elks traverse FKT

By Michael Wirth

The Elks Traverse Fastest Known Time (FKT) route starts at Capitol Creek Trailhead, enchains the seven 14,000’ summits in the Elk Range above Aspen, Colorado and finishes at the Castle Creek Trailhead– all told a roughly 55 mile and 24,000’ traverse. Freedom of choice is at the heart of the challenge; it is the athlete’s choice to trace their own line connecting the summits.

You begin on the western edge of the range on the Capitol Snowmass Massif with its silver granite ridges snaking from summit to summit. The heart of the Elks consist of maroon colored shale mountains straight out of a children’s picture book. Finally, the easternmost edge of the Elks, home to 14ers Castle and Conundrum.

I’ve wanted to run the traverse for some years now. I was born and raised in the Roaring Fork Valley, having idolized the Elks and the travelers within them. Rickey Gates, a runner I’ve looked up to for some time now, set a record on the Elks Traverse in 2015 at a time of 27.5 hours. I was a junior in High School and just getting more serious about trail running at the time. Rickey’s effort was an inspiration and stuck in my mind. Neal Beidleman, a local mountaineer with global recognition, had pioneered the traverse with his partner Jeff Hollenbaugh in 1996. Neal was involved in the tragedy on Everest detailed in Into Thin Air.

I’ve become rather close to Neal over the past couple years, fostered by a mutual love of simple movement in high places. We give each other kudos for some things we’ve done and shit for what we could’ve done better or never did at all. The roughly 40year age gap has never dawned on me as our shared experiences are closer than most. We’ve ventured along the same ridges, seen alpine sunrises and sunsets, and shared profoundly close experiences.

I spoke with Neal following my completion of the Elks Traverse and asked him what his reasoning was for doing the traverse in such close proximity to the Everest incident. “To restore my love for movement among the mountains. That’s why I went to Everest to begin with,” said Neal. There was no exercising of demons, just a reinvigoration of love for the simplicity of alpine movement.

My reasons for doing the Elks Traverse some 26 years later were parallel. To connect with my childhood mountain range and to spend a day within them grounded in continuous movement.

August 9th, 3:00am: I rolled over to the sound of my alarm and peaked outside my tent as the stars and moon lit up the Capitol Creek drainage. I did a bit of early morning stretching in the dirt. Then, I sat there, looked up at the moon and I took a moment to ground myself in gratitude. My heart and mind were filled with an excitement to spend an uninterrupted day among these mountains: from sunrise to sunset, with a bit tacked onto either end.

August 9th 4:06am: The run started in the predawn hours by moving up the Capitol Creek drainage. I felt good moving guided by moonlight. The brisk cold inspired quick movement as a fear for heating up and losing water felt minimized. I greeted the first light of sun as I crested the Capitol-Daly shoulder and continued running across the talus field beneath Capitol with zest to reach the first summit.

August 9th 6:22am: I arrived on top of Capitol (14,181’). No stopping here, using the inspiration of a golden sunrise on silver granite ridges to trace back over the knife edge and onward to the Wandering Dutchman couloir to descend into Pierre Lakes which sit in a granite moonscape at 12,000’ below the terrifying yet inspiring Satan’s ridge.

Running along talus is a rather challenging endeavor as you skip from one large boulder to the next envisioning 20 moves before and executing in a continuous flow of foresight in mind and present execution of body. I crossed Satan’s ridge to drop towards the western flanks of Snowmass in the Siberia lakes basin. From there, a quick ascent up the S-Ridge of Snowmass. Snowmass is definitely one of the unassuming summits along the traverse, but the S-Ridge changes that in my opinion: a roughly 1,500’ ridge of perfect 3rd class scrambling with the most solid rock in the entirety of the Elks.

August 9th 10:01am: 14.78 miles, 7,307’ of elevation gain, and two 14,000’. The summit of Snowmass has come and gone as I continue quickly down to Snowmass Lake where my girlfriend Carly had dropped a goodie bag for me. Having downed a good dose of carbs, and proteins to keep the pep in my step alive. I loaded a good handful of gels into my vest and continued running on the Geneva Lake Trail towards the world famous Maroon Bells.

I veered off the trail just after Snowmass Creek towards the Lost Remuda Basin to take the West Ridge of South Maroon to the summit. A route which I figured would be more direct than going over Buckskin Pass as Rickey had done. Unknown to me, Neal followed this same route on his traverse. The Lost Remuda Basin seldom sees foot traffic and you must navigate the faint trails the local elk population have carved to efficiently move through the willow-covered terrain.

Three miles of schwacking elk trails later, I found myself at the base of the 1000’ West Ridge of Maroon Peak and its primarily 4th class climbing, interspersed with bouts of high consequence 5th class terrain.

August 9th 12:45pm: Contending with the high exposure and southern aspect, I was hot and behind on water as I reached the summit of Maroon Peak. From here, the notorious Bells traverse lies between you and North Maroon. The dehydration and miles before me had definitely taken the explosivity out of my body for the technical movement.

August 9th 1:25pm: North Maroon, 21.39 miles in, 11,310’ elevation gain, and four summits under my belt. Onward to Pyramid. My hydration was far behind, so I downed a few soft flasks of water at a creek crossing before descending again. I decided to save weight and ascend the 4,000’ up and down Pyramid sans vest, sans water, sans carbs. I needed to focus and at that point thinking about food and water was something I didn’t have the bandwidth for. This definitely could’ve ended my traverse but I reminded myself that many great mountain athletes go extended lengths of time without food or water, so ideally I could do the same. Foolish? Yes. Did it work? Yes.

The ascent of Pyramid was rather psychedelic after such a long, hard effort, but I knew Carly and friend Jeff Colt would be waiting for me at the Maroon Lake parking lot and my solo portion for the effort would be coming to a close. I indulged in the runnable section from the Crater Lake Junction down to Maroon Lake.

August 9th 6:20pm: Carly and Jeff greeted me with hugs and food at Maroon Lake. I was five summits in as I laid down in the creek to cool off, changed my clothes while downing as many calories as I could stomach.

Jeff had graciously agreed to run the last section with me into the night to the finish. The time goal was in mind, but adventure was the priority. We began our trek towards East Maroon Creek – the longest section of sustained trail in the traverse. After my gluttony at Maroon Lake my stomach started to turn sour and doubts crept in, despite that Jeff kept telling me to keep on eating and drinking. So, I did. We saw a bear, gave it a nice little hello and it ran away.

August 9th 8:10pm: The sun had set and thankfully my stomach ache faded as well. Jeff’s constant reminders to eat and drink had spurred my body into a second wind. We boosted up to Triangle Pass under the moon, and sprinted down the eastern side of the pass down towards the Conundrum hot springs. As we made it near the springs, we heard voices of the logical humans indulging in a night of drinking, banter and soaking. We looked at each other, debated taking a dip. We instead opted for some midnight bushwhacking followed by 3,000’ of choss scrambling to the Conundrum – Castle col.

Jeff and I shared one Bluetooth earbud each to create a technological leash between our two bodies. When the music started cracking up, one of us had to hurry up or the other slow down – it was mostly my tired ass needing to hurry up.

August 10th 12:42am: We reached the col between the two peaks and it was go time. We looked at one another and said, “Alright let’s go to the top of these two mother f*ckers and get down to Castle Creek”. This was accompanied by some sprinting across the Castle-Conundrum ridge in the middle of the night, intensified by strong west winds, and full gas descending down Castle.

The final stretch along Montezuma Basin Mine Road Jeff turned into a football coach telling my sorry ass to sprint faster. I whined, but I did, and we somehow maintained a 7:40 pace for the last miles.

August 10th 2:37am: 22 hours 30 minutes and 50 seconds later and I’m done. With a donut in one hand, a croissant in the other, my pruned feet glowing under the full moon. I sat with a big grin.