 Hi there. My name is Ryan Van Duzer. I'm born and raised in Colorado. I love bike packing but I have never done my state's own premier bike packing trail, the Colorado Trail, and that is all going to change right after I pack all this crap on my bike. And speaking of my bike, here it is. It's a hardtail mountain bike with front suspension. We've got 110 millimeters up here. I actually designed this bicycle with my friends at priority. It is called the 600X and it is a low maintenance adventure machine. What makes it really special is right down here. This is called the Pinion Gearbox. All the gears are enclosed and protected from the elements. Attached to that is the Gates carbon belt drive. It's not a typical chain. This thing never needs to be lubed and it lasts three times longer than a regular chain. That is my baby right there and oh yeah we've got a dropper post for the technical stuff. Okay it's all packed up. The next trick is getting a heavy bike down my stairs. There we go. This is gonna be what it's like on the Colorado Trail. Up and down steep sections hike a bike. Goodbye beautiful boulder. And yes I'm a 42 year old man that has his mom drive him around. How do you feel about that mom? I'm used to it. All right there it is the official start. Durango's that way. I love you so much. Love you too. You be really safe. Love love. That'll be the theme of the ride double love. Perfect. It is so hot. This water feels amazing. It was nice to cool off but boy this is tough. There's no doubt about it. Jungle going through the Colorado jungle here. Okay yeah I'm so excited to be here and grateful to be on this trail and I'm just so glad that this trail exists. An hour from my house. All right I stopped because I want to show you something. I've climbed about 2,300 feet. My elevation is about 7,500 feet and I'm getting to the top of the trees and I have some views. Look at this. Look at that beautiful mountain across the way. That is pretty sweet. There's the Platte River. Pretty cool. I've been sucking down water because it's so hot today. So time to filter with my steering pin and that is how you cool off on a hot summer day. Pedal, pedal, pedal. That's been my mantra ever since I started riding bikes. Even when it's hard just pedal even if you're going super duper slow you're moving forward and then sometimes walking is the best option and that's okay too. But man it's a little easier to pedal when it's so beautiful. Everybody told me how stunning this ride would be and it's already stunning and this isn't even supposed to be the spectacular part. I love my state and there it is. My camp spot for the night. Looks nice and flat. What a day. I think I'm finishing just in time. There's a little bit of thunder happening right now. I went 28 miles. I feel pretty good about that. A little half-day action. It is 7 30 p.m. It's Friday night. You know big things are gonna happen tonight like sleeping. I'm a little bit tired but what a great first day. Day one Colorado Trail in the books. Buenas noches. Thank you beautiful piece of flat ground to sleep on. Time to go that way. All right the Sun is shining. There are no clouds in the sky. It's nice and warm but I think it's gonna be cooler today overall. It's gonna be an awesome Saturday. Sabado gigante. Sometimes you just gotta stop and admire the flowers and this is a good one. It makes me very happy. It's the Columbine, the Colorado State Flower and it always reminds me of my mom. It's her favorite flower and she has them all over her garden at home and it makes me really happy knowing that I get to ride this beautiful trail for another 10 days or so. That's an overload of beauty. We're gonna see if I can handle it. I think I can but wow I'm feeling very fortunate. So besides having the GPS downloaded to my Wahoo which gives me turn-for-turn directions. I also have it on my phone in an app called Gut Hook and it's really cool because it has all these landmarks on the app and you can just touch something and it says seasonal stream and then hikers can go by and leave comments to say if it's you know still legit or not moderate flow filled water here and it gives the date so that you know that you might have some good water sources coming up. It's pretty cool. I'm impressed with all this technology these days. So I've seen a ton of hikers out here. Way more hikers than bikers and I just ran into this nice guy named Stan who's done the Colorado Trail five times. What inspires you to do this? Well I drive a truck for a living and every two or three years I get like 30 pounds overweight and I come out here for diet and exercise and it works. So I come out here my first year and I met all these nice mountain bikers and they're really great people and I decided I wanted to do that. So I went home and I spent a lot of money and I bought a Gary Fisher 29er and then I rode it a little bit in Iowa and I realized I would die in Colorado. I would literally go off the side of the trail. So now I've got a Gary Fisher 29er stored in my upstairs bedroom that's only been rode about 40 miles so I stick to hiking. Well I wish you all the best it was great to meet you. Nice meeting you too. Yeah cheers. So bikes can't ride on all of the Colorado Trail. There are six wilderness areas where you have to go around it and so I'm on the first one the Lost Creek wilderness bypass and it's a nice dirt road. I don't know exactly how long it is but I think it's fairly long so at least it's chill no cars on it yet but I already miss that beautiful single track. So what I'm loving so far about this trail is that there's water all over the place so I don't have to carry a ton which makes my bike load lighter and so usually I get to a little stream fill up the bottle, filter it, chug a bottle and then fill up another one for the road. You know I can't pass this up. Oh that feels so good. Today's stream is a lot colder than yesterday's but it feels so good. It's another hot day it's like my computer says 90 degrees and now it's time for the main event we've got pizza and I am so excited. Thank you so much you're the best. You've been taking good care of me. Yeah so the stage stop is not only full of people eating and drinking. There are a pack of bike packers here and they are unique. Where are you all from and how old are you? So I'm Henry, I'm just turned 18 and I'm from New York City. New York City where else we got? 17, we're all 17. We're all from North Carolina. North Carolina. What inspired you to do this? I was like I kind of got into biking a year ago or so a lot of road biking and during quarantine just wanted to do a big trip and I got these kids to join me so we're having fun. So we all decided since we're going the same way and it's the end of the day we're gonna camp together right? Yeah. I like it. All right we're riding with the crew now. The wolf pack! I don't think we could have asked for a better camp spot. I can't believe it's not taken but what a wonderful end to the day. Yes man it was a tough day. I rode 74 miles with 8,000 feet of elevation gain. That's a lot and I'm gonna have to get used to that because that's probably gonna be my daily average 8 to 10,000 feet of elevation gain. It's gonna be fun to hang out with these guys tonight and just chat. You know it's been a long time since I've hung out with 17-year-olds. All right who can do it the fastest? Oh no! Go! Go! Go! It's a good shot. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Good morning. It is a lot colder today and now it's time for the frozen Nutella Peanut Butter Tortilla Wrap Breakfast extravaganza. Well it's fun camping with you guys you guys have a good one. Best of luck down the road. Same goes for you. You're gonna have a great time. Bye bye! Adios! Nos vemos! Here we go another day in beautiful Colorado Paradise. Today I will head back on to the Colorado Trail in about seven miles be done with this wilderness detour and I'm excited about that you know as much as you can crank out miles on these detours. I came here for the single track and guess what? It's time for a little bit of no crashes no flatties no whammies. It's gonna be a beautiful Sunday. I can feel it. You know when you wake up and you just feel like it's gonna be a good day? That's how I feel right now. That's how I feel most of the time but especially when I'm on a bike trip. The days out here are just so spectacular in every way. This is when I feel most alive when I'm on my bike all day and sleeping under the stars and just loving life to the max. Oh baby! Feels so good to be back. We are cruising! Look what I found. It's my lucky sage. It smells really really fresh. So here I am riding along and I see a cute dog. Henry bring me the stick. Bring me the stick buddy. Yeah! Give me that stick. And yeah! What's it like to hike with a dog? He's such a great companion. I can talk to him the whole time. The thing I say most often is Henry wait. Wait Henry. Henry wait. Because he gets too excited? Because he's so far ahead of me and I don't want him to run into a bear. Oh that was fun. Good for the soul to play with a little doggie. Trail dog. Looks like he's coming with me. You coming with me Henry? All I can do is smile. So here I am daydreaming amongst the Aspins and I run into this group and I'm like on your left and I go by they're like Ryan Van Dooser! How you going? Good! Nice to meet you. Tell me your story a little bit. I just discovered you accidentally on YouTube. Next thing you know I was on my bike every day lost the final 40 pounds lost a total of 115 pounds and and we're now vacationing in Colorado doing hiking. Yeah I love it. It used to be on the couch. And what do you love most about this new found life of being outdoors and stuff? It's a mood lifter. Yeah that's exactly what it is. It's like if I'm indoors. Yeah. I'm depressed. I have to get outside. It's a desperate need to get out. I didn't have that before. It was so wonderful to meet you. Nice to meet you. You just made my heart happy. Thanks for being patron supporters. Oh yeah? Yeah I love it. We talked about going to Boulder to actually try to run into you. Yeah. And because we get a cup of coffee. No not coffee a burrito. A burrito. More beautiful Aspins. I am in heaven. Oh God that was sketchy. I don't think I've ever seen so many Columbines in one place in my life. Whoa. Way to go Colorado. Your flowers are awesome. I like to see this trail magic. Hello. How's it going? Very good. You're lucky you're like the number two person for the day. Oh really? We got hot dogs, we got quesadillas. Are you kidding? What's your name? I'm Luke and my friends call me Buss. What's up Buss? Nice to meet you. What's your name? Alina or Abstract. So great to meet you. This is amazing. This is amazing. I love it. Oh man that looks good. I gotta go. Luke thank you so much for this quesadilla. You're the man. Oh it's so nice to have some hot food. Have a good one. Keep on spreading the love. So these cameras never give you a real good idea of how steep things are but let me assure you this is very steep. I'm gonna be going up to 12,000 feet. I think I'm at about just under 10 right now. So I've got a ways to go. Water wasn't so bad. Top of Georgia pass almost 12,000 feet and it is beautiful up here. There's really like not any clouds in the sky. Oh my favorite park. Time to go downhill. Oh my god this is so fun. So fun. I'm loving this. Can't go through that. Here I am on a busy highway and my brother is nice enough to come and pick me up. I'm five miles outside of where he lives in Silverthorn and then tomorrow I will start right back there. It is time for special summer tradition making. Sticking. Perfectly smored. Thank you so much man. I love you brother. Good seeing you. Love you too. Have a good day. Have fun. Enjoy your ride. Alright this is where I left off yesterday. So grateful that my brother came and got me and took me to Silverthorn and what a wonderful night we had. Family time is always good for the soul and now it's time for some mountain time which is also good for the soul. It's a beautiful morning. Now that is a serious uphill. I'm gonna try to ride some of this but boy is it steep. I'll be lucky to go 10 miles today. I've been doing this for four hours and I'm getting close to the top. Now I really feel like I'm getting close to the top. It's right up there somewhere. Hopefully soon. I pushed my bike way more than I rode it this morning. I've gone eight miles total in four hours and you know what I was thinking about the whole time? This right here. This is a nutter butter and I got it from my brother and when I was a kid this was one of my favorite treats. My mom used to always buy us little Debbie snacks for our school lunches. Time to go down. This is steep. God. Terrifying. This is why I have a dropper post so I can get way behind my bike to keep my weight backwards so I don't flip over but that doesn't always work. I already flipped over once and did a nice little face plant with my GoPro. Seems to still be working and luckily I didn't get hurt but I need to be careful out here. You know what's great? This is all Copper Mountain Resort and the Colorado Trail is literally right there. So crashing your bike is always scary. Luckily I am okay. Completely okay. What's not okay is the GoPro. Look at that thing and I'm very thankful that I crashed near Copper Mountain because I just went into this Camp Hale Outfitters right here and bought a new GoPro. It's a bit of a bummer. That's a $500 whoops but this is what I do for a living. I want to make sure that I give you high quality video and I mean this one kind of works but I just didn't know if it was gonna last the rest of the trip so I played it safe and I got a whole new GoPro. This is a very nice bit of trail here. I have the soothing sounds of a little creek on my left. Wildflowers everywhere. I don't have to hike my bike. Super super steep stuff. I was a little clumsy. A little bit more hike. Hike a bike. So close to the top. So close. Getting it. That golden sunlight is popping through. It's the magic hour on top of the pass. Not bad. Gotta take advantage of this high altitude snow melt water. It's like the elixir of life. Magic water. That guy right there. You know what that is? It's called a marmot and they only live at high altitude and they just they're pretty friendly. They just kind of cruise around and make funny little squeaky noises. They look kind of like beavers I guess. They're really kind of my favorite little mountain animal. All right we're calling it good. This is the buzzer. Badoom! Coco Mo Pass. What a view. I really need to get out of here. No more camera time. Bye. So this is really special. Where I'm camping tonight where I just magically wanted to stop because I was tired and the sun's going down is a place called Camp Hale. And Camp Hale is where the 10th Mountain Division trained in the Army. And the 10th Mountain Division were the winter warriors. The guys that would ski and they trained them to fight in the Italian mountains. And this is where they did all of their training. And my grandpa was an honorary member and he spent some time here as well. He was too young for the actual for actual World War II. But he spent time here training for the Olympics in the Biathlon. Can you believe that? My grandpa is an Olympian. Isn't that so cool? And this is where they trained. And I feel connected to my poppy. Look who came to say hi. Hey buddy. Thank you Camp Hale for providing a safe place to sleep last night. I felt you poppy. Here we go. I'm about 20 miles from Leadville. Gonna keep on going past Leadville and see where I get. I have no idea. These days are kind of crazy. Alright here we go. Back on the Colorado Trail roller coaster. Up and down and up and down. I cannot tell you how happy I am and grateful for this nice smooth trail today. Oh I needed this after yesterday. And I know it'll change very soon. It'll be hard and I'll be hiking and grunting and all that. But right now so smooth like butter. It was good to sit down. Got my daily greens. Restocked on tortillas, cliff bars. Got some beans too. I love this town. It's an old mining town. It's the highest city in America at ten thousand two hundred feet. And I love the old buildings. Got a lot of charm here. Alright back on the Colorado Trail and back to the up. You know those wilderness detours are great for cranking out miles. But I have to say I like being on the trail a lot more. I feel so good. Little mid-ride happy day. Feeling good today. And I'm eating a sandwich. I didn't expect any tunnels on the Colorado Trail. Short and sweet. Right in time for thunder and lightning. Look at the view. You know what one of the best smells in the world is wet sage. And I'm riding right through a whole field of sage. It smells so fresh. I know you can't smell it out there. But if you ever get the chance do it. I call this biker high. You've heard of runners high. Right now I was biker's high. I'm surrounded by beauty. Not only sage but look at these mountains. That's crazy. This is a real deal rainstorm. I kept thinking nah it's not gonna do anything. No it's not gonna do anything. Yep it's doing something but luckily I got my waterproof pants and my jacket. I'm cozy. I'm all good. And the sound of the rain is kind of nice. This is pure magic right here. This is what you call hero dirt. The rain comes through dampens things down. The trail becomes tacky and your tires have really good traction. Mountain bikers love this stuff. I've been kind of lost in the trees with my head down just powering up hill and I came around the corner and whoa mama look at this. Man. Woo yeah. I love you mother nature. Yeah into the left. That view is pretty good too. I am now on another beautiful detour. Nice dirt road smooth fast pedaling and I have about 15 miles until the town of Buena Vista or as the locals call it Buena Vista. You just went on a search to look for camping. Yeah pretty wet out there pretty wet out there pretty dry right here so I'm happy that I'm back here but we're pretty much very visible right now to the police that apparently don't want us camping here. And Jeff found a dugout here at the local baseball diamond. Alright here's our home for the night. I'm just gonna do this. Hopefully it's warm enough. So this is not how I thought this night would go but you know it's an adventure and we're cozy and we're dry. It's seriously raining still out there so very grateful to be in this dugout and I hope nobody messes with us tonight. Wait I'm not just good morning from our beautiful hotel called the dugout here in lovely Buena Vista. So the mountains I'm looking at right now are called the collegiate peaks. They are all 14,000 foot mountains and I have to admit I'm a little nervous about these next four days. Everybody has told me that it's very hard and there's no resupply. I don't think I've ever been on a tour with four days of no resupply. It's about 200 miles from here to Silverton. Beautiful in here. Tell you what. So I was focused on not falling into the creek and then I see this woman ahead of me on a bike and it's Liz. What's up? How you doing? So what are you doing out here? I originally started out to do an FKT northbound and it's turned into an FFS northbound. What does FFS mean? Can I say it? Sure. For f**k's sake. Okay gotcha. I've been walking my bike for three days straight. I ran out of food a day ago. I got rained on, spent the night in a pit toilet last night to stay warm. It was actually pretty nice and hopefully get to Buena Vista and get real food. So what am I looking at going up this way? It's just gonna keep getting rockier and rockier and rockier and rockier until there's so many rocks that you'll be walking for a long time. Yeah! I wish you the best of luck my friend. Boom! Meaning rocks. Back to hiking and boy my legs are feeling it. Six days of hard pushing and yeah they're tired. The whole body's tired. Stopping and checking out the flowers always just calms me down a little bit. Just brings the blood pressure down. I think this is the quietest moment I've had in a long time. Not just on the trail but in life. No wind, no airplanes. Thank you Tree for blocking 90% of the rain. I'm gonna hang out here for a little bit. It is raining pretty hard out there. Thank you Tree. I came around the corner here and I could hear something in the distance and there's a pack of dogs going nuts. Maybe it's chupacabra. I have no idea but it sounds kind of haunting. At my legs every day they get a little bit more trashed. This is the gold standard for beans. I have been dreaming about these beans all day. I'm starving. It was a hard day and he's gonna make it so much better. It says here there's about 3.5 servings per container. I don't think so. More like one serving. You know how fast I fall asleep after a day like today? This fast. Buenos noches. I'm put on wet shoes. My favorite. Thank you freezing cold campsite. After big adventures like this I always come home with just a very open heart. These adventures crack me open. Physically, emotionally, everything. And I think about all the beautiful things in my life. Family, friends, my town, my community. I'm so grateful. So incredibly grateful for what I have and that I have the ability to go out and do something like this. The opportunity to take time off because not everybody has that. And you can bitch and moan about how hard something like this is. But this is just I'm so fortunate. So fortunate. It is a huge learning experience every time I do this. And I really feel like it makes me a better person. A more caring, kind, loving, humble person. It might be hard but you got to stop sometimes and look around and be like damn. This world is beautiful. Oh boy. Oh boy. And then you get to the top of a mountain and all is right in the world. All the hard work pays off. Oh I'm so happy that the sun is out today. Man it makes me feel good. What is this monstrosity in front of me? It looks like they put rocks on the trail just to make it harder. My legs are so tired. So tired. This hill isn't even that bad. Oh my god. My heart doesn't pump this hard in a long time. Good thing I got a strong heart. Strong lungs and I think I have strong legs. Although I'm second-guessing that right now. This is a technical one. And sometimes when it's so rocky you have to walk downhill. Remember I'm alone and I want to eat it and hurt myself and be out here in the middle of nowhere. So we take it the safe way. My mom would be so proud of me. It's a boulder field. Man this is insane. This is crazy. There's something about Aspen trees. They just calm me down a bit which is what I need right now. I'm on edge. I'm like I gotta go. I gotta go. Gotta make miles. This hurts. This is hard. Ah do I have enough food? Do I have enough water? You know. But being here in this grove. It's chilling me out. My goal today is to beat the storm. I don't want to get wet again. All my stuff is still wet from yesterday. So once again I'm struggling along. Just looking at the ground. Pounding out miles and I see a couple of hikers. They're doing the CDT, the Continental Divide Trail which is the real big mama. And this is my new friend OT. How you doing bud? I'm doing good. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. So tell me your story a little bit. You've done a lot of big stuff. Well in 16 I retired and four days later started the Appalachian Trail. And before I did it I hadn't done an overnight backpacking trip. Didn't even own a backpack. What inspires you to do this? And what inspires you about being out here? That the Lord led me to do these trails because there's a lot of veterans on them. A lot of young kids with holes in their heart that are looking for direction. And I just come out to encourage them. Because if I can do this in my old age what can they do as young people? And you're an incredible human. I'm so glad I met you. This is great. It's a pleasure to meet you. It's amazing you guys can ride a bicycle through all these rocks. Well I'm not riding all that much. I've said it many times on this trip so far but when I meet people like that guy OT snaps me out of my pity party pulls me out of my little funk where I'm just like ah it's so hard but then I meet somebody like that hear their story and it just inspires me. There's a lot of wonderful people out here and it's cool to be connected to them all. Is this the last hill? Never the last hill. Especially not on the Colorado Trail. So on most of the Colorado Trail there's water aplenty. Like I haven't even had to think about it until today the section I'm on called Sargent's Mesa is a little light on water filling up at this little little creek right here because I've been out of water for probably two hours. So just like on the Discovery Channel when you see animals flocking to water so do the hikers and I just met this nice Cajun guy from Louisiana. What's your story my friend? My story is I'm getting old and I'm on my last page in life and I'm giving it everything I'm half. I'm 64 years old from the Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I got about two weeks left and then this is it. No more hikes this is it. Say two. No more. No more. What other hikes have you done? I've done a couple of but done the 18 and done a couple of ones but this is it. This one's doing me in and after this it's about the grandkids. Go Tigers. Go Tigers. Cheers. How about one last super steep downhill to finish the day? It's time. Gotta be careful. This is some steep stuff. Yikes and loose rocks. Lots of loose rocks. Oh yeah this is steep. Oh buddy. Another day on the Colorado Trail. Three quarters of today was really hard for me. I just wasn't in my groove. I think it might have to do with waking up really early and it was super cold. Like the first hour and a half of riding my fingers were numb and I was just uncomfortable. When I'm cold I just I just don't feel right. I like warm weather. I was having a hard time just enjoying it and it kind of makes me sad. It's like I'm out here to enjoy the moment and really love this but it's so hard. It's so damn hard. Can you believe I only rode 41 miles today and I started at 6.50 a.m. and ended at 7.50 so 13 hours on the bike and 40 miles. 7,000 feet of elevation. So needless to say I'm very excited to sleep and do it again tomorrow. I got in kind of late last night. Didn't quite notice that I am camping amongst Kapu. This is the cow pasture. Let's see if I still have battery. Okay buddy let's go for another ride. No crashes, no flaties, no whammies. Today in about 10 miles I'm gonna hit La Garita Wilderness detour. This is a good way to warm up in the morning pushing up a steep hill. So I'm cruising down this hill and I see a sign that says trail magic ahead and I'm like I hope they're open early in the morning and they are. Look at this. Hello. What has inspired you to do such a wonderful thing? Well my husband and I hiked the trail last year and we had some trail magic and we just thought you know it would be really nice to pay it forward. And what are you making here? I'm making you a little hot cocoa. Hot cocoa. A little Swiss mess. I'm so excited for this doughnut. Cheers everybody. Cheers. Goodbye patches. Thank you so much. You are wonderful. Thank you. Bye everybody. See you later. Oh man. Well I feel really good now. Alright here it is La Garita Wilderness detour. The actual trail goes that way. Bikes are not allowed. So I'm going that way. And it's about 55 miles I think of road riding. Dirt roads at least. So it should be fairly fast. No hike a bike. Yes. Feels good. On my dirty leg. Now I'm gonna dry off as I ride uphill for a long time. So this is Colorado. It was hot and sunny 20 minutes ago when I jumped in the river. I found a great place to hide from the rain. Not very roomy and it doesn't smell good but I'm dry which is very nice. I sometimes wish I could read the future. At least the very near future. If that were the case I would not have jumped in freezing cold water 20 minutes ago. So I heard quite a ruckus about half a mile ago. I thought it was chainsaws off in the forest. Nope. Hey guys. How's it going? This is quite the scene. This looks doable. Some nice grass. It's pretty lumpy but built-in air mattress. This is the inside of my tent. Look at that. Built in. It's like a bouncy castle. This might actually be kind of comfortable. And check this out for the main event tonight. Peanut butter, Nutella and Fritos. I really couldn't be happier right now. I'm in my tent. It's raining. It's cozy. I had a great day. I'm gonna eat this masterpiece. It's gonna be a big day. They say it's this section is the most hike a bikes of the entire Colorado Trail. I have about 40 miles until Silverton. But it's probably gonna take me all day to get there. And high altitude ridge traversing. And here we go. Looks like something out of Lord of the Rings. Look at that. You got it buddy. Forward forward forward. Look at those mountains. Whoa. This is pretty beautiful. So today is the day when I need to employ the gratitude march. And that's when with every step I take, every painstaking step I take, I think of somebody I love. And it helps helps me move forward. And it fills my heart with a little bit of joy at a time of intense physical pain. Time for a beauty break. Look at that. And that is where I'm going. This is as much an arm workout as it is in leg workout. This sure is beautiful. Look at that. Oh my god. And switch back. Come on buddy. You got this. Up, up, up. You got this. Okay. Looks like we have some ridable terrain here. Let's cruise. 13,271 feet. There's my beautiful priority, 600X. And there's the storm clouds. Yeah, look at those views. My other GoPro battery died right when the hail started, but you can see this is what happened. And it got pretty hairy there for a second. And now I'm just pushing on a super slick trail. It's like snow. Boy, this Colorado trail is testing me in every way. Like no traction. It really does look like it snowed. Oh, it's kind of beautiful, the post-storm world. Although I don't think I'm completely out of it because I'm surrounded by dark clouds. Stony Pass, you are a sight for very sore eyes. I've been so excited to see this all day. This is the wilderness bypass. This means that it's just a dirt road downhill into Silverton. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be in Silverton. I never thought this moment would happen, but we made it. Ah! Ah, it's my first time here too. Pretty exciting. Goodbye, beautiful Silverton. Onward. Wow, those are some good views. And I like them with the blue sky. There are some clouds building up. We'll see what happens later. But right now, it is beautiful. I have to say that today has been much more enjoyable so far than yesterday. Much more rideable terrain. I actually get to ride my mountain bike. What it was meant for. A little squirrely. It smells so good. It's like walking into a greenhouse. Love it. Mother nature is quite the florist. She really knows how to put the color combinations together. Yeah, tunnel of flowers. Don't fall to the left, don't fall to the left, don't fall to the left. Back to the old hike a bike. I'm pretty used to this by now. I am so motivated right now to get this done. I want to be done. That's steep. A little bit of hike a bike. Love these flower tunnels. So beautiful. What I don't love is dark clouds in front of me. Go away. Get out of here. That's where I'm headed. Right where the rain is falling right there. Yippee. Okay, that's right. Or at least try to ride. Don't fall to the right, don't fall to the right. I think I can, I think I can. I think I can. And look at this mushroom over here. This thing is crazy. It's huge. Look at that thing. It is now time for a blueberry crisp cliff bar. Looks kind of gross, but it's not. But most importantly, I want to show you this view. Look at that. Look at that. Not bad, huh? So this is what I'm working on right here, this trail. Up, I think, over the ridge. Beautiful evening. Little rocky here. Okay, I've been riding and riding and riding. Looking for the perfect camp spot. It's not perfectly flat, but it does have a perfect view. Look at that. Yeah, this will do just. Although that rain is coming this way. So, good thing I got the tent up. The rain showed up just like I thought. I'm glad I stopped when I did. I'm very cozy in here, eating my junk food. Boy, that was no chess. I'm gonna sleep well. One more day at a Durango, yeah! Last night, and I'm glad it's not raining anymore. Gotta look smooth for my final day. Here comes the sun, noot, noot, doot. I'm so glad to see you, sun. And my final bean burrito of the trip. Mmm, thank you. Beautiful piece of ground. This was my favorite camp spot of the entire trip. Let's do this. The trail is super wet and muddy from all the rain last night. So it's a little slow going, but that's okay. And that's where I'm headed way over there. Seems so far away. See that squiggly line up there to the top? Oh, I keep on going up and down, up and down. I'm thinking I'm getting closer, but it's still a long way away. Got my arms, everything burns. Why do I do this to myself? Oh, I know, that's why. I think I can, I think I can. I am the little engine right now. Come on, buddy. I'm sorry for all the grunting noises, but there's no other way to do this. Oh, man. It's taking every bit of me. Let's do this, come on. Okay, the good news is I made it to the top of that hill. The bad news is that is the actual summit way over there. Oh, no. Keep trucking, buddy, keep trucking, you got this. Again, though. Beauty is off the charts. We're getting there, we're getting there. You got this? Come on. I did it. I did it. God, it feels good. The Colorado Trail has all these triumphs throughout the day, ups and downs and ups and downs. This is a good feeling right here. And lucky for me, I think a lot of the way down to Durango is downhill of about 26 more miles, a marathon left of the Colorado Trail. And I'm gonna enjoy it, take it all in. Oh, the flowers. I freaking did it. I feel so good. And I don't really have a whole lot to say that I haven't said this whole week. I feel kind of numb. But I'm very thankful that I got here in one piece and grateful for the experience, even as hard as it was. This is gonna be with me for a long time. I'm gonna be thinking about the Colorado Trail for the rest of my life and the lessons learned. And I always feel like these types of adventures make me a better person, more compassionate, more tender-hearted, more loving, more in tune with nature, more in tune with my body, more in tune with other people. I really loved meeting all the other hikers and bikers on the trail. That was definitely one of the highlights, absolutely, 100%. The flowers, the flowers were so amazing. I loved them. I probably could have gone three days faster if I didn't stop and look at all the flowers. And I'm really proud of myself. I mean, it's been a long time since I've had to push this hard to accomplish something. And it feels really good. It feels really good that I did it. And that helps build confidence going forward in life, knowing that I can do these really hard things. I can do it. And I'd just like to say thanks to Priority Bicycles for designing such an awesome bike, the 600X. The Ren Fork was amazing. The pinion, the Gates Belt Drive. You know, I beat the crap out of that bike. And I beat the crap out of myself. And we're both here standing, strong. I need to call my mom now. Let her know that I'm safe. That's what I do. Thank you all for watching. I really appreciate it for watching all my videos, for sticking with me, for supporting me, for being part of Team Dooser. I love the ability to do this. You know, it's a dream job. It really is. And I couldn't do it without you. Sorry if I'm getting emotional, but these adventures always crack me open. And I feel very cracked emotionally and physically in every other way. But thank you all so much. And yeah, that's all I gotta say. You can tell that I need to take a nap. Colorado Trail. Hello my friends. First of all, thank you so much for watching this video. It was a long one. If you made it this far, you deserve a medal. It is now March 2022. It's been about six months since I finished the Colorado Trail. And going through all this footage the past week and making this long cut of the adventure was good for my soul. Because man, that trail was absolutely incredible. And it's been nice to have some time apart from it to really reminisce about how special it was out there. So this is my channel. If you're new to my channel, welcome. I have adventure videos from all over the world, lots of biking and running and other types of fun outdoor activities. I would like to say, hey, please, if you have it in you, join my Patreon page. Patreon is how I keep my channel moving forward. I don't do sponsored posts. I don't wanna be selling you stuff all the time. I try to keep it community funded. And that's what Patreon is all about. So I will link down below a link to my Patreon page. And you can choose whatever amount you're comfortable with. And if you don't have any money to do Patreon, I totally understand it. My videos will always be free for everybody to watch. But maybe I can ask you to share my videos with your friends, because that makes a really, really big difference for me. So thank you once again. And I hope you explore all the other videos on my channel. I actually made an entire series of this Colorado Trail, if you wanna see each day more in depth. And stay tuned because there's more adventures to come. But first, I know you've been sitting down for a long time watching this. It's time to get off your couch and get out there on your own adventures. Cheers.