Elks Traverse FKT

Elks Traverse FKT

Established a new record of 22:30:50 on this 55 mile, 23,000’ vert mountain running route

Reduced Rickey Gates’ previous record by 4 hours and 55 minutes

Splits:

Capitol Creek Trailhead: 0:00

Capitol Peak: 2:21

Snowmass Mountain: 5:14

South Maroon: 8:38

North Maroon: 9:18

Pyramid: 12:36

Conundrum: 20:52

Castle: 21:09

Castle Creek Trailhead: 22:30:50

A history of the Elks Traverse and why it’s badass

Neal Beidleman - the first person to complete the Elks Traverse who did so with his partner Jeff Hollenbaugh

The Elks Traverse Fastest Known Time (FKT) route links together the seven 14,000’ summits in the Elk Range of Colorado. The route requires beginning at the Capitol Creek Trailhead, ending at the Castle Creek Trailhead, and placing a foot upon all seven 14ers in a continuous effort – in what surmounts to a 55 mile and 24,000’ traverse. Freedom of aesthetic route choice is at the heart of it: the requirements are just as I layed out; from there, it is the athlete’s choice to trace a line from one end of the range to the other so long as it connects the seven summits.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Elks, they are the range that dwarfs Aspen, Colorado and are home to the arguably two most famous 14,000’ summits: The Maroon Bells (North and South). Among the Bells are Capitol, Pyramid, Snowmass, Castle and Conundrum. A conglomeration of mountains with unique character, diverse rock, and flora and fauna that changes with the sediment beneath it. A grand mountain running traverse no doubt, but a tour of geologic timeline as well.

One begins in the granite segment of the Elks known as the Capitol Snowmass Massif – the western most side of the range. A rather typical granite aesthetic lies here of which is a silver-grey rock with sharp serpentine ridges connecting summit to summit. The center of the Elks, or rather the heart, consist of maroon colored shale mountains with the look of pyramidal peaks out of a children’s picture book. Finally, the eastern most end of the Elks, home to 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 pulling off astounding feats. 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. At this time, I was a junior at Glenwood Springs High School. I was just getting more serious about fitness and trail running. Rickey’s effort was an inspiration and stuck in my mind. I was aware that before him, Neal Beidleman, a local mountaineer with global recognition, pioneered the traverse with his partner Jeff Hollenbaugh. Although I wasn’t aware when he completed it, as that was in ’96 and I was born in ’97.

I find the history and trajectory of the route to be a compelling one. Most pertinently because Neal completed the traverse a short three months after he returned from an Everest expedition in ’96. This was an expedition you’re likely familiar with: the expedition led by Scott Fischer and made infamous within the mountain community and beyond by Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air.

There’s a curious question lying beneath the proximity of these two events: why did Neal embark on the Elks Traverse so shortly thereafter such a disastrous mountain event? Some media pieces hypothesized it was a combination of having high altitude Himalayan fitness with that of a desire to exercise demons. Oh, how wrong they were.

I’ve become rather close to Neal over the past couple years, which was 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 40-year age gap has never dawned on me as our sharable experiences are closer than most. We’ve ventured along the same ridges, seen alpine sunrises and sunsets from nearly identical places, and shared profoundly close experiences that are close in timeline when the scope of setting is taken into account.

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 the mountains, particularly my childhood range, and to spend ideally just less than a full day within them grounded in continuous movement.

My attempt at the Elks Traverse FKT began at 4:06am on August 09, 2022. Around 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 searched for a suitable prayer from the Thanksgiving Address, Greetings to the Natural World book, Ross, a Cherokee Native had given me the day before. I decided on the Earth Mother Prayer and read it aloud to the lonesome star filled sky.

We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our Mother, we send greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

The Effort Itself

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, dark upon dark on each end.

Tying up my La Sportiva Mutants getting ready for the effort

The run started at night moving up the Capitol Creek drainage. I felt good moving at night guided by a harmonizing light of the moon with that of my headlamp. 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. I arrived on top of Capitol (14,181’) in 2:18:00.

POV of myself running Capitol’s Knife

No stopping here, as I needed to utilize the inspiration of a golden sunrise upon the silver granite ridges of the Capitol-Snowmass massif. I traced back over the knife edge and onward to the Wandering Dutchman couloir to descend into Pierre Lakes Basin and make my way to Snowmass Mountain. Pierre Lakes is deserving of a poem in and of itself, but Shakespeare isn’t writing this so I’ll give you my account. This basin sits at 12,000’ and comprises itself of large granite talus dwarfed by the terrifying yet inspiring Satan’s ridge above – a true moonscape.

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.

Pierre Lakes and Satan’s Ridge

I made it to the summit of Snowmass in 5:15:00, and continued quickly down to Snowmass Lake where Carly Valerious, my girlfriend, had dropped a goodie bag for me. Down to Snowmass lake in 5:55:00. 14.78 miles in, 7,307’ of elevation gain, and two 14,000’ summits under the belt.

I slid some mustard covered Sardines down the hatch and drowned them out with some Skratch Superfuel. A good salt kick, some protein and omega-3’s to keep the body strong, and a good dose of carbs to keep the pep in my step alive. I loaded a good few handfuls of Spring Energy Gels into my vest and continued running on the Geneva Lake Trail towards the 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. Funny enough, Neal followed this same route in his traverse which I was not aware of until after the fact. The Lost Remuda Basin is another remote magical place within the Elks that seldom sees foot traffic. It’s a haven for Elk to indulge in the plentiful plants fueled by the lush streams running through the basin. So, you must find the feint trails the Elk have carved to move as efficiently as possible through the rugged willow covered terrain. Their coats are undoubtedly stronger than mine as the willow negotiation here is intense and I came out with a solid lot of bushwhacking battle wounds.

3 miles of schwacking Elk trail frolicking later, I found myself at the base of the West Ridge of Maroon Peak. This was a tricky part of the day due to technicality and direct exposure to the midday sun. The ridge is a continuous 1,000’ of primarily 4th class climbing with a couple slab sections that ranged from 5.7 to 5.8 on the exact route I followed.

The Lost Remuda basin shaded by the Maroon Bells standing high to the east

I was hot and definitely running behind on water as I reached the summit of Maroon Peak. From here, the notorious Bells traverse lies between you and North Maroon, and I couldn’t have been more excited, albeit slightly tired from the 11,000’ of vert I’d gained by this point. My fastest time from South to North on the Bells Traverse is 22:08 but this go round took me an astoundingly longer 39:39. The dehydration and miles before me had definitely taken the explosivity out of my body for the technical movement.

I made it to North Maroon in 9:18:59. 21.39 miles in, 11,310’ elevation gain, and four summits under my belt.

I moved down North via the typical climber’s route, to the Crater Lake junction and onward to Pyramid. My hydration was far behind, so I downed a few soft flasks of water at the creek crossing just before descending to Crater. I couldn’t catch back up so for some reason so I decided to save weight, acknowledge that I was in pain, 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 killed 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, but the descent was heartwarming. I knew Carly and 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 shed a tear and indulged in the runnable section from the Crater Lake Junction down to Maroon Lake. The vast majority of running thus far had been off trail, so hopping onto the Maroon Snowmass Trail felt breezy.

Pyramid (center) and the Maroon Bells to the Right

Carly and Jeff greeted me with hugs and food at Maroon Lake. I was five summits in, in 14:14:00 with 31 miles and 15,284’ elevation gain behind me. I laid down in the creek to cool off, changed my clothes while glutinously downing calories. A sardine avocado burrito, a bottle of Skratch Superfuel, a rice cake, a lemonade, a yerba mate, a coconut water, a change of clothes, and it was time to go.

Jeff had so graciously agreed to run the last section with me. This felt special as we would run in the night together to the finish. The time goal was in mind, but the adventure together was the priority. We began our trek towards East Maroon Creek – the longest section of sustained trail in the traverse. My stomach started to hurt and the taste of sardine burrito kept emerging into my throat. Gross.

A brief stop, a quick laugh before heading into the night run. Jeff getting ready to beat me into the ground and get this dang record - photo by Dawson Gillespie

While feeling rather sick and bloated, 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 because our spirits were probably so astoundingly strong that they resonated into the hearts of the animals. Ha.

Anyways, the sun set, my stomachache faded, and the continual eating and drinking 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 – you know, archetypical enjoyment. We looked at each other, debated taking a dip, and decided that the classic love of hot tubbing was not part of our agenda. We’re misfits so we opted for some midnight bushwhacking followed by 3,000’ of choss scrambling to the Conundrum – Castle col.

The feeling in this part of the traverse was rather childish, most likely caused by exhausted delusion. However, the lightness was also carried by Jeff and I sharing one Bluetooth earbud each and creating a technological leash between our two bodies moving up this vast scree field. When the music starting cracking up, one of us had to hurry up or the other slow down – it was mostly my tired ass needing to hurry up.

We reached the Col in 20:36:00 and it was go time. We looked at one another and said, “Alright let’s go to the top of these two mother fuckers and get down to Castle Creek TH in 22:30.” This was accompanied by some sprinting across the Castle-Conundrum ridge in the middle of the night, intensified by strong west winds, and some not so responsible full gas descending down Castle.

We made it to the Montezuma Basin Mine Road and Jeff turned full high-school football coach telling my sorry ass to sprint faster. I wined a bit, but I did, and we maintained a nice 7:40 pace for the last miles of the 55 mile 24,000’ elevation gain traverse.

With a donut in one hand, a croissant in the other, and pruned feet glowing under the full moon, I sat there with a big grin. I completed the Elks Traverse in 22 hours 30 minutes and 50 seconds. Shaving roughly 5 hours off of Rickey Gates’ previous record.

I ran in the La Sportiva Mutants and this is the only shoe I would consider for such a technical and sustained mountain running effort like the Elks Traverse.