downhill, He just would like, slowed significantly down. So, we're aware of that. And we went to go do this climb. And this climb was, it was like, this is the stupidest one. I had all the camera gear at this point, I think. And so we go to this climb and it was not even that like I don't know. I called it a nickname to StairMaster Hill because it just was like you were on a stair climbing machine. I know switchbacks know you just straight up this really steep mountain and I'm hiking in the back and that's when my mood got a little dark on me, as I was just like, this is really sucks. They are like, these guys are kind of like walking away from me on the hill and I'm like, I don't care. I'm not gonna try to chase him down, I'd like, but really, like I could just that wait, that extra whatever was 13 pounds was just like, The second I put it on. It was just so freaking significant. And so I kept telling her Craig, I'm like, dude, I cannot believe you hike the first day and a half, with all this weight and kept up with us, I cannot believe you know, but that's it. Been training his butt off. He'd been training his butt off in the fit dude, and was just mentally ready for that. I was super super impressed because I would not have done that.

[00:49:01] Derek: Yeah, he was prepped.

[00:49:04] Tayson: Yeah he was crushing it. So we get to the top of StairMaster Hill and we said hey we're gonna maybe drop down in here go our normal Pace on the downhill and look for a camping spot and just get to us when you get to us Craig Thinking he was gonna like significantly slow down. Like he had been. So we dropped down off that hill. We run into a guy laying in his tent. What was his name is? Poncho, Poncho. Oh, he was a really cool guy. Just he was in the CDT and he was in. No hurry. Like he was just enjoying the heck out of those shows. Yeah. Taking quite a few zero days and in towns and just so he was all about you know chatting with us and it was good, it was good to talk with him. Yeah, he had, I don't know he'd recognized this from song, you know, from from just some of the content I think we've produced and so we got talking to him. But Craig came right down, the hill and was like, oh man, he was not very much and so at that point I'm going he's good, he's good. Totally make this Trail work. Like he's he's gonna, you know, he just fine. If he could do that, that drop steep. Drop down that fast. I think he's gonna be totally good. So as we hiked up, we decide to we kind of had a big debate and we ended up deciding to stop before the next big pass and we found a really awesome Camp spot and had some good dinner at there and Camp got camp, set up. And we basically talked through the next day. The next day we had a couple things. Number one, we had to figure out if Craig was gonna go off the trailer or not. He was not sure what he was going to be able to do. He was not sure if you needed to turn around. A lot of variables, you know, in my head like I said, I'm like, oh Craig's, Craig's fine, you know, he's he's been, he's able to hike, you know, five more miles after the anchor rule on the same day. I think he's gonna be just fine. Specially my biggest thing was we just need to carry his camera gear and he'll be fine. Like that's what I was thinking but the other thing was, there was a 14,000 foot Peak that's just off the trail here called San Luis Peak, and I want to do this 14er. So I lobbied and again to come with me, but he told me to pound sand and I had already brought him on the crazy, hi there. And that's no. But, but ended up being that, that Craig was the one who wanted to do the peak with me, but he wasn't, he didn't think he could well, for sure. He wasn't gonna do the peak after he rolled his ankle. So the next morning, the plan was for me to get up an hour before everyone else, hit the trail early, these guys, you know, sleep, maybe another hour, and then get up with Craig and start hiking and see how Craig's gonna feel. And then we'd meet up in the afternoon because I was going to go up and over the peak. And then down another drainage that linked back to the trail. And these guys were just gonna stay right on the Colorado, travel the whole time. So Um yeah, for my perspective though, got up and started hiking and it was, it was awesome, saw herds of L saw deer. Beautiful passes. I like hiking in the morning like that. Got a just got a lot of miles in early in the morning. got to the peak and You know, just like any Peak, it was really good and tell you realize that you thought you were at the top and

[00:52:18] Derek: your halfway up. Actually, yeah, it's hard

[00:52:22] Tayson: but now for the most part, like hiking the top of the peak width went really smooth for me. I got up there. I was only person there, I stayed there, 30 minutes at least, maybe more. And just me and the spiders up there, there's a big old spiders. Stuff. But no, it was incredible. I I love that. The views were just fantastic, so cool to be up that high. And just be looking down at all these other massive mountains like it's it's a weird experience to be like, usually when you're standing on a 12,000 foot Peak, you're like standing on the tallest peak around. So it's weird to be on a 14,000 foot Peak, be looking down at 13 and 12,000 foot Peaks and just realize, like you're looking down at them, right? It's like a weird experience, but just, yeah. Just just incredible. That went, like, perfect. In my mind, the whole time I was up there. I was like, looking down at the trail, like, way below me for three dudes, hiking. And I swear, I saw him but I, you know, and never never fully sure, but because it was a long ways off. And then for me, I, you know, after I was like, okay I'm gonna be I'm gonna be behind in my better hustle, so then I turn around and go off the back side of that Peak. And holy smokes, it was steep great Trail. It was a really well maintained Trail, but really steep to my knowledge. It's the first time that I've ever liked taking a sip of my water out of my water bottle, put it back on my pack hike for 15 minutes. Grab my water bottle again, and it was like dimpled and shrunk from losing that much elevation that fast. Like, has that happened to me before? Yes. But not in 15 minutes. Yeah. Like, what's the point? Like it was just so steep of a drop off and I was hustling, I was really moving fast because in my head, I was gonna be behind you guys as that. Maybe I climbed the peak too slow or they spent too much time at the top of the peak. So I'm like, I don't want these guys waiting on me. So Yeah, I was, I was moving to get off of there but did the big drop and then it's like him, I don't know, like a 10 mile pole, just down this long Canyon with nothing but a beaver. Pond after Beaver, Pond after Beaver, I've never seen, I mean, this is gotta be like where they go to study beavers because this is just nothing but pawns for like seven plus miles. But yeah, it was really good. Didn't really get any rain, any, whether it was cool and on the 14th clouds, go by Man, they were like. Insanely fast and insanely close, which I really enjoyed watching, but but I eventually got down to where I would cross the trail and these guys were there. So it's like, okay, so I sat down ate my lunch and like late lunch is like two in the afternoon or something and then I put my feet up and tried to take a snooze. And after I don't 30 minutes or so a guy walked by and I was like, Hey, Zirk is there? I think there's some guys may be looking for you or you hiking us. Some other guys, I'm like, oh yeah. and, He's like, I was like, yeah, there should be three of them and he's like, oh no, there's just two of them. I was like, what? Yeah, it's just too. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Like, maybe the other maybe one of them just hiking behind the rest of them or maybe they will hike to Inferno Craig or something. And you know, those probably five ten minutes later you guys show up and I'm like, Where's Craig?

[00:55:50] Derek: By the way. Well, so we got up just like the plan a little bit later. Like, I don't, I was probably only like 30 40 minutes later than you chasing when we were actually started to kind of get up and pack up, tents and stuff. But immediately the first thing Craig says to me, when I pop out of my tents like dude, I'm not feeling good. I'm like, well, that's not a good thing to hear his ink like I guess. Fell way worse when he woke up and he was still wanted to try and see how it felt once he like warmed up a little bit and was like walking on it and see if that loosen things up any muscles or whatever and made a little more bearable but you know, we packed up and We were carrying a little bit of his camera gear, not much and, and he walked about 50 yards with us down the trail. And then said, no, this isn't gonna happen fellas. And he decided he was gonna turn around hike about 15 miles back that we've done the day before to the Highway 114 and catch around a ride down into Lake City. So that's what he did. So be he wanted this camera gear back. He said you know, I'm gonna take my time you know, I'm basically he was gonna have to wait for us. In Lake City for until Saturday anyways. And this is Tuesday or not. At this point, it was Wednesday morning. Yeah. So He said yeah I'll take my time go slow take it easy. Kind of baby is ankle and I would kind of his plan just had just had to go 15 miles to that Trailhead where the highway crosses the trail. And so like we said, okay oh we'd found out that the Garmin in reach that I had been packing. He plan on that deactivated so I didn't check it before. We left

[00:57:35] Tayson: always test your Garmin devices before you.

[00:57:38] Derek: So I did have a Garmin device. Could I use it? No, not even a little bit. So I had no way of contacting Tayson or Craig. So I told him, hey, you've already swapped contact information with Tayson, message him, tell him what's going on Sunday, message to his in reach. and, Then we split ways, Kayden and I started up this big, massive pass that we'd had to do first thing, and I don't know. I really enjoyed that first Three quarters of that day, you know, I don't know about you kidding, but that was awesome. I mean, I loved seeing those passes in the morning, it was still early enough. That the sun is still just Rising a little bit or it's still pretty low. And then the weather seemed really, really good. And just had a lot of fun going up to where you turn off to go up that Peak. and at that point, it was the We had like 10 miles of just downhill from there and that was nice, just really easy and we were cruising pretty fast. So yeah I enjoyed it when we got to you know where the trails merged, where Tayson was sitting there taking a little siesta. It was about I think three in the afternoon 245 or so and So yeah, up until that point we I think we started hiking around 6 for like 16 miles down or something.

[Editor’s note: Craig’s fall, ankle pain and swelling, taping, footwear discussion, lightning exposure, continued travel, solo turnaround, inactive communicator, route choice, and Lake City exit describe this specific 2025 trip. They are not injury, footwear, weather, navigation, or emergency-response guidance.]

[00:58:54] Tayson: By the time we met up. Yeah

[00:58:55] Derek: we had 16 miles down for the day at that point and at one point and I we were we were a little bit concerned for you Tayson because there had been a little miscommunication that I before it turns out. And see, Tayson said oh yeah, it's like less miles. If you do the peak actually just more elevation, which was true with how where he went, but we didn't understand that you were going along that wash the whole way. You see, if you go up to the San Luis Peak. you come down the other side, then there's a trail that tees into the Colorado Trail, Way sooner and just have to come at mileage. So mi 84,

[00:59:33] Tayson: right? Off that basement and down.

[00:59:35] Derek: Yeah. And like, and we looked at that on the map because I had FarOut on my phone. I didn't, you know, I still had maps and stuff downloaded like, I don't know what Tayson is smoking. He's doing way more miles than us coming down here, but And somebody had said something about mileage, or eight miles to this or that, right? And it was exactly eight miles for us where that trail. Cheat in and so we were like really confused, where’s Tayson, you know, should we wait here and ultimately after I think 20 minutes we decided

[01:00:08] Tayson: are you guys actually stopped for 20 minutes?

[01:00:10] Kayden: We were kind of walking back and forth.

[01:00:12] Derek: We wanted to see if there was another Trail or is there another Trail

[01:00:15] Kayden: because it was kind of a small trail that came into it. Like it was very clear but it wasn't marked really. You know, it

[01:00:22] Tayson: was a Trill on Matt.

[01:00:24] Derek: It was a trail on the map and had a big post next to it.

[01:00:27] Kayden: Yeah. It was like a cutout I think is a cutout Trail. Yeah. Interesting. And so

[01:00:33] Derek: we we kind of just ended up after 20 minutes of walking back and forth like oh is there another Trail? Or we missed it or something? We decided to put some rocks down, spell out o v, put an arrow. I don't know how he's gonna miss understand this so we kept going

[01:00:50] Tayson: Stewart. Creek cut off Trail.

[01:00:52] Kayden: Yeah

[01:00:52] Derek: so yeah. We left a little note for you there and you're rude enough to not read it but

[01:01:00] Kayden: I think for me the second and third day, we're interesting because I think For me, the second day was kind of like one of those. so, when you build a really bad paper airplane, Throw it and it goes up. And kind of levels out for a second, then it just plummets. It was like it was a great day and then turn my day two with Craig. Yeah, it was like we were going along for a while and I just like Derek I really like it when we got some weather because it just is prettier. It's more cool, we're waiting for a while and I was like feeling on top of the world, everything was pretty. And then when we saw Craig was injured, I think that's when everything started to go downhill because We knew that at the end of the day, we were going to have that really huge climb. Not the the one after this

[01:01:47] Derek: air mass here, Kayden was geared up to do. that huge climb that we started Wednesday morning with and he was, he was geared himself up all afternoon, Tuesday, we were hiking together and he was He was ready to do that. He was like I want to get this over with essentially. Yeah.

[01:02:02] Kayden: Like I'm finding a climb but I'm a momentum guy. And so I think once once Craig's, ankle was hurt, that kind of started to set the tone for me, like, oh, shoot, this isn't This isn't good and then the storm started and so it got worse and worse. And so I didn't want to Circle back on it too much, but I think the end of the second day was my low point because we got there and I was really cold and beat her soaked. We're camping at the base of this huge mountain that we had to climb the next morning and I was just like something, this is not great, you know? And I was enjoying it up to that point. It was all good but I was kind of a low point but then So I was kind of debating back and forth whether or not to the fourteener. And I was like, I'm gonna be tired anyway. I'll just I'll just go with everybody else and I woke up when you did, or when you were setting things up and I was like, should I just get out and do it and I slept in instead, but this but the third day was really, I think I woke up and was really recharged and Did that climb? And just like Derek was saying, it was just super, super beautiful, getting up over that saddle and One thing that you guys didn't mention though, was that started pouring for like a good or raining? Pretty good

[01:03:15] Derek: for a good chunk of the third day. So we were, we were pretty soaked for at least we were for a while. Just like walking through all those all before we met up with Tayson. Yeah. On the downhill. They started raining. Yeah.

[01:03:26] Kayden: Which wasn't a problem. Like it was all downhill, it was super pretty but we definitely got really wet.

[01:03:31] Derek: Yeah. The first five miles of Wednesday, though, we were having fun. I was I think you're having a good time for sure. But Kayden was like, man, he was feeling way better after sleeping you know after hiking a couple miles of shoes and feet they were dry. They were fine. You know comfortable. So he was feeling good. He's like maybe I should have just gotten up and hiked that Peak. And then like you should have here. We got actually close to the peak. He's like, no, no, no, no. Like, I I'm glad I didn't do that.

[01:03:58] Kayden: Yeah. Well, especially the next couple of days when Tayson was like man my what was it? It was a specific muscle. You kept talking about my tips, your tips, my toasted tips is my tips that day, that's afterwards. I was just like, yeah, I don't regret it it would have been cool but like I'm glad my kids aren't toasted

[01:04:26] Derek: and me. I like this whole time even from since he's had been kind of in different on the peak and I was like that I want to put in the effort to go. Do it like I've been on,

[01:04:38] Tayson: you know, to be doing 25 miles a day, 25 miles a day and then to go and I'm gonna do an extra

[01:04:45] Derek: thing. You know, that's actually 1200 feet.

[01:04:48] Tayson: Even me. I was like I really don't want to do this but I can't not do it. Like to me it's just like I would to me I really went back to the like is the pain of regret going to be worse than the pain of doing the peak and I thought it was I thought I would regret it more if I didn't do the peak. So that was like my fuel. But yeah, I was like It's not easy to be okay. I gotta hike 25 miles tomorrow and I'm just gonna tack on another. I don't know what it was 1000

[01:05:11] Kayden: or 50 to 1200

[01:05:12] Tayson: years, something like that. You know on top of that already full long day. So yeah, I don't blame these guys for not doing it but you did, you did miss out, you know. So um but no I mean to what Kayden is saying though, by the time I got to the bottom because I had rushed, you know, dropped all that elevation and rushed down that Canyon, seven miles, all still downhill when I got to that little rest area. I was like, I might have overdone that. I might have gone a little too hard and a little too fast on the downhill. I'm because I could I could feel it in my legs and I've had a lot of experience specifically with the Grand Canyon and some stuff where I've just done a ton of downhill and it's just wrecked me. and I was feeling some of those signs and so I was I was nervous about that but Anyways, we met up and then we started down this next big draw. And lots more Beaver boss more Beaver Pond. Oh those cross the river at one point and almost made it

[01:06:16] Derek: without getting a Speedway tomorrow.

[01:06:22] Tayson: Um, yeah, lots of really cool Beaver. Ponds, one of the cool things that stood out that day, is we started to see these game trails that would come straight down the side of the mountain. I'm like, I don't ever see game trails that kind of do that. And then I started to realize oh these game Trails go right down to these pawns. And like I can't imagine that they need water that bad that they're doing this beeline, straight down these steep, steep side Hill, straight to the pond and like five feet apart, some of these trips. Yeah. And then I'm like, wait a second. Now, there's like there's multiple of these things beaten in like only a few feet apart. And like, oh my gosh, these are where Beaver or Dragon trees down to these ponds, because there was just so many Beaver, ponds, it was really cool. I actually would love to go back there, like fly fish and these beavers I think it would be beautiful and a lot of fun. But

[01:07:06] Kayden: some place you could, we were up on a hill and you could see the fish in the pond that was really cool.

[01:07:11] Tayson: Yeah, yeah, really, really cool. But all this is all. So all we cannot forget about this. That's not for dinner. and, We found out that Derek had lost his spoon. Love the whole again. Again, this is not a first occurrence. He has lost his,

[01:07:33] Derek: my friend. Yes, Tyler lost my spoon on one of our other big trips. It wasn't me.

[01:07:38] Tayson: Okay? That is that is mostly true on a fastpacking trip. We did years ago. Tyler lost his spoon. So then Tyler and Derek were not only sharing a tent but also a spoon at this point. And The spoon got lost. So unlike the last night so they didn't, I think that they didn't really need the spoon the next day or something. But anyway, so Derek had lost two spoons now while backpacking. And so, when he lost the spoon, I gave him some heck for a while, but Barta my knife. He made some Chopsticks and he literally ate with chopsticks for like A couple days a couple days and

[01:08:19] Derek: I have joking with my dude you know you're gonna oh we didn't talk about this either. The first time he lost his

[01:08:25] Tayson: spoon, it was relocated in the bottom of Tyler's.

[01:08:30] Derek: I don't really want to know how it got there. I didn't. There's Sharon the spoon and somehow this big Tyler at that point.

[01:08:51] Tayson: So, I'll just gonna leave this to you guys imaginations. And anyway, so I was joking with them, like, well just check your top quilt and did you know, like I'm sure you've got your spoon somewhere there, you just gotta find where you, where you put this thing, you know, and

[01:09:07] Derek: so up, until that point, I've been keeping my spoon in the outer mesh pocket of my backpack, so I can just grab it really easy, and I didn't really care if it was getting washed by the rain for me or anything through that mesh, and that's where it was. And I also stuff like my rain jackets in there and so I thought, oh dang, like when we met up with Tayson, it was raining pretty good. Maybe I whipped out my rain jacket. I hadn't been, I wore my rain jacket for most of the day, but also when we met up, I started wearing rain pants as well, because the rain got a little bit worse after we met Tayson. So, I'm like, maybe, when I whipped out, my rain pants out of this big mesh pocket it. Maybe it's slid, the spoon out, and I didn't notice So I thought it was just gone miles back and I was hoping to go back for it like 10 miles for it. So we let me with chopsticks.

[01:10:00] Tayson: for a little while and I'm gonna skip ahead to this part of the story because

[01:10:04] Derek: Two days later that is like two or three days later. Yeah,

[01:10:08] Tayson: I just hear, I remember what I hear. Just You let out some kind of exclamation of surprise or excitement or something. And I was like, whoa, what happened there? What what did happen?

[01:10:24] Derek: I found my spoon still in that mesh pocket where I've been putting it the whole time. I think, when I've been looking for on Wednesday night for dinner it, I guess it must have got like shoved underneath some of the backpack or my ring gear maybe. And I thought, I'd like, put my hand all in there and checked everywhere for it and that pocket, and I'd missed it. So, Yeah, for a couple days. I've been using my, my Chopsticks, the one point three stars. Oh yeah, we asked me what I would rate my Chopsticks after my dinner, with my

[01:10:54] Tayson: one to 10,

[01:10:55] Derek: they were not good. They were created him a one star one star where we wasn't really great like Greenery around to make chopsticks from. It was like these scraggly not very straight, not very sturdy bushes. So they're really flimsy, really skinny chopsticks. So yeah, definitely like a 1.3 star rating,

[01:11:19] Tayson: you know? So To recap their glossed, the spoon for two days and it was relocated in the exact spot, he put it to begin with. I swear to you, I did not take a spoon and re-put it and see. but, The bigger part of this is, we were all using our new Shadowlight backpack. That's going to be released this September. And there's so much storage in this sub. Two bound backpack that you can lose things, so there you are.

[01:11:52] Derek: Yeah, that's maybe not the best. Spoon pocket.

[01:11:57] Tayson: Or it is. That's where I keep my spoon. I never lost it. So yeah, lots of storage. Lots of storage in that pack, but we'll Circle back to gear anyway. So we finished that day. Things are going well. I will say that all of us, I think after hiking in the rain and also crossing the river I think a few of us started to get some blisters or sore feet or Tender feet by the end of that day. I know I did develop a blister. Now, I don't know if I chalk that up to the HOKA Speedgoats. I was hiking in the newest version has not been my most favorite version of them. But I actually think it's probably just more of my lack of doing as much training. I wasn't my feet weren't as calloused up, you know, but oh, and I was using some older socks and I put a hole in my socks. I can like, they were clearly. They were clearly done and I was still taking him out on another 100 miles that I shouldn't have. So yeah I actually developed some blisters ended up taping those up with Leukotape and that tape held for the rest of the trip just fine and and I was fine the rest of the trip. But yeah, I finished that day with tender feet and some Some that I was worried about because I had overworked my my Tibbs on the downhill. Which I know for me when I do that it developed into some knee pain. So I was a little nervous about those things but Overall, good day. Yeah, great day. I love that day. I really good. So then we're starting off on Thursday and we don't get too far out of Camp before we passed some people. That are like oh man there's some trail magic up ahead. You guys are gonna love it. They've got everything. And they pass. And Kayden over here. Like wait, there's magic ahead like a wizard or what's Trail man. He had heard of Trail magic. Just

[01:13:54] Kayden: some old guy passing out, like weed or something.

[01:13:57] Tayson: So for those of you don't know, Trail magic is, you know, when people basically come back onto the trail and do acts of kindness or service for people and there's typically called Trail angels and so this Trail Angels come back and a lot of times it's, you know, given food sometimes it's, you know, passing out other things. Sometimes it's shuttling people into town, you know, they're kind of get labeled as as Trail angels, that are just helping people on the trail. Um, anyway, so we went up hiking up there. And yeah, it was, it was incredible. This guy had a sun canopy setup and it was just packed full of drinks and food of all varieties. Whether it's peanut butter jelly, like Uncrustables chips. Pickles, we just been talking about

[01:14:47] Derek: a bag of chips that. Oh, so

[01:14:50] Tayson: you're talking about what we would trade for bag of chips at one of these campers, we were hiking, so

[01:14:53] Derek: that Thursday morning, we actually had a quite a few sections of just like, roads that, you know, the trail is going through roads before it turned back into Trail again for a number of miles. And so we knew that we'd be passing some RVs and like, oh, we just go knock on one of these doors and say, yeah, see what we can trade for bag of chips. And this guy was just giving away chips. So it worked out.

[01:15:13] Kayden: He was a nice guy.

[01:15:15] Tayson: Super nice guy, an OV customer. It was cool to just talk with him. Yeah, I actually so you guys remember his name? I like locked in my memory to come back and try to find him and our customer database because I knew his first name and where he lived and I was going to send him something. And I couldn't find him. And so if you're listening, And I'll recognize your name, the second. I see it again and I'm just, I'm just pulling a blank right now. But yeah, if you write into customer support and just let them know you're, you're that guy. I would love to send you something just to say thanks. But yeah, I was really, really cool. So we all, you know, grab a drink, grab some food sat there for a little while. And then, essentially, he kind of informed us because we haven't looked ahead too much. That we were gonna start off on a very Long flat rotated section of the Colorado trail with with not much water. Well, no water for a big push of it. Yeah, And that summarizes the day. That's lots of Roads. Yeah,

[01:16:21] Derek: not a lot of water to filter but we didn't really drink. I

[01:16:24] Tayson: don't know, we didn't drink

[01:16:25] Derek: here. The roads are roads are not steep, they're not crazy.

[01:16:29] Kayden: Yeah yeah,

[01:16:30] Tayson: just easy. The clams are very long with, they were Steep and exhausting. You were hiking on a technical Trail so you could really just kind of unplug your brain and just move. So we carry a really good speed the whole day.

[01:16:42] Kayden: It's awesome. Rabbits, that weren't afraid of us at all. Huge, huge eyes, and they were just, they were just chilling.

[01:16:50] Tayson: Yeah, that's right. Tried to get Kayden to catch one. Yeah. So yeah, we we do that hike and then we hear as we're like 10 miles from him. Oh there's some there's another group doing. Trail magic up ahead and we're like, that's a two, two trial magic sandal and they're like, oh yeah, but they're they're actually working on the Colorado Trail. They're volunteer crew that helps me the Colorado Trail and if you just go to their camp or their tent there, they'll give you whatever you want. Food was like, no way like this is rein spoiled. Yeah. Okay. Anyways, but sure enough. We hiked up there and the Colorado Trail. Association. Was there and they were working on a section of Trail and they eat. Well, if there's one thing to know. If you go volunteer to go work on the Colorado Trail, they feed you well that night they were making pizzas for the trail crew and yeah, I was really cool. I mean we didn't get pizza but they literally were making like snacks for us. So we had like friends and crackers and made like a bread with avocado and cheese or something on

[01:18:01] Derek: its all cream cheese,

[01:18:03] Tayson: so good. It was so,

[01:18:05] Derek: like a big cooler full, like, whatever drink Gator on the Mountain Dew. You want to cope, whatever? Just

[01:18:11] Tayson: yeah. So good. Yeah. And it was cool to just kind of get to know the camp there in their life. One of our, we had another lady there, that was a customer and I talked to her for quite a while and just I had a lot of questions you know, about Camp and what it was like. And it's just cool to kind of learn first-hand like, how many volunteers she's introduced me to people that have been one lady. She introduced me to have been a volunteering for the Colorado. Trail working on Trails since 1990. Yeah, like as long as I've been alive,

[01:18:41] Derek: that's incredible, you know.

[01:18:46] Tayson: So yeah, I was just it was really such a cool atmosphere. There's also a kid that was there, his dad works at the Colorado Trail and we kind of followed him up to the camp there. And that kid was really close to finishing the entire Colorado. The trail and I want to say he was either 11 or 13. So just incredible feature but yeah, really inspiring. I think it's so cool to see that kind of stuff and to see it takes the right kid to latch on this stuff like that. I don't think every kid just has that driver has that ability. As a parent, you're always trying to like Encourage them to have those kinds of things but it's really cool that he was into it enough to hike that much with his dad. So really cool to see that. But man, he's shout out to the CT crew there and and just thanks again for for I think I smashed a couple. So those, they were hit us five. It was

[01:19:40] Kayden: much appreciated. Yeah, so

[01:19:41] Derek: good.

[01:19:42] Tayson: But I had to kept telling him that this wasn't reality. Not get used to it. Yeah, we had a drag these guys out of there a little bit, because

[01:19:49] Derek: we spent a good amount of time with the first trail angel and we're chatting it up and, and enjoying that. And then we hide some more and got to this, you know, the Colorado Trail Association tent and we, we hung out. For quite a while. Also and so, We had a little bit of a hard time dragging ourselves out because we're like, well we still got a bunch of miles to do tonight. And anyways, got out of there and got a hike on their brand new Trail. A couple miles out of camp and and kept going. Yeah,

[01:20:15] Kayden: it was nice though.

[01:20:16] Derek: It's a good push. It was yeah, it was it was a nice evening Tayson mentioned on Wednesday. A couple of us me, especially me and Tayson, I think we probably complained about it the most but we really were having tender feet. And by the end of Thursday, my tender feet had come back full force. What I what I found is after Wednesday, I'd go for half a day after sleeping and being off my feet, feeling, totally fine. And then throughout the afternoon, and into the evening, they just gradually get worse and worse and worse and worse in terms of like how painful it would be to take a step muscle wise Fitness wise. I don't think I was having any problems fueling had plenty. It was just every step was feeling painful on the bottoms of my feet because they're just tender. I think maybe I shouldn't have used the shoes that I actually have had those for two years but I didn't go on the 100-mile trip. Last summer, they probably still got another 100 mi in there, but I didn't like three year old shoes. Yeah, but like I'm like oh I've only been like training in these for a couple years and you know, this year, especially I've been training less. I'm like they probably have enough miles left in them, but in retrospect, I think that the padding on them probably was a big part of. What did me, did me dirty there with tender feet throughout the rest of the week when we talked about this to that? I think because like my

[01:21:38] Tayson: feet got more and more tenders. It went along. And I had like a different pair of shoes that I almost brought that just are like, more padded like bigger padding and I was like, but they're a little bit more heavy, it's just not worth it in hindsight, I kind of think it might be worth it. Like I'm not saying bring a heavy pair of shoes. They're still very lightweight pair of shoes but that's like if that's like where the most discomfort is coming from. Like

[01:22:06] Derek: Yeah, it wasn't like you're struggling to keep up mileage. It's like you just buy my next day, you know,

[01:22:14] Tayson: we're giving him like a little bit of a bubble of like, you know, like it was affecting all of you as far as like The discomfort then shreds into like how you feel about being there at that time? Yeah. Like I don't really want to be here anymore. This isn't fun anymore like as it does as soon as you start to have pain and consistent pain. It's very easy to be like to get in your own head and be like, okay I don't want to be here anymore. Yes you know like or this is just painful and then our every step you're just reminded like this is painful. This is painful. This is pain.

[01:22:44] Derek: Friday morning was okay, mentioned Tuesday night being his low point of the trip. Friday morning was my low points of the trip. That was definitely like mentally with Tayson talking about where I was the lowest mentally because of the just tender feet, which sounds like a silly thing right now. When we're talking about it. But then it was a big deal for me and it was really bringing down my morale and just Not fun. Let me take a step. Isn't Fun, you know. So right

[01:23:15] Tayson: section 2. I think it was part of mourning, right where it was just so much rocks

[01:23:20] Derek: and everything was rocked.

[01:23:21] Kayden: This was out full force.

[01:23:24] Derek: The sun was it was doing that. You know what I mentioned before is doing that like hey it's gonna rain later to get extra humid and sunny kind of a thing so it was kind of hot and everything was Rocky and I'm like why are we here? You know.

[01:23:39] Tayson: yeah, we gotta stop in and I told Derek, I said, you know, my, my cowboy old grandpa used to tell me that if you take off your boots, And put them up above your heart, that it really helps reset your feet and take like paint out of them. So we took like a like a little 10 minute lay down and we just all put our feet up and laid on the ground, on our, on our little mats

[01:23:59] Derek: and it actually helped. I don't really know the science of anatomy and how everything works. But I imagine the blood coming out of my feet a little bit helped. They didn't for what for sure. What I know is they didn't hurt so bad after we did that and so I made sure every break after that to try to put my feet up and that way it kind of prolonged the worst of the pain you know from from coming on because like I mentioned after I slept like the first thing in the morning, I felt super great. I don't really have problems with sore muscles. I'm not really feeling fatigued. Otherwise, I feel great. It was just my feet that really were bothering me. And so, Around noon is when I turned around things on on that Friday low Point most Friday morning but around noon, that's when things kind of Switched for me. And you know, after really applying that You know, raise your feet up trick enough times. I'm like, okay, this is this is doable. This is gonna be enjoyable, we're in some really cool places and I was able to enjoy the rest of Friday a lot. I really, I really did have a good time the rest of Friday, but I do not do not dispute. My attitude was trash. My attitude was trash Friday for sure. Friday morning.

[01:25:17] Tayson: Friday though was was, you know, it's crazy. It's when you really just stop and think about how far we hiked in a single day, like something about like that Friday like where we started. Like all the different terrain, we went through that day. and you cover a long distance over, just a sign up, the Sundown High, which is exactly what we're doing, you know, and The second half of that day, like we just could not have had better. Weather on this entire trip, we started to get some like drizzling rain on us, but it was like so little that almost wasn't even worth putting a rain jacket on some of us kind of did. And then you wouldn't and then you put it on. Yeah. Like, because it was so little rain. But what that really meant is that it, like was keeping the Temptations, just really cool and the views were just really pretty, you know? And yeah, all in all like, Just a beautiful, beautiful hike. We excuse me, we did have a climb right at the end of the day. I would say that one sucked just because it was like the sun was like kind of pounding on us and it was like that high humidity after rain affect too like hiking in a greenhouse kind of feel that was like that was a little bit hot but thankfully, it was not like, it's like a 1000 foot. Yeah, I think climb something too crazy.

[01:26:35] Derek: Yeah, it was a big climate.

[Editor’s note: Tender feet, worn shoes, blisters, Leukotape use, and elevating feet during breaks are personal observations from this trip, not medical advice or evidence that the same steps will address another person’s pain or injury.]

[01:26:56] Tayson: Ponderosa. Right now there's a big Ponderosa Forest that section that's been. So it's just it was really pretty to kind of drop through some of that. Vegetation. Yes, open.

[01:27:08] Kayden: I think I appreciated that as well because you know, we I think we all kind of split up at that point like we were all we had lunch and then we all left at different Paces from lunch, I think or know it was a water filter and so I don't know, it was with the light drizzle and how beautiful this the nature was we saw some deer that were really calm around us and just for the next couple of hours, I just remember that was one of my high points because it was super pretty country. It wasn't like High Peaks. Most beautiful thing that we had seen up to that point but just super pretty and I just remember really just feeling this nice piece is it was a slight drizzle, really good colors everywhere, and I was just able to kind of be by myself and just Be in my own head in a way that was in a very healthy way you know kind of able to sell for flex and just really take in the nature and not be focused on Mi even though we were keeping up a good pace. And so I really appreciated that part. That was super, super cool. Yeah,

[01:28:10] Derek: I did kind of the same thing actually when I was you know that same section doing my own thing. Yeah, it was great. I really healthy mentality, I think, and then, and enjoying and staring contest with the deer. That didn't really mind that, I was 10 feet away.

[01:28:23] Kayden: Yeah. They're like 10 feet off the trail.

[01:28:26] Derek: We were just kind of. Hey, what's up? And then going, you know, just Hanging out, it was, oh, I guess I turned on a audiobook and, you know, at some points during that, which is fun too. I think. Well, I I don't know. I think I had the limited books actually downloaded. I didn't really plan it out. I had The Silmarillion which is a J.R.R. Tolkien. It's a Lord of the Rings book. Some more backstory, I guess about Middle Earth or something. So I gave that a try. I couldn't stick it out, so I had another book on there on my phone that I downloaded at some point it was the Return of the King and stuff. And so that would actually happen to be about a lot of that book is about Frodo and Sam hiking around. Anyways.

[01:29:08] Kayden: Okay listen to this again. This is fun. Yeah, it was nice. Yeah. It isn't that his book going and then every once in a while, I hear it yet it just just thought enough that he could hear just quite enough that we couldn't. But every once in a while, I would hear where those voices coming from

[01:29:24] Tayson: he really was going on at one point before I explained it or something like that.

[01:29:30] Kayden: Like, oh that. Yeah.

[01:29:35] Tayson: I think the last thing I'll just note about that day is Matt. Oh we didn't talk about this but man, the wildflowers were, oh yeah. So impressive and you know, we stopped at the spring in the hillside was just covered in him. But from day one on just incredible, incredible views of wildflowers just every color you can think of from like neon pinks and oranges to Bright yellows, deep purple, and really deep like Reds like I don't know if mahogany is the right word, but like just Just incredible, incredible colors. So loved loved seeing that. And at the end of that day, we set up our camp, kind of where we kind of had a view. And there is, there was a fire kind of off in the distance and It just it was like one of the coolest sunsets I've ever seen because there was just these shades of mountains, farther and farther and farther away and the last one you couldn't tell if it was like a cloud or a mountain and yeah

[01:30:36] Derek: just was a cloud printable. Yeah we debated. It was a cloud but I thought it was a mountain when I first looked essentially because it just looked he almost tried fighting with me about it for a little while longer that's just a cloud. I just had to look a little closer. Yeah. But

[01:30:52] Tayson: the first glance was that it was a well, we asked

[01:30:55] Derek: you because we were sure so I wasn't fighting. Oh okay. It was more like hey is that last one out? But you asked me and then you told me I was wrong. When I gave you my answer.

[01:31:07] Kayden: That was the last night. Yeah,

[01:31:11] Derek: that was Friday. Yeah.

[01:31:13] Kayden: So when I destroyed my trekking Pole

[01:31:16] Derek: or just hiking alongside I look back and like okay His trekking pole grip, I'd like disintegrated just yeah, in half. Yeah, it's like a cork one. And he hit it on the ground. I just

[01:31:30] Kayden: Yeah, we got to camp and I was trying to put them into the ground so I could set up my tent it just zoomed

[01:31:35] Derek: okay, not too bad camera on up about it. We had to console him a little bit. All right?

[01:31:43] Kayden: Oh yeah. Yeah for sure.

[01:31:45] Tayson: Yeah. Then we were on the last day and just like any last day I called this from day one. And that was that while there was hiking in the back of the group, most of Friday, come come Saturday. The last day, he would be hard to keep up with, and that proved to be very accurate.

[01:32:07] Derek: Friday was my little desk, he takes off like a Saturday was not my low day, I was just fine.

[01:32:16] Tayson: Yep. He had new energy that thing was again, really pretty more of the same just High Country intermittent, you know, hiking Retreats and openings. Thanks for me on that day. Was just that, it still was 16 miles.

[01:32:34] Derek: Yes, yeah.

[01:32:35] Tayson: And obviously we're trying to finish it as early as we can because now we've got to go pick up Craig in Lake City, that's an extra two hours worth of driving. There was also got to drive so to Grand Junction because two of the guys are gonna fly out of Grand Junction different places. So we're gonna spend the nine credits anyway, so you're trying to get off Trail at a decent enough time to like, do all the do, all that do all the driving have dinner, you know, and get to the hotel at a decent time. So we wanted obviously get off Trail as early as you can, but I wasn't, you know, they never really sure what that means until Derek gets in the lead and find out. So but my biggest thing that day was like, I mentioned ever since I did the day with the 14er, I had as keeping like to say I had toasted my tips. They were they were pretty dang sore and that translates into knee pain and stuff. And so we had like a lot of downhill like three plus thousand feet of downhill, just all at once. And I was definitely feeling that so that's really where I feel like Derek got ahead of us me and was walking with me. And yeah, I just couldn't really like push that because I was just having a lot of pain in my, my little legs. So Um, so yeah, beware of that, I guess. But other than that, it was smooth. Sailing that day. Watched a guy wreck on a bike pretty hard. I was kind of interesting. His axle came out of his back tire and so his back tire basically wedged up behind a seat and locked up and then he, you know, crumbled off. And so we tried to help him a little bit. But something you forget about when you're on. These hikes is just how bad you smell. And we kept thinking that we were gonna hit a smell plate because this situation where you couldn't smell any worse. Right? Yeah. And we'd never hit it. It just got worse.

[01:34:31] Kayden: Yeah. Every day you get your sleeping bag at night and you're like, it's too hot to have the neck baffle up, but I'm gonna have the neck.

[01:34:39] Tayson: Yes, I was hoping the guy on the bike like just, you know, just helping him. And then I like caught up with him myself and I'm like, oh, maybe I shouldn't be this close to this guy, helping him with his bike, Maybe. I should put my arms to my side and like this guy that's right up homeless. Just oh yeah, it was. Smelly nonetheless. But we finished the hike. Oh, I was gonna say yeah, like Derek said, day one man. A world of infinite conversations, you know, day, six, you're scraping, you're scraping for some stuff and some funny debates about, you know, like what wins in a fight out of like a tiger, a grizzly bear and a gorilla, it was, you know, stuff to kill the time for sure. But yeah, that's good. If you didn't know. Ask ChatGPT. I think

[01:35:39] Derek: we looked it up. Yeah. ChatGPT afterwards and there was there was an answer.

[01:35:43] Tayson: Hmm. Yep.

[01:35:44] Kayden: I think the biggest thing that kept striking us about the last days just thinking about it is that I mean, I don't know, we talked about this on the trail, but Tayson and I were kind of hanging behind and they're keeping up a good Pace, but it just kind of felt like I would think well, starting the hike. I was thinking that I would finish and just be so ready to be done and get off the trail and be ready to go. And I'm normally like, don't worry, I'm not really a pessimist. It was just that's what I was thinking. It was gonna happen because it's a lot of miles. And I just remember getting done or even just on the last day or the last couple of days, just Really, really taking in the nature and I was ready to be done but I wasn't I wasn't ecstatic to be done, you know, it was just kind of like this nice. This nice resolve, you know, Sam and Frodo, going back to the Shire, kind of a thing, you know, it, I don't know. I just remember the special the last day like we were keeping up a good Pace, but I just was really taking it in and it was like, wow. It's awesome being back here and I'm glad that like, I'm satisfied that we're that we're finishing, but I'm not like chomping on the big. This is just feels great, you know.

[01:36:57] Tayson: Yeah. Um, you know, for all of us, I think it was kind of first going in a six days of hiking. And so it's it's you know, unlike when we've done when we've done like other 100 mile hikes, it's like you feel like when you finish that trail, You couldn't go another 10 miles, you know what I mean? Like, you just feel totally spent like, you left it all out there. You're just completely done, mentally, physically emotionally and and so Kayden first off, I just got Kayden crushed. This hike like he, he listened, he followed, you know, all the things that we told them, you know, to do packing wise, execution wise, you know, just really good student. We've taken people out there just not good students essentially like they want to listen but then they kind of want to do it their way and and look like we've learned how to do this over years and years of doing this and And and see anyways, you crushed it, thank you but I will take a small. I'm gonna take a small amount of credit here about one thing. I did try to prepare you for the last day, if you remember that.

[01:37:58] Kayden: I can't remember. You have to refresh me. Yeah,

[01:37:59] Tayson: and and my theory here is that this is what I was doing. So I was just sharing with Kayden whether you took it or not. Was just that whenever you say you're done you completely Gear Up and mentally check out for that. So oh you say, hey, I'm done at the end of day five, you're done at the end of day five, you'll mentally check out and you won't want to take another step versus if you say, or if you wake up on day, six and say, hey we're going to be done by the morning if he goes any longer than the morning, you will be very frustrated and tired and upset about that. And so I think I just said, you know what, plan on this taking us all day on on Saturday and if you plan for it to be all this Saturday when we finish it noon you're going to be so much more happy with that type of thing and that's what I was doing internally and I think it worked out really well because just like and I think I stayed in a better mental spot on this hike. I don't remember having a downtime or like a low point or like, it was just so, even kill. And I didn't feel like when I got off the trail, I think this is the biggest takeaways when I was, when we were getting off the trail, if you had said, hey, we're gonna do another day. I probably would have been like. All right. Like, I felt like that was a big win because most of the other times, I mean, off Trail. I cannot wait to get like, I'm either spent or I'm like dying to get some really good food or something, right? But I I left the trail not feeling that and I think that was half mental and half just Experienced and stuff of executing hikes in a way, that is more sustainable, maybe in some ways. Now, I don't think the mileage was that sustainable? I will not. I decided at the end of this, that I will not recommend, 25 mile days. I just don't think it's worth it. I think 20 miles days is the sweet spot for a long time.

[01:39:40] Derek: Yeah, I mean, after doing 100, being like 140 miles about after doing that and doing the 25 miles every day. You kind of look back at some of our other hikes, we've done there in 20 miles a days and that's so much easier. You know like more enjoyable and in a way because you're just not so

[01:39:56] Kayden: rushed, you know if that's all you know, and

[01:39:59] Derek: 20 mile. Is that the most you've done, it's going to feel big. I'm not saying it's not a lot of miles because it it is but it's definitely so much nicer in the terms of giving you flexibility more time to to do this or that, then 25 miles a day. It actually is a pretty big difference.

[01:40:18] Tayson: It gets exponentially harder every Mile, right? Like the first mile of every day compared to mile, 24 2 5, Every mile that you go, farther gets exponentially harder. And so when you think about doing 20 miles a day or versus 25, that's like an extra two hours a day that we could have been resting stopping relaxing in Camp and two hours is a long time when when you're doing a 25-mile day and you don't stop for two hours period during the day like combined, you know. So like that would be like doubling all of our downtime to go from 20 to 20 from from 25 down 20. So 20, Yeah, I think that was just a big thing for me is I like pushing myself I do, but I think that is better done in isolation meaning you want to push yourself go on an older or go set up a DIY challenge for yourself. Go across the Grand Canyon do something like that. But in these type of hikes and conditions, I think it's just A more enjoyable to try, not to do much more than 20 mi days. So next year my goal is to outline it outline the trip to do 20 mi days and if we have to go back and do some kind of a fifth year to complete the Colorado Trail, it's going to do it that way. I think because I would much rather just Slow it down and it was very fast-paced and, you know, just really feels like you can't. You can't like, basically I remember when I've interviewed people that have done skts. And by no means, are we doing fkt Pace here? No, just when you talk to them, one of the things that stood out to me, I think it was Joshua Perry might have said it to me that it's like It's like you don't actually time your mind like you're the amount of time you're moving, you track him out of time, you're stopping and he's like because basically I know I have to move moving all day every you know all the time. So really all you care about is limiting. The amount of times you have to stop all day and so like anyways, the way that he said, that really stuck with me and that's kind of how felt when you're doing 25 miles a day, is like, anytime you stop. You feel like this, this timer starts. To be like, oh well we can't say here for 30 minutes, but, you know. So let's try to be out of here and like five or 10, you know, and just like there's kind of this little bit of Rush that Look, if that's the only way you can do it, do it? Like, it's like, if that's the only way you can make a certain hike happen or something like that. I'm saying, it's definitely worth doing that, but if you can have control over it,

[01:42:55] Derek: 20 mile days are such a good balance and we definitely don't regret doing this trip. It was awesome and

[01:43:01] Kayden: really experience but

[01:43:03] Derek: yeah, I think it could be more enjoyable even than it was. Had it, not been so rushed but yeah, it was it was definitely Cool to push ourselves this time but next time. Yeah, I agree. Let's do it a little bit different. Yeah. So

[Editor’s note: The 20- versus 25-mile comparison reflects these hikers’ experience on this route. Daily mileage, pace, recovery, and turnaround decisions depend on training, terrain, elevation, weather, load, health, support, and current conditions.]

[01:43:17] Tayson: let's take a second, I'll probably do a follow-up podcast at some point or maybe it's on Ask OV and I'll talk about like gear highlights from the trip because there's some gear highlights. We have new gear out there, but let's, let's do just some kind of quick, so quick hit things to, to kind of wrap up some of this. So we did go back and get Craig. He had a whole, you know, great time in like City and and you'll hear about that on the next episode, but everything went pretty smooth there. His ankle did spoke. He sent us a picture while we're out, there was include story, so the time from the time, I had left him that night to the next morning, it just swole up like a balloon and just The dynamic, but let's just start off with like your favorite piece of gear on this hike and why? Hmm, I'll go first. Since you guys are jumping at it. I'm gonna go with the new satellite. The new satellite is, it's just incredible. Obviously, doing six days to pack more food. I was packing, some camera gear. I was packing some extra stuff from Craig and so I had more weight than ever but I would literally say like that pack on day. One felt like some of our packs in the past have felt like if they only have four days of supplies or something, like it just really took That much off of it. In my mind, the pack is just the best carrying ultra light pack. You know, sub two pound backpack out there, the carbon frame is incredible. I won't give out all the details of like what's coming on this pack but just know that The redesign on the shadowlight specifically in the harness and frame system is a massive Improvement in my mind. And I think it's the best caring, most comfortable, we'll shut your gonna find. We did other updates. But I won't, I won't highlight those and I do like all the other updates, but particularly the carrying of the Shadowlight was probably my favorite piece of gear so you are also wearing it all day long. Yeah, yeah.

[01:45:25] Derek: I mean I like the Shadowlight too, that one definitely came to mind, but another one is the Tushar Rain Jacket. We defin Because we had so many rainstorms but it was noticeable. The amount of comfort you could still have or feel, even when you're actively moving in a Range jacket, typically you expect to start feeling suffocated a little bit. When you have to move and sweat and you're wearing Some waterproof barrier like that. But with the Tushar, I actually felt really, really comfortable most of the time, even, even when I left it on a number of times between rainstorms or between showers, okay? It's looks like, it's still going to rain, but it kind of let off for say I'm just gonna leave it on. I did that a number of times and was still totally comfortable, maybe just unzip the front when it was not actually raining and that was enough. So, yeah, I really enjoyed using that piece.

[01:46:17] Tayson: Yeah. Okay.

[01:46:19] Kayden: Oh, you guys kind of stole mine, but I think there, when I was thinking about others, three big pieces that came to mind, and it was the backpack because I think that's kind of the kind of the crown jewel of our kit for this trip because it's It's supporting everything and with all that pack, like what are we gonna do? You know, and it has such upgraded features that. I mean, I I have the original Shadowlight. I’ve got tons of miles on it, and it was nice to see it keeps the spirit of that award-winning pack but then improve on the things that We've had, we've had feedback about that needed, improving, or that could use improving. So that was really good to touch her was completely invaluable or so that I would, It was valuable or not. Valuable it was, it was very valuable, it was quite nice. Yeah. Um but the one that special where you guys have already mentioned those two the one I really want to highlight actually wearing right now. Is the joggers. Oh,

[01:47:21] Tayson: that's right. We were wearing shorts. He was the only orange joggers.

[01:47:24] Kayden: Yeah. And it was it was just nice because I had the comfort of just having my legs covered the whole week and not having to worry about sunscreen on my legs and wearing less about bugs and helped with the wind and I don't know, it's just one of those things that special when you're doing 25 miles a day, you don't really think about I don't think I could hike with pants for 25 miles a day, you know, and it was nice being able to and having the features of that, but not getting overheated. And so, I don't think it's kind of It was nice having that advanced technology I guess or like the next the next step that a lot of people don't realize is such a such a viable option. So I really

[01:48:13] Derek: enjoyed that I think I think the the joggers are really cool for a lot of things that you know you just mentioned but on the flip side, it depends on ask your personality. I actually now that I think about it. Really enjoy the shorts other reasons that, you know, we talked about rain and and walking past like Greenery and trees and dumping all this water down on your legs and shoes. I did not care one bit wearing shorts, because I like my legs are gonna dry. I didn't really care if my calves and legs were wet. With Trail runners. Is the same concept for me like as soon as the stops raining and I keep biking. Like I'm going to be totally dry and comfortable. Yeah, and I really enjoyed the shorts for that reason but I did, I did to your point. I did have to put on a lot of bug spray and sunscreen on my calves because we were exposed so

[01:48:58] Kayden: often and my legs here, getting stuck in the bug spray and

[01:49:08] Derek: I didn't take the time to rub in all my sunscreens so it was. Yeah. I got some zebra stripes going on for sure.

[01:49:14] Kayden: I was funny. Okay,

[01:49:15] Tayson: that question is always talking to marketers. They can really go on on it so I

[01:49:22] Derek: apologize. Next thing

[Editor’s note: The Shadowlight, Tushar Rain Jacket, joggers, shorts, HOKA Speedgoats, and related launch, comfort, breathability, carry, and performance comments are August 2025 personal and product claims. They are not current specifications, availability, fit, or performance guarantees.]

[01:49:25] Tayson: can already talked about highlights lowlights so just a couple other quick things to come to mind. Biggest lesson from the trip, biggest thing you learned. And then your favorite food on the trip. Any one of those in just start whenever you're ready, I don't know. Have the first thing highlighted in my own mind so

[01:49:49] Derek: she is less than for me. Personally, was maybe Becoming more aware of my own, need to be a more on top of my mentality. So Friday morning, specifically like I think I could have done some more mental prep work, even before jumping back on the trail in the morning. Knowing that the day before, my my feet had really, really started to feel pretty tenderized and the evening. To help myself not feel like so unmotivated during that morning. So, yeah, yeah. Mental prep actually does make a big difference by Saturday. I had gone better at that. My feet weren't really any better than the next day. It was just more. So my mentality and and yeah, applying, you know, Trick of trying to keep my feet raised when we took breaks but really A lot of it was more mentality. So that was my lesson. Favorite food. I really never got tired of these chocolate chip cookie things. I brought these little reward cookies for myself. One little packet each day and they were a nice little reward. Yeah. I don't even see these things. Did you keep these hush? Or what I gave them to you. Yeah, Kayden shared.

[01:51:01] Kayden: Yeah that's when you threw the Oreos at me and I caught it mid-air experiment. He

[01:51:06] Derek: traded your chocolate cookie for that I thought

[01:51:08] Tayson: okay

[01:51:09] Kayden: yeah. um, When you just threw them and it was way above my head and arm fully extended caught it perfectly stayed seated. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I think my biggest lesson is pretty similar with mindset is you know, I've just like some of these guys, I mean, they're more impressive and like some of the day I've done is more impressive than what I've done but it's for the challenges that I've done personally like different races and events or things that I've done personally, I'm Already proven to myself that I can put my head down and just grind. But going into this, I realized that. I don't have the mental stamina to just grind for sick days straight. I think that's That's just wasn't healthy. And so, I was like, all right, I need to I need to go into this and figure out how I can. make it not a grind and not have to just put my head down every day and so, I think As I chose to just really, really, and it was definitely, it was definitely a choice. Just focus on my surroundings and being in the moment. I think that's really what helped me because there's plenty of times where, you know, like your feet are hurting or your sore, or things like that. And it's really easy to just look at that moment you know like oh man my feet look like brains right now, this is not comfortable, you know that definitely happened and It was moments. I just kept Reminding myself like you know what? No this is actually like super, super cool. I get it out here. What I get to do out here and then I put my head up and look around and be like okay no this is actually pretty awesome. You know, and I realized more and more like it was doing that there were still really hard time is the worst still times where my mood had dropped. But overall, it became such a positive experience. Where if I had just Put my head down and grind mindset for all of it and I would have been completely miserable like I would have finished it. But it just made it such a positive experience, and it put it in a way that I'm, I'm excited to do it again. You know, in future years, especially as we're talking about miles and things like that, I just just a really positive experience, and It took effort, but it was good. as far as favorite food goes, I mean, the peak meals are really awesome by the end of it. I got a little bit tired of eating stew every day. But the thing that I didn't get tired of was When I got the tortilla and I had those packets of chicken with like the garlic and herbs spices and then you get mayo packet and mustard packet and put some cheese in there. That just hit every single day. Like this doesn't get old. There was so good.

[01:54:10] Tayson: Yeah, I think that's like for some reason having that kind of stuff for lunch, like the time of day when your body is just craving all

[01:54:18] Kayden: of those things, you know, the vinegar. Yeah.

[01:54:24] Tayson: Yeah, for me. Favorite food. I brought those like I call them adult licorice. It's like the wallaby or whatever, like Australian licorice. Yeah. It's for so good, I've never brought those before, but they were money for like snack. I always loved dried mangoes. So I had some of those but like those for some reason were just in something new. I brought that I really liked. We also were eating some of the new Trail Goods Co. meals that you can find in the membership. Now there's four meals and they're awesome. Luke is the guy who's started that company. He's worked with another company on building kneels before. And so we know him and Pasting their meals are really tasty, really good. Very happy with the packaging. I repackaged all of my Peak refuel meals because they're just so freaking big and they don't listen to us when they say that they're packaging needs to shrink. But You know Peaks are great. I didn't feel the need to with the myth of Trail Goods Co. packaging. It's quite a bit smaller and stuff but that's just something new something new to consider if you're heading out there that you can find inside the membership and the patreon

[01:55:35] Kayden: in the membership. But I remember the featuring

[01:55:38] Tayson: featuring licorice that was like, one of the things I altered that was good. The biggest lesson. You know, I'm just going to go on food. Actually, I you guys kind of nailed some of the other stuff that it's readily available, a lot of the other stuff, it's like, you know, I've done a lot of these so it's not like, there's like a tactical lesson, but I do think you can absolutely nail nutrition and I think I did okay with nutrition, but I still was slightly under Cal for quite a few of the days by, like, like I said, like 300 calories, or 500 calories, like not a lot of calories. And I think that was my lesson going into. This is just that I I should have brought a little bit more food. I would rather slightly are over on food than under Like that would have added some additional enjoyment for me to have a little more food. I actually was kind of under Cal, I feel like until we hit those two that day where we hit Trail magic twice. And then I kind of banked some food that day and then I used that for other things and by that point Kayden was trying to offload some of his food. And so the last couple days were definitely just a little more enjoyable than the first. And if you are gonna like go on a trip, it is probably easier to pack your first days a little bit heavier on calories than your last days. And if you have extra, you can carry that down the line for say. And you also kind of fatigued out of food or you get a rhythm where you're not eating as much or just different things. But but also just the aspect of calories also help you with hydration and absorption of water. And so you know, eating calories and drinking and electrolytes, they all add up to help you hydrate and to avoid things like altitude sickness. So just That's probably my biggest thing. Is, I am? I ran a little too lean on the food this year. I wish that I had, I

[01:57:35] Derek: did pretty good. Actually, I only started like stockpiling bunch of food the last day and a half. So, Saturday, I didn't need as much shoes. I packed for sure, for Saturday, and then like a bunch of Friday Also I ended up not eating a lot of it, so

[01:57:51] Kayden: Well you know, Tayson, what what really helps with food is if you mix the water with the oatmeal before you eat it?

[01:58:01] Derek: So these food items that Tayson begged off of Kayden? Yeah. And protein oatmeal.

[01:58:11] Kayden: Yeah, banana nut. So you know it's good.

[01:58:13] Tayson: Apparently I didn't mix it that well. So like the first bite like this isn't that flavorful second by this isn't that flavorful I was like, oh my gosh, that is like overload flavor. So I hadn't fully mixed it. Giving me a hard time. Yeah, I need to do a video on, its been a long time since I've done it, but I do think that the way that I do food is is really good. Variety wise. I kind of like, I've just wanted to be the easiest, fastest, way to pack food. Let's give you like good variety. And I think that's the thing that I do correctly, do with food. Like I said he was like the Licorice and peachy O's. I would like alternate those, you know, I alternate a lot of food so I don't get food fatigue and that's a pretty easy to do so. Yeah. And I probably need to make some kind of a video or something about, just the fastest way to pack backpacking, that's convenient. So But yeah, I mean, we did it. We did 140 miles biggest, OV trip and Company history, we only lost two people. So pretty, pretty good numbers of 60% success rate on this trip. Not our highest, not our highest, but incredible trip on the less. If you have never been into the San Juan mountains in Colorado, top tier, but it's just, there's not many places that are that Exceptionally beautiful and the high of altitudes and just that many miles of nothing but amazing, amazing mountains. He's even as we got off the trail, we're driving around it. I was, I mean we're driving for two hours, I'm like oh my gosh, like this is the same mountain range for just two hours. I know that I can continue to drive around it for another three hours, you know, like it's It's just a huge. Beautiful mountain. Range. That should. On your list to go, spend some time on. Yeah, any closing thoughts on just how the Obi trip will be 100 chip went or

[Editor’s note: Food quantity, calorie deficit, hydration, electrolytes, altitude response, packaged meals, membership access, and nutrition routines are personal historical accounts, not individualized nutrition or medical guidance or current product availability.]

[02:00:08] Derek: yeah. Yeah. So if you're feeling like Kayden did before going on the trip, I would tell you the same thing. I tried telling him, it's you just have to try, obviously. Make sure you're prepared to try it, but don't don't let that hesitation of never having done. Something like that before. Stop you from doing it the first time because you really just might have something like Kayden had happened. Where you just really love it and are super pumped for the next time. So, you know, that's kind of a plug I would put in. yeah,

[02:00:40] Kayden: I would agree, I think you're capable of a lot more than you think that you are and you know, obviously you want to be safe about it, but you know, when you eventually die or get older, whatever like you want to look back on your life and remember that you did stuff, you know. You want to take that opportunity? No matter where you are, whether you're Just barely in your 20s or younger or whether you're approaching retirement or in your 80s. Um obviously be safe about it but there's still time to do things but you got to do it now, you know, there's no, there's no time like the present.

[02:01:22] Tayson: Yeah. I think that's a good rap. It was an amazing trip over 100 is always worth doing the stories we hear year after year after year inside of the Facebook group where people kind of share, Their experiences doing them. Is incredible. And I think it's always worth looking. backward like trying to fast forward, your life forward, and then looking backwards and asking yourself like Well, I'd be more happy. I chose to do, you know, 10 years down the line or at the end of my life or something like that. So, kind of like I mentioned at the San Luis Peak, I kind of choose to live my life that way where it's like, what am I going to regret more like doing the peak or not doing the peak and I really just harder today. But what am I going to be happiest? I did tomorrow once the works done and I think the you can do a lot more like you're saying than the people thinks. I mean is I every day that we're talking about, I'm like holy crap that was a long day like we went from here to here to here but it is incredible. What you can what you can do and how far you can walk and how much you can cover. And and I think any trip like this, it almost has like this curve of a lifetime. When you have lowlights and you have highlights, you have moments where you're exuberantly happy at moments where you're dating, you want to cry or something like that. And and I think there's something unique about that, that leaves a lasting impression, creates a real story. In your mind, your mind really can can grow and learn and latch onto those kinds of things. And this experience is, you don't you don't forget So hopefully if nothing else, this inspires you guys to get out there, like, I mentioned earlier, I mean, the whole purpose behind Outdoor Vitals is to get people into the vital outdoors and to connect them with it. So that You guys can with a life with no regrets and you can, you know, disconnect from this crazy world and, and grow and, and have a reset, will, you know, mentally, emotionally physically. And that's what these trips bring. So, super happy, we were able to do it. Glad that Kayden is able to come the jury. Not at all did. We were we wrong and pushing you just a little bit to come.

[02:03:34] Kayden: Oh, I'm appreciate it. Thank you.

[02:03:36] Tayson: We were a little bit nervous we’d get you out there and you’d be like, “This sucks.” No, no, we just knew you were a little bit gun-shy because that shakedown trip you did was a little rough in terms of just the trail and the altitude and all that stuff. But Yeah, we'll see you guys enjoyed this. If you guys want to bring a hiking partner on 100 mile hike next year, share this podcast with them and get them, geared up to join the OV 100 for next year. We open registration for that usually in the spring and we give out a ton of bonuses with that. So it's really it's really like a free DIY challenge. But we do make you put a little skin in the game so that you're like motivated to go do it. But then we give you bonuses and stuff that are worth more than the registration value. But get your get your buddies on the train. So share this podcast with them. Make sure you guys are subscribed for more to come on this with Craig and with some other takeaways and we'll see you guys in future episodes.

[Editor’s note: The spring registration, bonuses, membership, sharing, and future-episode requests describe the August 2025 podcast and OV 100 workflow. Generic homepage, SpeakPipe, support email, and promotional links are intentionally excluded from this episode’s resources.]