My Continental Divide Trail 2022-3 Thru Hike | A Slightly Messy Triple Crown Finish

After having thru hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2020 and the Appalachian Trail (plus a bit more) in 2021, there was really nothing to be done but go for the third of the big three US hiking trails aka the Triple Crown of Hiking. So in summer of 2022 I set out to do the Continental Divide Trail southbound from the Canadian border.  

Things could have gone a bit smoother.

I started at Canadian border June 28th, 2022 along with my partner Jen. We started at Chief Mountain because Waterton Lake wasn't currently reachable due to snow and we'd been lucky to get a permit reservation for the backcountry 

I had every intent to do a single year connected footpath same as the PCT / AT but the universe apparently decided that after getting very lucky for 2 years I was due some more involved complications.

We had some snow in Glacier to the point we started with ice axes and some microspikes but the bigger complication was the Grizzley Buffet. Per the rangers some local ranchers had had 50 head of cattle wander into a canyon and freeze to death. And there was now a massive feast going on as all the wildlife fed on it.

As a result a section of the trail was closed forcing a 30 mile roadwalk between xx and East Glacier.

I was concerned this was going to lead to some sort of overuse injury this early in the hike but we managed to knock it out pretty efficiently thanks to cold dreary rain keeping us moving. After a quick overnight at Lunas in East Glacier we happily exited the park and all the camping and permit restrictions to what felt like starting the hike proper.

The Bob was wild, wonderful, and absolutly covered with blown down trees. We sometimes had to climb 6 ft up in the air or crawl on our hands and knees to make it past. Other sections had us slogging through snow or negotiating our way through extensive burn areas with all the challenges those bring. But this was all basically what we'd signed up for.

Everything went relatively smoothly for the first 84 days in which I covered 1,640 miles. We had a single night in Idaho where we could see a wildfire off in the distance but beyond that it was relatively smooth sailing.

Jen was with me until Idaho where she jumped off trail on August 11th in Lima to return to SoCal for the start of her school year. 

On September 20th I somehow came down with a rather rough case of COVID while camped up at 12,000 ft near Winter Park. That cost me 9 days spent between expensive town stays and miserable periods camped out near Berthod Pass struggling to breath at 12k. Finally on September 29th I was able to continue.

I spent two relatively happy weeks hiking along with manageable post COVID lung and cough struggles. The weather was starting to turn on me and a snow storm forced me off the red line and onto the Silverthorne alt to avoid the high altitude exposure around Grays.

This ended up being the right call and I had some pretty wild weather even down lower. In addition the aftermath of COVID had me struggling to make shorter days but I had hopes it would improve with a little more time.

On the night of October 11th I became violently I'll probably due to a case of norovirus. Similar to COVID there's no telling where I picked it up. My exposure on trail was limited but there were plenty of town stops and water sources where I could have been exposed.

After an epically bad night I came off trail with the intent to clean up and expecting to be recovered after a few days based on past experiences. 

I returned to trail on the October 15th desperate to continue knowing the window the make it through southern Colorado was getting rather tight. Unfortunately I'd jumped the gun a bit and I found I was barely able to make it through the day. 6 or 10 miles of easy trail took everything out of me and I couldn't even do an easy hill without having to constantly rest.

So on October 17th after three days of crawling along feeling incredibly weak I had to face facts and came off trail at the 114 mile marker 1,960.

When I came off trail it took me the better part of a month and a half to really recover. I was mostly in bed and I was still struggling with some post COVID symptoms like cold feet well into December when we went out over Christmas break paddling the Suwannee River.

So this year left me having hiked 1,885 miles with 1,015 redline miles left to Mexico.

Despite my strong preference for single year monument to monument thru hikes I felt like I had to be realistic here. Even if I restarted from the border the chance of another major issue cropping up in the 3,000 mile version of the CDT is pretty high. I also didn't have any interest in going northbound considering all the route compromises that usually entails. And I'd already promised Jen we could do the Mississippi Source to Sea paddle over her summer this year.

So I decided to come back and pick up where I left off -ish next summer after the Mississippi. I say -ish because I decided that I might as well grab the red line segments I'd had to reluctantly shortcut due to weather at the end.

So on August 31st, 2023 while barely recovered from our 75 day source to sea paddle of the Mississippi I was dropped off at Grand Lake back at mile marker 1,631. I restarted by doing the Rocky Mountain National Park loop (which I wouldn't recommend) and then continued south with the main goal being to do the Grays and Edwards traverse aka the CDT high point.

Once I was over Grays and into the Argentine area I was back on part of the trail I'd already done last year. My plan had been to just continue on from here and redo this section figuring it had been pretty and it was a good way to get back in shape. But now that I was there I started to get really bothered by how far I had until the San Juans and the looming winter weather. 

So on September 14th I got a ride from mile marker 1,775.1 at Copper Mountain back down to where I'd exited last year at 1,958.7. This saved me a few weeks of retreading some rough high altitude trail and probably was responsible for me getting to finish how I wanted in the end.

It was basically everything I could have hoped with just enough late fall weather to make things interesting.

I entered New Mexico officially on October 1st admittedly looking forward to some easier terrain after getting kicked around in the Colorado high country.

There are still mountains in northern New Mexico but nothing like what I'd been through already. Things went relatively smoothly and I started to feel like this might actually happen with just the Black Hills standing out as a challenge up ahead. 

And then October 7th happened. After a really pleasant evening camp I was walking down a ridge up above Abiquue / Ghost Ranch when a rock rolled out from under me. I went down on my ass which is usually the safest way to land and instantly knew something was wrong.

An hour or two later it was clear I'd torn something in my calf. Trying to walk any distance felt like I was in danger of making things worse and I was in a dry section with limited water on my back and short days due to the time of year. So I made the call to hit the SOS button on my inreach.

My evac ended with me in Santa Fe where I hopped to spend just a few days recovering. However it soon became clear my leg was more injured than that and I ended up having to make my way back to my parents where I spent the next 23 days resting and trying to rehab the injury with small hikes.

A visit to an urgent care in Canyon City diagnosed me with a strain of the left gastrocnemuis aka calf strain. The expected recovery was about three weeks.

On October 31st roughly three weeks after the injury I'd recovered enough to return to trail. I was dropped off once again outside Abiquiu and continued on my way successfully with only minor pain at the end of the day.

I was bound and determined to do every remaining bit of the red line route through New Mexico and I did so for the remaining 691.9 miles including the seldom done Black Hills section where most people wade through the Gila.

For the record the fear mongering about this section online is mostly due to rumors. 99% of people go through the Gila and a lot of the information they cite are from FKT folks and others who went in unprepared for the water carrys and bailed out trying to justify themselves online. Yes, there are long water carrys back there but it's quite doable and it was also a very memorable section I'm glad I did.

I had several cold snaps including temperatures down to single digits at night and multiple rounds of rain and snow. The worst was right before I reached Silver City which was where the weather changed and I suddenly I was back to warm ish weather for the rest of the way down to the border/

Finally on December 11th I reached the Mexican border leaving me with a monument to monument mileage total of 3,072 miles and completing my Triple Crown.

I was lucky enough that someone offered to come get me at the border and so by that night I was in a hotel in Las Cruces. The next day I drove to my parents and I was back in southern California and reunited with Jen at long last on December 14th just in time to sit around for a week and a half before we disappeared off to Mexico for a long planned dive trip to Socorro.

So in the end my CDT hike was spread across 2022 and 2023 which does rankle just a bit. 

2022 stats: June 28th to October 17th. 112 days, 1,885 miles. 

2023 stats: August 31st to December 11th. 80 days, 691 miles. (ignoring the three weeks I came off trail)

Discounting all zero days that means I spent about 169 days hiking across the two years during a 211 day period. But I would consider 189 to be closer to accurate counting the trail zeros but not the weeks spent off trail recovering.

So overall stats let's say 183 days, 3,062 miles. This compares to the PCT where I took 148 days and the AT where I took 134 (though it was part of a longer 302 mile trek from Key West up into Canada). 

For a more in depth look at the overall Triple Crown stats see my post here: Triple Crown of Hiking

While part of me does wish I could have done a "clean" single year hike of the CDT in the end I'm really happy with what I got to do. In the end it felt more important to me to do the trail "right" (aka not skip the sections that are more of a challenge or fall into the whole trying to game my way through the trail that seems so common these days)

No shade on anyone who did a bunch of the shortcut alts and enjoyed themselves. I will say Silverthorne for example was quite pleasant. But I just can't square the idea of skipping 500+ miles of trail and an entire state (Super Butte / Big Sky skips Idaho) with me being able to internally feel like I'd done the Continental Divide Trail.

I feel like the research I did recommending a southbound hike of the CDT was spot on. Everything I've seen says the CDT was considered a southbound trail (vs the PCT and AT which while being done both ways are primarily done northbound) and that the flood of attempts starting from New Mexico are a more modern thing.

Also while it might seem nice to finish in Glacier keep in mind that area is one of the most complicated when it comes to permits and fall / winter weather can shove you out of the spectacular backcountry and require you to finish on long stretches of pavement. Vs as I demonstrated once you get down to New Mexico you can finish quite late and the water / heat situation is generall going to be more in your favor.

I find it hard to straight out compare the three trails since I liked all of them for different reasons but in general I will say the CDT lived up to it's reputation for more difficult navigation. It became a running joke when we'd come up to a trail junction and the established footpath went left but it turned out the CDT followed what looked like a deer path heading in a different direction. Obviously in these days of phone navigation and the excellent FarOut app the difficulty mostly comes down to some annoyances,