Wow! It’s hard to believe that I am now three years out from cancer. Poking through my Google Drive, I came across this account of my attempt of bike packing the Colorado Trail in 2020, a few months out from finishing my six weeks of radiation treatment.
As I wrap up 2023 I am grateful of where my life has taken me. I’m not sure that given the choice to do it all over again that I would choose cancer, but I can’t deny the opportunities it has brought me. From a new career, meeting and making new friends and the oportunity to make a difference in others’ live, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have played out this way.
Below you will find a look back on one of my biggest adventures as I moved through my first year of my cancer journey.
Never once when I was purchasing the Garmin Inreach a month earlier did I think I’d need to use its “dial a friend” or SOS lite feature so soon after buying it. And yet that’s exactly what happened. I was just a few miles short of Coney Summit (13,334 feet, the highest point on Colorado Trial) and I had to contact friends and family to let them know that Rob and I were pulling the plug on our Durango to Denver attempt of the CT; that we’d be heading back to Silverton, the next closest town.
In hindsight, my phrasing of “experiencing minor medical issues heading back to Silverton” was a bit vague and ominous. I never considered the panic it would incite within my friends and family. So much for being cheap and trying not to exceed the texting limit on my Inreach plan with Garmin.
If you ever want to know who your true friends are, send a cryptic message hinting at a crisis and see which ones immediately rally to help you. Fortunately for me and Rob, once we regained cell phone reception in Silverton, I was able to calm my wife’s fears and connect with my good friend Guillermo, who was quick to come up with a retrieval plan.
Our plan to bikepack the Colorado Trail during the summer of 2020 was not a last-minute plan spurred by COVID-19 to escape the ‘stay at home orders.’ During the summer of 2018 the Rob and I tackled Sections 1-6, as the Denver terminus is just a short bike ride from my front door. The following year we tackled the Vapor Trail and spent several days mountain biking the trails around Salida, CO in celebration of my 50th birthday.
Rob’s visits had become part of our summer routine. From his home in Greenville, SC, he would embark on his own summer vacation plans, which usually included road tripping to various national parks in the Southwest and then staying over at our place for some good ol’ fashion Colorado mountain biking.
Unfortunately, a summer injury around that same time of year had also become routine for me. The first year I tore my meniscus. The next year I broke my foot and the following summer I was hit by a motorist while out on a ride. Twenty-twenty proved to be no exception. The dial, so to speak, was ramped up to 11 when I received a cancer diagnosis only days after the start of the New Year. It was eventually treated with surgery and six weeks of radiation treatment. At that time, somewhere on Segment 22 of the CT with Rob, it had only been a mere two months since my last radiation treatment.
Our trip started off well enough. My good buddy, Gary readily agreed to drive us to Durango in my truck and then drive the truck back to my house in Denver, which eliminated the need for a pick up shuttle at the end of the trip, as we could go directly to my house for cold beers, showers and burritos. Gary even camped with us the night before at the trailhead and rode the first five miles of trail with us the following morning.
Like any big adventure, rolling out onto the CT was thrilling. I felt a mixture of butterflies in my stomach and adrenaline coursing through my veins. So much adrenaline, in fact, that I attacked the trail hard (or rather, as hard as one can with their bike heavily loaded down with gear and food) and quickly found myself gapping Rob and Gary. I was excited. Not only was I finally out on The Trail but my body felt strong! It surprised me because I was still dealing with the varied side effects of the radiation treatment to my neck and the back of my mouth. I had open sores in the back of my throat and my salivary glands only functioned at half-capacity, if that. Meaning, it was extremely challenging to eat food without also drinking copious amounts of water to help break down that food sufficiently enough to swallow it comfortably.
We stopped at Gudy’s Rest overlook for our first of many photo ops. We adjusted gear, chatted with another mountain biker and acknowledged how lucky we were to have so many incredible opportunities to still get outside despite COVID and the forest fires that had started popping up across CO.
A few miles later, Gary said his goodbyes, promised not to wreck my truck and wished us well. It didn’t take long for me to realize that something wasn’t right. After we crossed and climbed out of Junction Creek, my body began to fatigue rapidly. I felt exhausted. I tried to convince myself that it was just the heat and altitude affecting me. Despite having lived in Denver for six years at that point, it still took me time to adjust to efforts at altitudes above 9,000’. I figured this was just that adjustment period and it would pass.
Despite all the high altitude riding that consumes large sections of the CT, both the north and south terminus start with plenty of tree coverage and are both at relatively low altitudes. At the top of Waterton Canyon which is right outside Denver, we were only at 5,522’ elevation. In Durango, however, we started riding at just under 7,000’, 6,983’ to be exact. Granted, if you were coming from Greenville, SC which rests at approximately 965’, just as Rob was doing, it was easy to understand how the air could seem so thin. Fortunately, Rob was no stranger to high-altitude riding and hiking. He knew how to pace himself. In fact, as the day would later reveal, he would become my preverbal rabbit and I the very slow greyhound.
As we continued away from Junction Creek, we made a pretty bonehead mistake and didn’t bother to top off our water bottles and bladders. Several miles later we pushed our bikes out of the forest and began to cross what seemed like never-ending scree fields. I’d slurp the last of the water from my waist pack. My inability to produce adequate amounts of saliva was causing me to burn through my water dangerously fast. I needed every bit of that water. Without it, I couldn’t soften my food well enough to get it past the still very vulnerable radiation sores in the back of my throat.
Over the next four days this need for extra water would be my undoing.
To make matters worse, the food I was actually able to take in did very little to provide me adequate energy. I could hardly keep up with Rob, who was making great time across the scree fields. Note to self: Don’t make fun of Rob for all the running and hiking he does for cross training anymore. When it comes to bikepacking, they are super helpful activities.
My bike, which never before seemed so heavy, now felt like a stubborn donkey that refused to move. My mind was already creating a list of things I could do to make it lighter for my next trip. Number One: Get a lighter bike.
Peaking out near the Kennebec Trailhead and parking lot, I realized that the section we’d just climbed may have been the hardest 4,000 feet of elevation gain I’d ever earned in my life. It was still several hours before sunset and my sole interest was setting up my tent, eating and going to sleep.
It’s hard to have a bad campsite on the CT and Night One was no exception. Nestled next to Taylor Lake, we watched the sun slide behind the mountains, bathing the Colorado Trail with shifting shades of orange and yellow.
Once I got in my bag, I expected to fall asleep quickly. Instead, the twitching of my aching legs, matched by the nervous thoughts that clambered around in my head, kept me up for hours.
Had I overestimated my recovery and health? Should I even be out there? Rob and I were supposed to do 40 miles that day. We’d barely done half of that. How were we going to finish the trip?
Surprisingly, despite all the worry and doubt, I finally drifted off to sleep and slept only like you can after a hard ride and a big meal. I woke in the morning feeling fresh and ready to go.
It was a slow start (we still hadn’t gotten into the rhythm of packing up camp quickly) but we finally threw our legs over our bikes around 9am. As our shoes clicked into our pedals, several deer in the meadow raised their heads to look at us in a way such as to ask: “Why are y’all going that way? Only the bighorn sheep in these parts are dumb enough to go up that trail.”
The climb/push/drag-a-bike over boulders away from Taylor Lake did little to dampen our enthusiasm, though. We were headed up, which meant that, at some point, we’d get to go down. We’d then do some sublime alpine riding as we headed toward Engineer Pass, our ultimate destination for the day.
Despite our early morning enthusiasm, we barely managed half our mileage. My old friend, Self Doubt, was creeping back into my brain. We’d ridden strong and kept our breaks short, but it was two days in and we were falling considerably far behind schedule. The southern start of the CT was proving to be much tougher than I’d anticipated. The last time I’d ridden that area was on a hut-to-hut trip booked through San Juan Huts and I was on a lightweight cross country bike which only carried extra clothes and a day’s worth of snacks.
No worries, right? Tomorrow was a new day. We would roll over Engineer Pass and down into Silverton, which would be our first detour around a wilderness area.
The ride to the base of Engineer Pass went quickly and smoothly. Refilling bottles at the creek, my eternal optimism began to creep back despite the fact that Engineer Mountain still loomed above us. I remembered the ride down to that very creek from six years prior. It had been fast, furious and out of control at times. I kept telling myself that the climb up probably wouldn’t be that bad. If I could ride down it, then surely I could ride up it, right?
It was at the top of the pass that I’d had my first thoughts about pulling the plug on the whole thing. The idea of rolling into Silverton, renting a room, eating pizza and drinking beer at Avalanche Brewery seemed like the best idea in the world. I didn’t share this thought with Rob. I knew he’d be down for the pizza part because that was all he’d talked about all day. In his mind, we should refuel and then push on. I, however, was thinking more like drinking beer, eating pizza and then curling into a ball for sleep.
By Day 3 it had become painfully clear to me that my inability to take in enough food was slowly causing my body to eat away at itself. During radiation treatment, one of the tenets of taking care of yourself is to try and eat to maintain your weight. In my case this was critical to the accuracy of my treatment. Each morning I would lay on a padded steel table where my head was fitted with a custom mask that was bolted to the table. The mask ensured that I did not move while the radiation machine passed overhead. The grid pattern of the mask served as an alignment tool for the technician. She made sure the radiation was pinpointed only at the areas of my head and neck that had been infected with cancer. This mask-and-machine combo was proof of a huge advancement in the treatment of head and neck cancer. Older treatment techniques were more like carpet bombing and they just blasted the entire head and neck with radiation. While it was effective, the side effects were often worse than the cancer. Patients experienced tooth loss, bone degeneration and massive hair loss in the treated areas. There was also severe damage to their skin and salivary glands.
I was prescribed a dental plan consisting of fluoride treatments. The radiologist carefully directed the beams, as it would greatly reduce my chances of losing any teeth. In addition, the skin damage was reduced and the hair loss was minimal. I only had a small bald patch under my right jaw line. I remember the peeling and flaky skin, as well as the falling hairs.
My big takeaways from the treatment were under-functioning salivary glands and a massive fifteen pound weight loss. Raw and open sores in my throat made it incredibly difficult to eat. I ate only the softest of foods. If, however, that food had the slightest bit of acidity, it felt like gasoline running down the back of my throat.
Once the sores healed I still had large crater-like pits in the back of my throat, which proved to be the perfect place for food to get stuck. Eating the most basic mountain bike staples like Clif Bars and PB&J sandwiches was a considerable undertaking. Each bite required that I take an extra sip of water just to break down the food enough to allow it to pass over the craters in the back of my throat.
I hadn’t regained any of my lost weight and, considering that I’d been 6’2’ and only 170lbs, I really hadn’t had a lot to give away to begin with. Now, at 155lbs, I looked like the four- time Tour de France winner Chris Froome, except I wasn’t all muscle and sinew. I was pretty much just sinew.
We refueled in Silverton and discussed the coming sections of the CT and how much food we’d need to carry. The next resupply option wasn’t for many miles and it included a long 16 mile plunge into Lake City, which also meant a long 16 mile climb to get back to the CT. No, thank you! We stuffed our bags with food and hoped it would be enough.
We planned to roll out of town and find a campsite somewhere along Cunningham Creek, which would allow us to get the big climb up to Stony Pass out of the way first thing in the morning. It was at Stony Pass that we would rejoin the CT, as our side trip into Silverton consisted of a mandatory detour around the Weminuche Wilderness.
I was looking forward to the climb, despite hearing that the road up to Stony Pass was incredibly steep. I liked fireroad climbing because it allowed me to settle into a steady rhythm. We quickly learned, though, that there was no adequate rhythm. That is, except that of your heart trying its best not to jump out of your chest. The continuous stream of ATVs helped drown out the sound of my laborious breathing. I couldn’t blame the passengers for looking at us like we were crazy.
Eating lunch atop Stony Pass, we discussed the rest of the day. Despite just finishing that brutal climb, Rob and I both felt pretty good. The last couple of days, however, made us avoid making any definitive statements as far as the number of miles we’d ride that day. Instead, we decided to just let the day unfold as it would.
Our new Zen approach to riding paid off and we enjoyed some of the best high alpine riding Colorado has to offer. Unfortunately it wasn’t all riding. As is typical when riding in the Rockies, there’s always going to be a fair share of hike-a-bike. It was the hike-a-bike sections that, again, I really felt my body failing me. As Rob plodded ahead of me, I used a trick I’d heard that high altitude mountaineers used: Take a couple of steps, breathe, rest, and repeat. It helped and once I got back on the bike I did my best to make up for lost time and trade places with Rob.
Our day of Zen riding also ended up being one of our shortest in terms of mileage. By the time we arrived at Cataract Lake, it was obvious we were both suffering and, with plenty of spots to camp, it seemed like the right place to call it a day. Our view of Cataract Lake was incredible.
Before Colorado dropped another epic sunset on us, we watched several large (are there any other kinds?) moose move across the field below us. Their large droppings served as a clear reminder to us that the large beasts owned the land and walked wherever they pleased. We were closer to the trail than the lake, though, so I felt pretty confident that I wouldn’t wake to a moose stepping on me or my tent.
Our campsite was at 12,000’, which meant we were in for a very cold and frosty night. We each bundled up in all of our clothing, including our rain pants and jackets. Still though, I was freezing cold all night. By the looks of Rob the next morning, he hadn’t slept much better.
Now I have no problem getting up early when I am in the comfort of my own home, wrapped in my robe and drinking cappuccinos. Our predawn awakening that morning was rough! I did my best to mimic my routine at home and stayed wrapped inside my sleeping bag and inside my tent. I wiggled out just far enough to boil water and make coffee under the vestibule.
Rob was much hardier than I. He was already up and busy packing gear. We’d agreed to an early start so that we could maintain our schedule. Once again, though, Rob patiently waited for me to hastily stuff my gear into my bags and try my best to stuff oatmeal into my mouth. I think the fact that Rob is an engineer has something to do with his patience. Realizing (from an engineering perspective) that Rome wasn’t built in a day and that I couldn’t be expected to roll out on time, are two of life’s truisms that Rob had come to accept.
Once my gear was stuffed and ready, we started pedaling and enjoying the sunrise.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was done. All the insufficient calories, compounded by the cold and fitful sleep I’d had the night before, finally caught up with me. I was done. I turned to Rob and let him know that I needed to pull the plug. He hardly seemed surprised.
What causes a person to quit something? I know for me there are certain things that are a lot easier to quit than others. Quitting meat was easy. Coffee not so much. In fact, I will quit coffee when you pry my cold dead fingers from the handle of my mug.
Bike rides and races are hard for me to quit. I once rode with and without a working derailleur, walked and carried my bike for sixteen hours just to finish at Unbound Gravel (formerly the Dirty Kanza 200) and can count on one hand the races I have DNF’d.
I quit racing bikes a couple of years ago. The part of me that loves the pre-race butterflies, the bumpin’ of elbows and the mad dash toward the finish in a lowly Cat 4 crit had been quashed by one too many close calls and a couple of hard kisses (followed by stitches) with the concrete. That all was easy, but this was different. I struggled with the feeling of failure. The idea that I had set a goal of riding the entire Colorado Trail just a few months after ending my cancer treatment was tough to swallow. This trip was supposed to be not only for me but a way of saying to friends, family and hopefully complete strangers, “Look at me. I am better. I kicked the shit out of cancer. Don’t worry if you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, you can beat it too!”
It wasn’t working out that way at all, though. I was hang-dog-whipped and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
Several weeks later my perspective began to change. I slowly came to realize that I hadn’t failed; my body just hadn’t healed yet. The fifteen pounds I’d lost wasn’t just my beer gut and winter fat. A lot of it was muscle and the power to move the bike forward. Even less telling was the amount of energy my body was using to continue recovering from the treatment.
The only plus to our backtrack to Silverton was the insane downhill coming off of Stony Pass. Our big and meaty 27.5plus tires weighted down with our gear kept the bikes frimley glued to the loose chunky dirt road that had given us so much trouble the day before. More than one ATV or Jeep driver was surprised as we came sailing by, as they crept slowly through the tight switchbacks.
The downhill was so fun and easy. If only all of the CT was downhill!
Fantasy aside, we pedaled back toward Silverton discussing our next move. It was the weekend and we knew our chances of finding a hotel were slim to none. That meant another pedal to somewhere outside of town to camp. Even this was going to be tough. Silverton’s a haven for outdoor types and the dispersed camping outside of town was overflowing with RVs and campers.
Once we got cell reception, we realized that the calvary was already on their way and that camping wouldn’t be necessary. My good buddy Guillermo was already en route from Denver to pick us up!
With six hours to kill before he arrived, Rob and I stuffed our faces with pizza and ice cream. Now that I had a continuous supply of water and yes, maybe a beer or two, it was much easier to chew and swallow food. I made up for lost time and poor trail dining.
Despite the cloud of having to come off the trail, the ride home with Guillermo and Rob was a blast. It’s amazing what good friends can do to help lighten the mood. We also got an update from Guillermo on the forest fires raging across Colorado. The path along the CT would have not taken us directly into a fire but we would have spent at least a couple of days riding through areas of heavy smoke. No doubt that would have wreaked even more havoc on my tender throat. I still wasn’t crazy about my decision to pull the plug, but at least the ongoing circumstances were making it seem more and more like the wiser decision.
As we got closer to Denver it became more and more obvious that the fires were no joke. The entire Denver sky was a bizarre Marcian orange. Rob continued to be a good sport and was flexible, as we shifted our outdoor plans to indoor plans for the rest of his visit.
There’s no doubt that Rob and I each would have preferred to have stayed on The CT but we made the best of the situation that challenged us. I’m sure Rob wasn’t planning on spending so much time at local museums but, then again, a little culture never hurt anyone. We also managed a few early morning outside adventures before the smoke settled in for the day. This included hiking my first 14er. Yep, seven years in Colorado and I’d only been to the top of a 14er via train (Pikes Peak) and by bicycle (Mt. Evans). The view at the top of Mt. Bierstadt was cool for sure, but the toll it took on my knees as I hiked back down had me pining for my mountain bike.
Closing the books on the summer of 2020 was a bit disappointing for me. With the past six months of perspective, however, I now understand that just being out there on the trail was an enormous win in itself! The CT isn’t going anywhere and one day I’ll go back. Over the years, I’ve spent enough time on it to bookend the north and south terminus, as well as a few pieces in between. I’ll be back to knock it all off in one go.
Bikes Kill Cancer 