Trail-running dynamo Erin Ton takes us through the highs and lows of her mountainous pursuits on the Steep Stuff Podcast, from her transformative post-college years to her current record-chasing ambitions. If her tales of scaling peaks in cocktail dresses and high heels don’t grab your attention, her principled stand to preserve the integrity of outdoor sportsmanship will. Erin's journey is anything but ordinary, and her story of self-supported endurance running, complete with living out of a Jeep Wrangler and strategically excluding Culebra Peak from her records, is both captivating and inspiring.
Facing the unpredictable wrath of nature, Erin narrates a particularly chilling encounter with a lightning storm during the Crestone Traverse and the eerie discovery of a reminder from a previous rescue attempt. While unpacking the controversies and complexities of private land ownership in the outdoor community, Erin exemplifies the essence of sticking to one’s values amidst backlash. As she gears up for the Nolans 14 line and the Colorado Trail, we dissect the unique demands each challenge presents and share the strategy behind her ambitious goal to set new benchmarks in a single summer.
Beyond the adrenaline-fueled escapades, our conversation with Erin ventures into the realm of wildlife conservation and the political delicacies surrounding the reintroduction of predators like wolves in Colorado. Erin's innovative high-heel 14ers challenge not only breaks norms but also fosters intriguing collaborations, inviting us to rethink our approach to adventure. Wrap up this episode feeling invigorated by Erin’s indomitable spirit and perhaps, just perhaps, consider dusting off those trail shoes—or high heels—for your own mountain adventure.
Erin Ton IG - erin_ton7
Strava @ Erin Ton
Trail-running dynamo Erin Ton takes us through the highs and lows of her mountainous pursuits on the Steep Stuff Podcast, from her transformative post-college years to her current record-chasing ambitions. If her tales of scaling peaks in cocktail dresses and high heels don’t grab your attention, her principled stand to preserve the integrity of outdoor sportsmanship will. Erin's journey is anything but ordinary, and her story of self-supported endurance running, complete with living out of a Jeep Wrangler and strategically excluding Culebra Peak from her records, is both captivating and inspiring.
Facing the unpredictable wrath of nature, Erin narrates a particularly chilling encounter with a lightning storm during the Crestone Traverse and the eerie discovery of a reminder from a previous rescue attempt. While unpacking the controversies and complexities of private land ownership in the outdoor community, Erin exemplifies the essence of sticking to one’s values amidst backlash. As she gears up for the Nolans 14 line and the Colorado Trail, we dissect the unique demands each challenge presents and share the strategy behind her ambitious goal to set new benchmarks in a single summer.
Beyond the adrenaline-fueled escapades, our conversation with Erin ventures into the realm of wildlife conservation and the political delicacies surrounding the reintroduction of predators like wolves in Colorado. Erin's innovative high-heel 14ers challenge not only breaks norms but also fosters intriguing collaborations, inviting us to rethink our approach to adventure. Wrap up this episode feeling invigorated by Erin’s indomitable spirit and perhaps, just perhaps, consider dusting off those trail shoes—or high heels—for your own mountain adventure.
Erin Ton IG - erin_ton7
Strava @ Erin Ton
Hey guys, welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast. I'm your host, james Lariello, and today we've got a fun one. Erin Tunn joins us on the podcast and we get into all kinds of fun stuff. We talk about Erin's 14er FKT from 2023. We also get into her 2024 upcoming season, where we talked about some initiatives she's got planned in the Nolans 14 line as well as the Colorado Trail. We also dive pretty deep into Aaron's backstory her college years and how she was inspired to join the ranks of the trail running community. We also get into what she's been up to as of late setting FKTs on Pico de Orizaba as well as a bunch of FKTs in Chile.
Speaker 1:Aaron is fit and I'm really excited, really, really excited, for what she's going to do in her 2024 season. Um, it was an absolute blast having her on the podcast. Um, just a disclaimer, guys. Um, if you guys have any sensitivity to some foul language, um, or have any little ears listening to this, um, not on Aaron's behalf, but on my behalf I dropped might have dropped an F-bomb or two. So, yeah, if you guys have any sensitivity to language, just this is a little bit of a warning to kind of fast forward through those parts. Yeah, I hope you guys enjoy this one. It's an absolute favorite of mine.
Speaker 1:Aaron is an incredible person, super inspiring, and, uh, yeah, I'm really excited for her to you know, continue to tap into and keep searching for her potential in the sport, because there is just no telling, you know, the things that she can keep you know she's going to be able to accomplish. So, without further ado, uh, steep stuff podcast it's time. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We are live, so yeah. So what did you think about the incline today? It was a hot one, right.
Speaker 2:It was toasty and a reminder that I'm not heat trained right now.
Speaker 1:That sauna sits back there. I haven't been in it in a while. As you can tell, I haven't been heat training very much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how much does one of those run you? Not very much.
Speaker 1:It's like less than like a hundred bucks or something like that. That's the cheapo depo one. Oh yeah, I've gone through a couple of them actually, because they die pretty easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I've been meaning to get an altitude tent, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now those are pricey. I've been looking into them too. We're sitting here at like 7,000 feet and that's the thing. Because I don't really ski that much, I'm like, oh my God, I need like altitude training, because that comes back to bite me in the summer.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, Now I'm just like I need to learn how to turn my van into an altitude tent. That would be dope Get into the van press a button. Total hypoxic chamber.
Speaker 1:Dude, that would be like oh my god that would probably be the first of its kind. I can't imagine it's that hard because it's like, if they have rooms with it I'm sure you see, like the actual rooms that in these gyms that people go into like these fighters and stuff to like train with like bikes and stuff. So I can't, I don't think it'd be that hard. I don't know.
Speaker 2:This is good science yeah, look into that altitude. 10 companies you gotta get on board.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's like dude, that's a good sponsor. Oh shit, something to think about. Uh, we're live. By the way, ladies and gentlemen, we're live with aaron. Is it ton or tone?
Speaker 2:it's ton ton. Yeah, simple it like 2 000 pounds okay, I like that what quick question, a ton of fun, yeah, no, it's actually a dutch surname, so it used to be something longer, like washington, for example okay we just don't know what it was shortened from dutch could have been like von ton exactly I feel like that's how they all start.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Uh, quick question that's double back to to the van, but does it have a name yet?
Speaker 2:it does. His name is leroy and it feels weird to call it a him because, historically, all my vehicles have been girls, but I wanted a cowboy name for the van Leroy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, I think of a song like Leroy Brown, is that it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, really oh my God, I love that song. It goes you know, baddest man in the whole damn town.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Baddest van in the whole damn town Dude, that is amazing damn town, okay, baddest van in the whole. That's amazing. I was contemplating naming it like a van name, so like van halen for example, but it just seems a little cliche, like I've encountered other vans out on the road with names like that interesting, interesting.
Speaker 1:It's really strange. This is like a very strange side comment, but there is a person I don't know. I always see like tabor hemming my coach, like she'll like post on strava every now and then like skiing with irma the van. I'm like who the fuck is irma the van? Yeah and I'll do a little digging. Have you seen this this?
Speaker 2:is like a colorado tabor on strava too. I'm not gonna give her away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not gonna give away their alias.
Speaker 1:They actually have like the best aliases ever oh my god we'll drop that on the pod, but but yeah, whoever irma the van is like, I'm always like what is this van? This is very strange so yeah, yeah, interesting maybe you can have them on the pod.
Speaker 2:I'll find them yeah, yeah, I'll do some digging find out, who this van is um okay.
Speaker 1:so I thank you first all. Thank you very much. It was so exciting to have you on Obvious choice for the steep stuff because you like the steep stuff. So yeah, there's so much we could dive into. I'd say first like let's give a little backstory. I know there's a lot that you've done so you can keep it as light as you want or you can keep it as heavy as you want, or you can keep it as heavy as you want and we can kind of dive in from there.
Speaker 2:Sure, sounds great. So I was born and raised in Colorado. I'm a native, but don't worry, I'm not like one of the annoying natives with the bumper sticker on the back. And I went to college in upstate New York at Cornell University in Ithaca.
Speaker 1:Is it Big Red or is it the Crimson? Big Red, big Red.
Speaker 2:That's right, just kind of a unique mascot name. I feel like Big Red is the mascot for. Cornell, which is interesting.
Speaker 1:Cool school yeah.
Speaker 2:No, ithaca is beautiful. The town slogan is actually Ithaca is gorgeous because of all the gorges and the waterfalls there. Yeah, some good trail running ran like a few miles a couple times a week just to maintain fitness, but I was mostly a hikera backpacker. I uh started a backpacking club with a friend of mine when I was there and we'd make weekend trips up to the adirondacks or the catskills.
Speaker 1:I've been on marcy before.
Speaker 2:It's a great yeah yeah, no, the the northeast, like trails and mountains, don't get enough credit, like they obviously don't have the high altitude of the rockies, but they're steep and they're rocky, muddy, rudy like you just go straight up the peak, like switchbacks are very much a western invention designed for like stock animals out here yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you think you'd ever not to go too much on the tangent? But do you think you'd ever do any projects out there, like in the adirondacks or something?
Speaker 2:I would be interested. Yeah, I uh knocked off about half of the adirondack 46ers, not really going for speed or anything, but I would be interested in you know going after an effort on those at some point in the future. Okay, I keep telling myself every year I need to make a trip back out to the east coast, and it just never happens oh, I mean, I feel like we just have so much out here.
Speaker 2:That's like tough, you know yeah, you never get bored out here, but the east coast, in the fall time especially, is just unbeatable.
Speaker 1:September is my favorite month. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:You get the reds and the leaves out there that we don't have out here.
Speaker 1:And lately it's been I don't know, I feel like our high season has been running a little bit later, for whatever reason you know in a lot of ways, and it's been kind of you know, kind of nice to be able to kind of get into the high season like almost in October. It's been kind of fun.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, no, I think um like the early fall time, late summer, like the best time for the Alpine in Colorado.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's less hot out, less chance of like afternoon lightning storms.
Speaker 1:That's true too. Yeah, I'm going to actively avoid those. True too, yeah, I actively avoid those. Yeah, I've been caught in a few before and I definitely want to get into your crestone one. I heard that on another pod. We can. We'll dive into that a little bit later when we talk about your 14 years, um, so let's, let's finish your story. So you finished college. What did you study in college?
Speaker 2:I majored in government and got an accidental minor in anthropology oh cool, all right my anthropology classes were just a lot more interesting and fun than my government classes.
Speaker 1:What was your like? What was your like? Government's pretty serious. So do you have like a post-school plan, like did you want to go to grad school or what's your? I did yeah.
Speaker 2:So after graduating, my plan was to take one gap year and then go to law school.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But that one gap year has morphed into multiple gap years, as I've discovered this passion for mountain running. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't blame you, I don't blame you. It's a little bit more fun, fun life. I kind of went the traditional route where I worked for a few years after undergrad and then went to business school after and then did the corporate life and then now I've kind of lived this weird life between you know, spending time in the mountains and being an athlete and then also having a good work and like the corporate life I'm like, oh, I like the corporate life.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, I'd much rather be doing this you know um yeah, yeah, keep doing what you're doing, yeah, no, yeah, law school is a serious commitment and it's still on the table. In the future, when I can find more balance, but as of right now and for the next few years, I really want to go all in in this sport and see what my potential is Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:One of the things you didn't say, too, is you're a professional athlete for La Sportiva. I am and what's the new Fellow teammate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, fellow teammate.
Speaker 1:What's the new nutrition company you're working with?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so Carbs Fuel. They're based in Golden actually and they are very new, they just started this year and they've been doing really well. It's like 200 calories, 50 grams of carbs per gel and they're only two bucks a pop.
Speaker 1:Shit, can't beat that. Yeah, pretty unbeatable. This is as good as it gets man, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the flavor is pretty neutral, which I appreciate because I tend to have a sensitive GI system out there, and they've worked for me. I've brought them up to 22,000 feet and all is good.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God, I have so much to get into with this. Okay, so we'll get into that a little bit later. Let's keep the train rolling. So after college, you moved back to Colorado.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:And obviously you got really good at running somewhere in there.
Speaker 2:So what lit that fire? Right, yeah, so I was a COVID grad. I graduated in 2020. Cornell they kicked us all off campus March 2020.
Speaker 2:So, packed up my stuff, moved back to Colorado, finished up my last semester virtually, and I downloaded Strava around that time and, like I mentioned before, I was more of a hiker at that time, really loved vert the more climbing the better. And I noticed that when I started recording things on Strava I was getting like some segments and I was like, oh, I guess I could be kind of good at this, and it gradually evolved into trail running instead of just hiking on the trails. I didn't even really know that trail running existed as just hiking on the trails. I didn't even really know that trail running existed as a sport at the time. I'd see people running around in these funny looking vests and now I'm one of them. But yeah, I'd go out like hiking with my sister and some friends of mine and just noticed that I had some leg speed and that I could go for hours and hours and hours and not get tired and just craved more.
Speaker 1:Wow, and what? So you combine this love of hiking and it kind of grows and starts evolving. But like one of the things I feel like your trademark is like high peaks and like playing in the mountains, like the real mountains. And you know, like at what point did you start to discover like this is what I like, because I almost feel like that's almost like a little bit of a different niche compared to like trail running or ultra running or something like that, you know.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and I still love like trail running on cruisy single track trail. But I would say my true like passion and love is when I can combine like a trail run up to the base of a peak and like then start a class three or four scramble where, so like where did that, let's so like did you?
Speaker 1:how did you get good at scrambling? Like where did that? Because that's, I feel like that's a little bit of an extra like learned skill. Did you play in the climbing gym at all? Or?
Speaker 2:um, I took a climbing class at cornell. Actually, we had to take two pe credits in order to graduate, so my two were birding and rock climbing birding, it's okay.
Speaker 1:I took a wines class, so I get it.
Speaker 2:I get it no, we just walk around the forest all day and look at birds. And it was awesome, the professor. He was iconic, he could identify bird calls from like miles away.
Speaker 1:I'm sure he was like the world's leading expert.
Speaker 2:Cornell. They have like the lab of ornithology and it's like the top program. So that's crazy. Yeah, no. But I think I really honed in on my scrambling skills with the 14ers. That was a goal of mine in 2020. Once I moved back to Colorado, I had hiked Mount Elbert in the summer of 2018 with my sister and my dad, and that was the first time I ever climbed a 14er and I thought it was so difficult. I was like I'm never going to do this again. And then a couple of days later, my sister and I went and hiked Grays and Tories and I just caught the bug. So between 2018 and 2020, I made it my goal to finish all the 14ers in Colorado. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to be done, I'm going to grow up and get a big girl job. And then, after you finish the 14ers, it's like there's the list of centennials, which are the hundred highest peaks in Colorado, and um 13ers there's 637 of those in Colorado. So that's more of like a lifetime goal.
Speaker 1:Really I've, I've. Uh, I tend to enjoy the 13ers a little bit more, just because a lot of them are off trail. Um, there's like less defined, especially the ones in the sand grays, just because, like a lot of them are like third, fourth class and they're just nasty yeah, no, I, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 2:They feel more authentic and like actually test your route finding yeah abilities, less people I'm a little pissed.
Speaker 1:Somebody took one of my fkts last year. I gotta go back and get it oh, which one you ever heard of broken hand. It's just to the. Yeah, broken hand. Right to the, to the right of the needle right oh, dude, I, I, I.
Speaker 1:There was a rough because there was a lot of ice that day. A lot of ice and you know, broken hand pass sucks um a lot of snow in the past so it was just kind of gnarly, so it slowed us down immensely. Uh, the guy who got it just like had a really, really beautiful day and uh, I've just been too lazy to go back out and get it. So this year yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't know there was an fkt for that.
Speaker 1:I said I established it okay, yeah, yeah, I was really proud of that one. I was like man, this is I. You know, it was just a very aesthetic line. It was really, you know, lots of like, you know, I guess you could say like high, second class to third class scrambling. So it was pretty cool, not too bad, not too committal, but you know, it was fun. Yeah, I'll have to go after that one. Yeah, yeah, go get it, go get it, go get it. So, yeah, so, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So you, you climb your first 14ers between like in 2018 to 2020 and then that's amazing to have like that like meteoric rise because, you know, not too long after, just last year, you go after the 14ers fkt. That's wild. Um, obviously, there's a lot that happens in the beginning, in the meantime, but let's unpack that a little bit. Um, why, like what excited you to go after? That was just like something that was, I don't know like kind of unpack that a little bit yeah, I think the style and the aesthetic of it appealed to me a lot did you do unsupported or supported?
Speaker 1:I'm an idiot, I should know. So it was self-support, self-supported, okay, okay yeah, which means I could.
Speaker 2:I was allowed to cash any gear out there in advance, which I didn't. I I had a jeep, wrangler and that kind of functioned as my home on wheels with all my stuff in it. Um, unsupported would be like if you carried all of your food and water from the very start and you didn't have a car to drive between trailheads.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a Justin Simone kind of thing.
Speaker 2:It does. I don't even know if that would be possible for the 14ers. I think he biked it.
Speaker 1:Justin Simone, he biked it. I don't know, I never asked him. That's self-powered. Okay, there's a lot of semantics on FKT.
Speaker 2:No, in my lifestyle leading up to that point in the summers was just sleeping in the back of my car, waking up every morning, going and running a mountain and then repeating, and so I figured that would translate well into a self-supported 14er speed record. I will say I was a little naive, because it's very different when you can come back to your car. You know, eat, recover, sleep and then do it the next day. This it was just nonstop, you know being entirely by myself. For 14 days I was in charge of, like, preparing food for myself, driving myself, and the driving was hands down. The hardest part, I'm sure, just the sleep deprivation. Yeah, like physically my body actually held up great.
Speaker 1:Like you just get into a rhythm of you know doing day in, day out, out and you're not sprinting up these peaks right, it's a power hike up, jog down, okay, so there was one um one story that I was really interested in and we could probably talk about quite a few actually from from this effort. But uh, your crest and traverse part where you got caught in that storm, would you mind telling that story?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the scariest peak or set of peaks during the project and essentially I got caught in a lightning storm in the middle of the Crestone Traverse. So that day I did a big link up of five 14ers in the song graze. I started at humboldt, then went over uh to kit carson challenger and then went up the back side of creststone peak which is, yeah, kind of non-standard by pico de asolito.
Speaker 2:Okay, I know, I know, yeah, it's a fun like fun, like three plus, like class four goalie. Okay. And it had been beautiful like bluebird skies all day long. And I'm about to start the traverse when I get a text from Chris Tomer, who was the weatherman I was working with for this project, and he's like Aaron, look north, be wary of those clouds.
Speaker 2:And so I tried to get across the traverse as fast as I could, and I was only a few hundred feet below the summit of Crestone Needle when, sure enough, everything rolls in. Right on top of me there was lightning, and right on top of me there was lightning hail, and so I took shelter in like this little rock cave for about an hour, and then I thought it was going to kind of pass. So I climbed up higher, came back in and the scary part about that was that I wasn't prepared to be out there that long so I didn't have like a headlamp to get down in the dark. My phone had died at that point. My Garmin inReach was about to die, didn't have extra food water layers. Oh man, I learned some lessons that day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, it's like you know, going out for a normal trail run, I know my speed and like what I should be bringing, but when you're dealing with variables that are outside of your control, it's yeah, it's challenging.
Speaker 1:Was that Crestone conglomerate? I mean like, so I've been on the needle. Does that stuff get slick when it's wet? It does, okay, yeah, so I've been on the needle.
Speaker 2:Does that stuff get slick when it's wet? It does. Okay, yeah. And for those who don't know, the top portion of Cresto Needle is called the headwall and it's like a low fifth class climb up. It's bomber rock. The Sangres have some of the best rock in Colorado. It's so much fun when it's dry. Yeah, it's very exposed, though you look off to your Death is imminent, yeah, you can see the South Colony Lakes all the way down there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, holy shit, wow. So like what a test of just like grit and resilience, like, did you panic?
Speaker 2:Obviously you didn't, because you had I had to stay pretty calm in the moment, and one piece that I actually left out was when I was climbing up I found a backpack that had just been left up there with like it looked like brand new gear and stuff inside of it, and so that kind of set, an ominous and eerie tone yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, I called out to see like if anybody like had fallen or needed help or rescued, and there was nobody. I later found out that it was from the year prior, when somebody had to be helicoptered off the mountain.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, and just nobody ever brought it down. Yeah, wow, yeah, and you approached your approach. So if you did Humboldt, first your approach was from South Colony Lakes, then from South Colony Road. Yep, okay, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:So I approached from that side and fortunately I was able to get up and down the technical parks of Crestone Needle and then down Broken Hand Pass, like still with a little bit of light, and then I just had to walk the rest of the road. Oh, that's terrible. I could kind of see the direction I was going, cause I you had like the dark trees on both sides and then the stars in the middle, so it wasn't too bad.
Speaker 2:That's cool, though, but yeah, that night I I think that was day seven, so halfway through the project, and I honestly didn't know if I was gonna continue after that. Yeah, um, I was like, okay, just lay down, get a few hours of sleep, wake up and reevaluate dude.
Speaker 1:The whole thing was just like I can't believe you finished with like capital peak, like that's like the hardest one, what?
Speaker 2:the fuck. That's debatable yeah yeah, no, according to 14erscom, capital is the hardest, just because of the knife's edge and it's exposed. But the rock is a bomber there. Like you have good handholding.
Speaker 1:I've never done it. Oh, okay, it's on my list.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, personally I think like the Bell's Traverse is the most difficult of all the 14ers.
Speaker 1:That's what I've heard, because it's loose. You can like knock shit out and like, yeah, that's yeah, like exposure doesn't bother me as long as I'm in control, but if there's like loose rocks, that's not fun, not fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the day after the crest stones I I went and did shivano tab wash, some of the easier ones in the big hills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. Um, yeah, how did you all? Right, I have so many questions here, we're gonna dive into a lot of these, but like, okay, so at what point did you do the sun grace? Was this early on and was this midway? Like, at what point in this journey, like, how did you? What did you start off with?
Speaker 2:and I, I guess we know what you ended with, but yeah, it was a logistical puzzle and the order that I had planned on got thrown off due to the weather.
Speaker 2:But leading up to this, I kind of modeled my sequence of 14ers after Andrew Hamilton, who has the men's supported record, who has the men's supported record Um.
Speaker 2:And so traditionally, uh, the way that 14 or speed records go is you start in the San Juan's Chicago basin, um cause you can take the, the train in there the day before, and then you have to start 3000 feet below the summit of your first 14er. There's a rule or it's more of like a tradition than it is a rule that for each peak or group of peaks you have to gain and descend at least 3000 feet, which makes things tricky in the mosquito range. So, yeah, you wake up really early that that morning in chicago basin, tag the four peaks, run down in time to catch the train um into silverton and then you go climb all the san juan 14ers migrate over the sangres um hit pikes um work your way up north um do the elks, and traditionally they end on longs peak on the front range that's just like what's the most efficient yeah, um closest to home for boulder yeah, yeah, which would have been a great one to end on too, but capital is pretty iconic.
Speaker 2:That's pretty damn cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm not complaining about that yeah, okay, um, so let's talk about how does one plan for this. I don't want you to give, like, if you don't want to give anything away I don't know if there's any like beta you don't want to give, feel free to not share that. But like, from a planning perspective, like this is a huge undertaking, like where do you start with this? As far as like food and like from calories and from who's going to help you and like yeah, go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, the last one's easy. It was me helping myself.
Speaker 1:Right, right, it's true, it's true. Self-support Gotcha yeah.
Speaker 2:No, which also appealed to me because, in a way, it was easier planning. You know, I didn't have to coordinate with other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because in a way it was easier planning. You know, I didn't have to coordinate with other people. Yeah, it's like herding cats for sure.
Speaker 2:I would be interested in going after the supported record at some point in the future. But yeah, it's challenging because if somebody doesn't make it to the trailhead at the same time as you, you could be losing a lot of time there, yeah, just sitting waiting.
Speaker 1:Didn't that happen with Chris or or something? I think I remember an instagram post or something.
Speaker 2:he was I've nothing significant that I remember. I know what's happened with um andrew hamilton maybe that's right, okay, yeah it was. He was told the stories on mount lindsey and there was like a big like it was raining really hard that day and so his crew couldn't get up the Mount Lindsay road and turned out like after they had gotten back down there was a mudslide that closed that road for like over a year. So, jesus Christ, yeah, had that happened like any earlier, their record would have been over.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's crazy, yeah. So yeah, there, yeah, there's a lot of luck involved in this and you've got a weatherman, Like you've got eyes from above, Like that's pretty dope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I was recommended Chris Tomer from Andrew and Andrea actually, and he's like one of the best like high alpine meteorologists in the world and even when Chris and I were down in mexico to climb pico de orzaba, he was giving us weather data that's amazing. Yeah, he's helping them out in nepal too, so okay, he's international oh, this guy's everywhere yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:No part of this record. The credit definitely goes to chris tomer, that's so cool cool and, as far as food goes, I did a bunch of meal prep leading up to this so I had a cooler in the back of the Jeep and that lasted for about a week and then, once all that food went bad, it just turned into the gas station diet like really in as many calories as possible.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And yeah, even then, I think I lost like 10 pounds over the course of those 14 days, and so by the end of it I was just like skin and bones.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, yeah, I bet that's like a. How did you deal with like sleep deprivation?
Speaker 2:How did that feel? Yeah, I hadn't had too much sleep deprivation experience prior to this. The longest effort that I had done was a rim to rim to rim to rim to rim of the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of rims. Yeah, too many.
Speaker 2:And that took me 25 hours and during that I would lay down in the middle of the trail, set an alarm for like five minutes and take a dirt nap. And it's amazing, when your body is that exhausted, how you wake up and you feel rejuvenated.
Speaker 1:so I applied that to this a lot um so there's like that iconic photo of you like laying in your sportiva kit, like laying on the trail on the single track. I was like, oh my god, this is, this is that's crazy. Like you just like left it all out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no that was 3 000 feet below the summit of Capitol, but then the funny part is after that I still had to hike five to six miles. So, it wasn't quite over yet.
Speaker 1:That's terrible.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, I got back to town, took a shower. That was the first thing that I did. Good thing, no, I told myself you know, maybe you'll stop by a motel take a shower. Once throughout this that didn't happen. Really 14 days climbing mountains, every day no shower.
Speaker 1:You've got me beat. I think the longest I've ever gone was like 11 days. Holy shit, that's still up there. It was pretty rough. Your hair gets gray. Yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what was that for?
Speaker 1:So I studied geology and I did a senior field camp in the San Juans and, um, it was six weeks and I had access to showers there, but there was like an 11 day it was actually like a 14 day stretch at the end of our trip where we just camped the entire time and but like we were out there, out there, out there, um, and like towards the end we finally stopped at zion where I was able to get a shower, but before that it was basically just yeah, it's pretty stinky, and just 11 days of, yeah, really fun yeah, the worst is when, like we stopped at the sand dunes.
Speaker 1:Don't ever do this when you have greasy hair and you roll down the sand dunes and have sand just stuck to you for days, oh my god, yeah, I still like. Still like skeeve at that. I don't know yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, it's a bit different when, like you're by yourself too oh nobody cares about me.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I was with other people, they stuck too all kind of cancels out.
Speaker 2:I guess exactly exactly um yeah.
Speaker 1:So first of all, like congratulations I mean what an amazing effort and like what that accomplishment was was just absolutely insane um yeah thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life and it, you know, pushed the bar up a little bit higher and showed me what my capabilities are. And yeah, obviously there was a little bit of pushback in the media afterwards because there was one that I decided to omit, called Culebra Peak, which is the southernmost 14er in Colorado and it's on private property in Colorado and it's on private property. Um and uh, I had had a bit of history with the landowners there and I disagree with some of the practices they they do on on their land, so I decided to, you know, exclude that one from my record and um, I think rightfully so.
Speaker 1:Like I I mean not to interrupt you, but like I don't know I feel very strongly that and this is like my, my take on it is like why do I have to pay 150 dollars to go on a like a fucking 14er? I don't know it's just kind of how I feel.
Speaker 2:But it's pretty steep for not that exciting of a peak.
Speaker 1:Yeah I agree they make you.
Speaker 2:I think it's even like $500 for some of the 13ers along that ridgeline.
Speaker 1:That's insane yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even like aside from the fact that you have to pay, which I disagree with. Yeah, it's owned by like a Texas oil billionaire and he just wants to create like his own little private trophy hunting refuge down there. It's fucked up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's actually been in the news recently because they're constructing a fence around the property that's higher than it is supposed to be and it's interfering with the locals' access to wildlife for hunting and their watershed. So yeah, ethicallyically I couldn't support that and I wanted to eliminate some of the gatekeeping literal gatekeeping down there. Um, for people who want to pursue this record in the future and now, fkt has a category specifically for public lands 14ers and let me ask you a question now.
Speaker 1:I thought, and if this was, if the fact, I'm glad that FKT decided to go go with that and support you, and I think that was a classy move Did you ask for that or did they just make it Like, how did that work?
Speaker 2:I. It did take quite a bit of back and forth after the fact. Um and so public lands only actually excludes four 14ers right now. So if somebody wanted to go after this record in the future, they theoretically could shave off some time by.
Speaker 1:Lindsay right.
Speaker 2:Lindsay and then.
Speaker 1:Ross, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Which, so I included three of those in in my record, um, but I think it it actually opens up the door to some speedier efforts, because, culebra, they closed their their gates in July for hunting season. Um, and I think if somebody were to go after this record in, like August or September, when there aren't the afternoon lightning storms, quite a bit time, that's gonna be absolutely much faster I.
Speaker 1:so, from my point of view, um, just as a fan of yours and just as like a fan of the sport, I was really like not stoked with some of like what was written about you. I thought that was really fucked up. It must've made you feel pretty shitty, I would have imagined.
Speaker 2:It was pretty disappointing, not going to lie, especially like the first couple of days, you know, as I'm just like recovering from the effort and I kind of felt like people were focusing more on the peak, the one peak that I didn't do, versus the 57 that I did do and you know, like I'm thinking this is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and meanwhile I'm getting all this negative feedback and I'm, yeah, I, I think, um, if there's anything I would have done differently.
Speaker 2:It would have just been more transparent from the start. Like, hey, like I'm not going to include Calabria in this effort and yeah, I know it was hard because, like even mid effort, I got somebody providing me access with the gate code to Calabria. So there's like the question in the back of your mind Do I do this Right with the gate code to Calabria?
Speaker 1:So there's like the question in the back of your mind. Do I do this?
Speaker 2:Right, but it's like I've already gotten in trouble for trespassing on that property before. Like do? I think that would be a worse look and just like ethically, like the crux of an FKT should not be getting access to a peak, it should be the mental and physical aspect.
Speaker 1:Exactly. No, I think. Good on you. Like, first of all, I just want to applaud you for, like sticking to your guns and like sticking to what you know you thought was right. And second of all, like I don't know, this is just me and you know, maybe this might ruffle feathers, but like what you see on your Instagram is what you see on your Instagram. Like fuck, what other people think I don't know. That's kind of the way I thought about it. Like you know you shouldn't have to announce this or announce that or like, and if people want to get upset about it, like the way I took it and the way I continue to take it, especially with whatever haters or whatever negative feedback for like that I see, um is people are fucking jealous. Jealous, dude, you know. Like you should be real. Like that accomplishment, I think, for not just women but for just like everyone, is just to me like very inspiring and I think that's the way it should have been taken and should continue to be taken.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, no, that's what I tried to remind myself and yeah, it's hard because a lot of the people commenting don't know the context of what's entailed in this record and they're not apples to apples comparisons over the years. It's like danielle who had the women's supported record prior to me. At the time there were only it's like 55 14ers in colorado and yeah, rules change and it's all just arbitrary. And even recently in the news I don't know if you saw like they readjusted the heights of the 14.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, Calabria is still on there. Yeah right, it's like we got to get a group together to go up there and take 50 feet of rocks off, it'd be dope actually.
Speaker 1:I yeah, no, I thank you, for I wasn't. You know, I don't know how do I say this, and it was like, um, something I wanted to talk about, but I wasn't sure you know how much you wanted to chat about it but so thank you for no, I'm, yeah, totally comfortable talking about it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it's the very worst awareness to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and I was gonna say, like, at the very worst, like with a washington post article about yourself, like you're fucking famous, it's pretty dope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one thing I I will say that I learned from this and, like the media attention is to just be careful what you say to reporters, because a lot of them and they they kind of make you think they're your friend at first and then they just twist things and try to get clickbait titles that's fake news media dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no. But seriously though, like I don't, I feel like I've read. I read in like our research, my research leading up to this discussion, like I had some good back knowledge of, of like what your accomplishment was. And then I went on and I read, you know, some of the articles and it's like some of these are just fucking spear pieces, like like what brian metzler wrote, like on the colorado sun. I it was absolutely to me just like atrocious and I don't want to go and like start shit, but like at the same time I I said I just thought some of the things that were written were just like why don't we celebrate this person's accomplishment? Why are we tearing people down in our community?
Speaker 2:so that's what I took away from yeah, no, brian's was like, probably the most disappointing because I had known brian before. Um, he comes into a running store that I work at part-time and he wouldn't say it to your face. I considered him a friend, yeah, like I felt comfortable, like you know, opening up to him and, yeah, we had two phone calls. The first one was, you know, talking about like what I did and my accomplishment, and then pretty much didn't use any of that in the article.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was disappointing, so let's hope when you set the Nolan's record, it's going to be a positive one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Transitioning to this summer. I'm going after some more objective efforts.
Speaker 1:Let's get into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, some more objective efforts, let's get into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, so Nolans. I know you were pretty public about that. You did announce Nolans in the Colorado Trail on your Instagram, so I don't want to spray too hard, but it's exciting. Are you thinking north to south, south to north? What are we thinking for Nolans?
Speaker 2:South to north, so starting at Shavano, ending on Massive South to north, so starting at. Shavano, ending on Massive Okay, yeah, that seems to be the way that people have had the most success in recent years.
Speaker 2:And we talked a little about this on our run. But do you want to get into, like kind of what inspired both of those objectives in the year? So Nolan's is actually a line that's been on my radar for a couple of years. I just haven't had the opportunity to get around to it, which is fine, because I don't think I was fully prepared. Um, but um, it's. It's a hundred mile route for those who don't know with 40,000 feet of climbing. Give or take depends on, like, the exact lines that you take. Um, and I feel like it. It suits my strengths as a trail runner which is on like steep technical terrain at high altitude. Um, and so, yeah, I'm really curious just to test myself on it.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's a, it's a classic test piece of mountain endurance dude so cool and like, and you know, shout out to David Hedges, like what he did last year, that was so inspiring, I really. And then even like the guys of old, or the guys and gals like Andrea, you know what she's been able to do on that line. And then you know Joe Grant, who's kind of like an OG I don't know at this point in the game, he kind of that's, you know, just inspiring, which is I drew a parallel between you and joe grant because I think he is the only person to have done to hold records on, I believe, the only person to hold both a colorado trail record and a nolan's record. So you would be the first woman yeah, and they're very different.
Speaker 2:Nolan's is obviously vert heavy and the CT is all about volume. One ends eventually, one doesn't end, yeah no, so it's going to be an experiment in recovery more than anything.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you want to share this, but do you want to give a little bit of a roundabout time, like when you think you're going to?
Speaker 2:So Nolan's is probably going gonna be end of june. Um, I'm thinking if there is some snow on the north aspects of those peaks I can glissade down in spots. Um, and then colorado trail, hopefully end of july okay, nice yeah which one are you more excited for? Uh, nolan's nons? Yeah, me too, me too. Colorado trails is so long. And are you more excited for? Uh, nolan's Nolan's? Yeah, me too, me too.
Speaker 1:Colorado trails is so long and are you going to? If you, when you do the Colorado trail, I mean, it sounds kind of weird, but would you start in Durango and then run back to Boulder?
Speaker 2:So I'm planning on going east to west, so starting at Waterton Canyon and then ending in Durango.
Speaker 1:Party in Durango.
Speaker 2:There you go, yeah, you know it'll be fun in type two way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's the way most of like the stoutest speed records have been set, and they do because there's the collegiate east and collegiate west option. I'm going to do collegiate east because it's closer to like Leadville, buena Vista. I'm going to do Collegiate East because it's closer to like Leadville, buena Vista, and both of these efforts will be supported, which is a bit different than me because I'm very stubborn and independent and I like doing things by myself. But I really want to see, like, how fast I can get these if I'm allowed full access to a crew and pacers and everything.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's part of the reason why I don't mind like talking about it in advance is because I'm like trying to put together a strong support crew and, yeah, I used to be like the type of person who didn't want to spray prior to actually doing something, but um, I feel like with this, it takes.
Speaker 1:Takes a village though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and obviously I want to get the women's record for both Nolans and the CT. But at the end of the day I'm going to be happy if I can just get one or finish both in one summer. I think that'd be a huge accomplishment.
Speaker 1:Amazing. I mean you cement your place in the history books for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think people can find value and inspiration even, like, through challenges and failure too yeah, yeah, wow, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Um, I can't wait to follow along and I'm gonna. Are you still assembling? I know brad had. He was talking about how he had reached out and he's kind of trying to yeah so yeah, any I'll you know, we'll talk after, but I would definitely like to pace or help her yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it will be a film too, for like a short little documentary. I'm working with Robbie Ballinger and Reese Robinson, and they both have their fair share of experience too Robbie's a psycho man. Yeah, he's, he's awesome yeah.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Oh well, all right, so the hype is real for this year? I? Oh well, all right, so the hype is real for this year. I'm sure Sportiva is super excited.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, kelsey and them are very stoked. So yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1:Very cool. So you just got back from Chile. You got a lot of hemoglobin. I was impressed today on our on our manatee incline.
Speaker 2:It was like damn science behind that, like how long it it takes to start tapering you haven't lost it, that's I was like I need to go after some of the the short fkts in boulder like green mountain, while I have this superpower in me right now.
Speaker 1:Hell yes uh, I feel like you were I mean, I even said this like we're on our run. I was like I feel like you got an fkt every other day. Uh, amazing congratulations. Can we, can we unpack a few of those? I want to talk about a few of them. I guess we start from the beginning what inspired this trip to Chile, and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the trip to Chile was actually very last minute. I didn't even know I was going to Chile until two days prior Okay, days prior but Chris, my partner, and Tyler Andrews were planning a ridge traverse on Trace Crusades and they were going to be the first people to traverse those three peaks in a single day. I was originally going to be a part of the team because another person had to drop out, but due to weather windows, they ended up going for that effort earlier, and so I wasn't quite acclimated at the time, but I was still able to support them and bring them water up there.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I was kind of like a last minute step in to the Chile team.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But we were in the Atacama Desert region, region in chile, and it's the driest place on the planet and it's it's very remote. We had to pack up all of our food, water, gas for the trucks, um in like the last town and then we were just out there on our own, staying at a little refugio that's dope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the elevation?
Speaker 2:uh, it was 12 500 feet so you're sleeping at 12 500?
Speaker 1:yeah and then a few nights we slept higher too, at like 14, 14, 5 oh my god, does that like affect your sleep at all, or like for you or?
Speaker 2:um, I adjusted to the altitude pretty well, I think the first couple days it was like a little bit harder to sleep, um, but thankfully no serious symptoms of hape or haste or anything okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, I would not be able to sleep. Oh my god, even in I sleep at 7 000 feet, and sometimes I don't like it like yeah, no you.
Speaker 2:You hear the mixed opinions on whether you should sleep high, train low train, low sleep high yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, if you got the van situated for altitude, crank that thing up to Denali level. Yeah, absolutely Okay. So I mean, I've got the list right here. I mean Volcan oh my God, seven Hermanas. We've got the list right here. I mean Volcan oh my God, seven Hermanas. We've got Volcano Copiopo.
Speaker 2:Copiopo Sí.
Speaker 1:Nevada, san Francisco. Ojos de Salada, which I'm familiar with, ojos de Salada from Jason.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was all kind of building up to Ojos de Salada, which is the highest volcano in the world. It's like 22,500, 600 v, I forget, okay, um, but yeah, so it's kind of cool. You know, I have the record for the highest volcano.
Speaker 1:It's pretty dope uh, which one was? I mean, obviously that's insane, were you? Now I saw on your instagram as well. Um, and I think the the listeners would get a kick out of this kind of understanding your preparation. You would go up and then come down and you would kind of do altitude acclimatization, hikes and runs at points.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So even the earlier FKTs that you listed, those were kind of training in a way like build up to the higher peaks. Yeah, yeah, okay, kind of training in a way like build up to the higher peaks. Um, yeah, yeah. And one part that I left out was um, like two weeks before going to chile, I was in mexico with chris and we climbed pico de orzaba, okay, which is 18 500 feet, and at the time that was the highest I had ever been and like it's harder to breathe up there, but it wasn't as challenging as I had anticipated. And then you go up to like 20,000, 22,000 feet and you're like, oh, okay, yeah, this is a different. Your body, it feels like it's redlining, but you're like, oh, okay, yeah, this is a, this is a different. Your body, it feels like it's redlining, but you're moving so slowly.
Speaker 2:So it's like yeah, like mentally I'm like 10 steps ahead, but it just can't get there.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've never been higher than Albert, so that's crazy to think that it's that that intense. Oh, wow, I mean I figured it was terrible, but so I Pico Arzaba is interesting. I was, that was a question I was gonna have for you as well. I I first learned about pico arzaba from like a tnf video on um, from like cedar right, like he like climbed it and like paraglided off of it. Uh, like years, yeah, years and years ago, um and I was, I don't know just got stoked on that mountain at that point and they kind of like didn't do any acclimatization, they just kind of like stumbled up there in the dark like a bunch of psychos and yeah, I mean cedar, he doesn't need it to do any acclimatization, he's, he seems fit enough.
Speaker 2:But I was surprised to see a lot of people up there who probably shouldn't be up there. And yeah, I think Pico especially has become pretty touristy and commercialized in the past couple years and it's sad because there's a lot of poverty in that part of Mexico and so you have guides who aren't necessarily the most qualified and it's like if people book a two to three day weather window but there's not good weather, they still go up anyways, and when we were there two people died.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was not great conditions on the glacier. It was pretty icy, so we were making full use of our crampons and ice axes and, yeah, when we were up there, there was a rescue one day and a client had slipped and pulled his guide down the glacier and the guide broke his leg and it like took a full day to get him rescued off wow were they.
Speaker 2:They were using fixed ropes on the glacier um, I think they they were roped in between them, yeah, but we didn't use any. I was gonna say I was kind of curious to see, yeah, wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean I first came on to like like from a trail running perspective, I saw david hedges do it and that was like.
Speaker 2:I was like holy shit like that. That was incredible um yeah, no, we uh, we used some some beta from david and he's an animal. Yeah, yeah, no, I. I encountered him a couple times when he was building up to his nolan's effort last summer and he's just sleeping in the back of his car, you know, doing time trials on each of the peaks every day really yeah, he's gonna come on I really admire and respect that approach.
Speaker 1:You know it's still like the dirt bag, but he's just like dialed super talented athlete very very yeah, he came on my radar years ago, uh, at the sangra de cristo race, actually like like a sangra de cristo 50k, and uh, I just talked to him. Actually he's gonna be, we're gonna have him on, uh, the weekend of the rut because he's running the rut 50k so very cool, yeah, so we'll get him on then, so be cool. Yeah, there's a lot I gotta pick his brain about. Um.
Speaker 1:Back to you uh, so pico de orazaba, like, like, what was the inspiration for that? In a lot of ways, it's another like hard ass volcano you wanted to knock off, or I think it was curiosity.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I've climbed every 14 or in Colorado, and every 14 or in the lower 48, minus Calabro, obviously, but there's 15 in California and then Mount Rainier in Washington, um, and I've never struggled with the altitude before. So I was curious to test myself at higher altitudes, because eventually I do see myself climbing like higher 8,000 meter peaks.
Speaker 1:Okay, did you know? I kind of uh, I'm going to tie that into something you posted on Instagram recently that you're going to be in the Himalaya this winter this fall. Okay, and what are you going to be doing out there?
Speaker 2:I'm helping to guide a group and we're going to do some trail running in the Khumbu Valley and climb a 6,000 meter peak or two. So we're not going to climb any 8,000 meter peaks at that time, but it's going to be Plants the seed and then I'll go after a few FKTs. I'm sure of myself. I think Tyler Andrews has like all the men's times out there, but we need some solid women's times.
Speaker 1:It's cool that him and Chris are out there. Now I have a buddy shout out to patrick. He's uh, it's funny for patrick. Patrick went out there to go, do? I think it was one of like the seven pass loop or something. It was one of the records tyler got.
Speaker 2:I didn't think like the day he was gonna do it, like tyler had started it or something like that and just demolish it, so you couldn't have postponed it just a day, yeah it could be like a couple days, you know, so no yeah, no, tyler, he's an animal like he got the uh the record for ojo stelzalado the same day I did, and watching him like run uphill at 20 000 feet is just really masterpiece yeah, that's really cool man.
Speaker 1:I'm glad sportiva got him. I feel like that was a good pickup. Yeah, more suits like him a little bit more than maybe like hoka. Yeah, because he's it's sportiva's.
Speaker 2:You know, the mountain athletes brand in a lot of ways, yeah word on the street is he's going after the ever speed record next year so that's kind of like the purpose of all this building up to guys you hear to heard it here first, you won't mind.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we have a. We have a strong sportiva team going dude oh my god, yeah, no, and it's uh. Yeah, I mean anton, I mean got tyler, you, I was. I was blown away by your incline today.
Speaker 2:I was like wow, you're a really good hiker yeah see, even before the trail running, it's just the years and years of hiking uphill, yeah so that's cool.
Speaker 1:That's cool, it's uh, that one thing I do want to get into just a little bit is um, you're very active on the fkt scene. You see a lot of athletes kind of go back and forth between FKTs and racing and racing and FKTs. What is it that you like more about FKTs as opposed to being on the race course?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would say FKTs are what I primarily pursue as of right now. I do want to go after some races in the future, but what I like about FKTs is the creativity element and they feel a lot more adventurous than races where you have, you know, a set course with aid stations. I feel like FKTs you can be more expressive of, like your personal style, so yeah.
Speaker 1:That's cool. No, I was just curious because I know like last year you threw down an alta and you threw down a, you know, at circ series.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was that was not too long after my 14ers, so I wasn't properly recovered after that great race? No, I think everybody should, you know, go and get their butts kicked a little, which I still did. I think I got fourth or fifth in, like the pro division but like like Janelle links and like man, these girls are speedy, yeah, oh hell yeah, no, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I'm glad I and it's always interesting to see, like you know, cause I I like FKTs as well and I also like to race. I'm just kind of interested in to see, like I don't know, I like fkt's in a very similar way. It is that expressive form, especially when it comes to you know, whether it be creating a route or your own integration of a certain route or going after a certain thing, like it's definitely um, it's definitely cool, it's more fun than race like.
Speaker 1:Racing is, like you know, redlining competition, and I I love that too. That's fun. What's your relationship with competition?
Speaker 2:It's so. I will admit now that I am a very competitive person, which I would have denied like earlier in my life, like my mom used to always tell me how competitive I was growing up and I thought it was a bad thing for some reason I thought it had a negative connotation.
Speaker 2:No, I also think like this is where there's a gender differential. Like you know, it's normalized for men to be competitive in sports and that's you know, like um applauded. But for women it's, like you know, we're kind of supposed to like be classy and like hold hands and sing kumbaya, which it's like I can respect my competitors and still want to kick their ass oh, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:You got the dog in you yeah, no, like, even when I because yeah, I like didn't run in high school or college, I think my outlet for like being competitive wasn't academics. It was like I had to like be the straight a student, get into an ivy league school, and then I got there and it's like okay, you're a little fish, big pond now. Like everybody's on an even playing field here, so I had to find some way to differentiate myself, and that's when I started like hiking and getting into the mountains.
Speaker 1:That's interesting yeah.
Speaker 2:Everybody would be studying on the weekends. I'd be up sleeping in my car in the adirondacks. Really, oh my god, okay all right, this makes sense.
Speaker 1:It's funny. Uh, there is, you know, in our, in our little sport. You know whether bfk teens are traveling like sage came from? Uh, he went to cornell as well, yeah, and I think max did max king go to harvard or he go to cornell, I can't remember. I think max king went to, might have gone to harvard, but there's there's quite a few ivy league athletes, believe it or not, that like are floating around our sport, which is pretty interesting yeah, no, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I feel like this sport trail running, ultra running attracts a certain personality type definitely, definitely that's funny yeah. No, you can get very like addictive and obsessive about certain things and I'm like I'm glad it's with trail running, which is pretty healthy as a whole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, it's funny, it's interesting. You say that like I, cause I've thought about okay, what am I going to do when I don't really want to like run the way I do anymore?
Speaker 2:You know, like and cause, it's almost, it's like an identity you almost take on in a lot of ways no-transcript question and you brought up the word identity and that's something I've um thought about over the past couple years, you know, dealing with a couple injuries and you know. It's like when it's taken away from you. It's like, okay, who am I and who do I want to be?
Speaker 1:100. It's uh. And it's interesting too, because I've heard, you know, I I get a lot of uh like inspiration from like other professional athletes, like in adjacent sports or other sports. And I just heard, I was listening to like a random reel the other day and this guy, he's like a fighter it was talking about, you know, like he gets knocked out and people, people forget about him. He's like you know, you have to like, and he went through this depression and he's like I had to like disassociate in a lot of ways and realize that like I'm a brother, I'm a father, I, but I, you know, a fighting is just what I do and running is just like what we do.
Speaker 1:It's just, you know, and it's very easy, at least for me at least, to associate that as an identity in a lot of ways, like an associate, like with my purpose Cause, let me tell you something, like I, and even in a day job, like I'm sitting and I might be like working, but I'm still thinking about playing in the mountains, you know. So it's very easy and if it is taken away from you, it's terrifying. I went through that this off season. I had like a freaky injury and I was like, oh my God, is this going to affect me for the rest of my life? Like, will I ever be able to compete at a high level again? Yeah, it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:You just had a foot surgery didn't you I did was the end of last year. I had a bunion actually okay, um, and I think that was genetic because I had it even before I became a runner um, but I was about to turn 26 and be kicked off the parents health insurance oh fuck, I got you.
Speaker 2:So I'm like it's winter, it's kind of off season. Might as well bite the bullet now before it progresses into anything worse. And the angle really wasn't too bad, but it had quite a bit of inflammation from all the activity that I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at least it wasn't like haglans or any crazy shit like that so yeah all right, so let's get into the weird question round, sure? All right, so you've spent a lot of time in the out there. Let's just put it that way. What's your take on bigfoot?
Speaker 2:oh, um, he exists in upstate new york, that's for sure all right, that's a good one, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Dude, ace ace goes to me, ace brown it goes, oh I met him the other night oh you did yeah because I work part-time at a running store, um in like outside of golden.
Speaker 1:It's called berkeley park running company and he just became like an ambassador for knack for knack yeah so he was, yeah, he was there shout out to ace yeah, oh, dude, I love him, he's, he's amazing. But his response was I hope he believes in me. I was just like that's the best bigfoot answer I've ever heard, like I might actually borrow that. Okay, next question who is your? Who's your goat? Who's your male and female running goats could be mountain running, could be ultra running, doesn't matter when I first got into the sport it was Justin Simone, really yeah, okay, no I.
Speaker 2:I looked at some of the projects he had done and just thought they were so inspiring and you, like you can tell he is just so pure, like with what he does and he really embraces the creativity element and like his personal projects you know, yeah, so dude what a good choice.
Speaker 1:Like I, so I I know justin, really really nice guy. He's on the ud team, obviously in the sportiva team. Um, yeah, like he. I found out about him, interestingly enough, from I think it was like a podcast with joe grant, and joe grant, who's like an og, was inspired by simone uh, because I think they were talking about it might've been like Simone's Sangre de Cristo Traverse, which is such an iconic route.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I've thought about that one.
Speaker 1:Oh my God so cool If you do that. Oh man, yeah, that's like one of my favorite lines ever. I've looked at the North section just because it's like pretty runnable Right and it's like pretty runnable Some and it's like 20 miles, so it's it's like within my you know there's a lot of diversity in that.
Speaker 2:It's, like you know, easy rolling ridgelines to some like pretty technical. Oh yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1:But yeah, justin, I think that's a really good choice. He's yeah, it's glad to hear someone say someone other than like no offense to killian, but like it's nice to hear someone say something other than killian. Yeah, um, all right. Last question what's your take on grizzly bears in colorado? You think?
Speaker 2:they're out there. This is like a thing. This is a thing. Yes, I think they are out there in colorado, to be technically correct, okay, I actually I volunteered at this place called the wild animal sanctuary when I was in high school here, um, and it's the world's largest sanctuary for exotic carnivores.
Speaker 1:They have grizzly bears okay, so I just read a good book, or I've read a good book in the past like ghost grizzlies, which was about the ed wiseman bear that was killed in Pagosa, like back in 84. And like, every now and then there's like credible sightings and stuff and like it's like this lure in Colorado.
Speaker 2:So can I flip the question what's your take on wolves in Colorado?
Speaker 1:Oh, this is a heated one.
Speaker 2:This one's more political? Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:I'm very torn and the reason I'm torn is because, like, there are people that like I really admire and respect, that are um like, for instance, like tabor tabor's family owns a cattle ranch and they're in kremlin and they're the predation is is an issue. So I see that and that makes a lot of sense to me. And then I'm also torn because I see the other side of it, where it's like we have this natural you know, colorado is not natural to begin with because of how we've changed the landscape and really the fauna to begin with and the flora. If you think about it, like with the fires and stuff like that, and how we had free range cows on you know that on the national forest, and that like changed a lot of the issues.
Speaker 1:I'm split. I got to be honest with you. You know, uh, the wild man in me loves the idea of having the woods a little more um, wild. But the scientist in me, or ecologist in me, makes me wonder the validity and what that's going to do the elk populations and how that like how do we manage that, like from a land management perspective, like with um, you know people that that have uh, livestock and things like that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's, it's. It's complicated, it's nuanced. Yeah, it is. It's like we're trying to like make up for the like ecosystems that were thrown off from our actions in the past. You know, right clearing land for you know, cattle grazing, like you mentioned, and growing crops, and yeah, I will say one thing.
Speaker 1:So I've got less of a like, I've got less of skin in the game with wolves, more of a skin in the game with grizzlies. And the reason I'll say that and like because, uh, did you see they just they're in the process of approving like a another 10 000 person or something town in the san juans that they want to build in like this wild area, like near Wolf Creek pass, and I was like bitch, that's the place we should start dropping grizzly bears If we want to like that's probably a hot take, people are not going to like that. But I'm like, if we're going to introduce grizzly bears, you know that's the place to do it. So I don, places like the San Juans, I think, need to stay wild and I think that that's actually a like. That's the place if you want to start introducing things. I mean, that's what we did with Lynx. We put Lynx back there. There's, you know, discussion now on wolverines. I think that's the perfect place to do it. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:And I don't know why we didn't put the wolves there. I don't know why we chose to do it.
Speaker 2:I don't know why we chose to do it. I don't know. I'm not a scientist. Knock on wood that I don't encounter them out there on the CT wolves or grizzlies all of the above.
Speaker 1:I think wolves would be fine. I don't know. I'm a little weird with that, though. So like I run with like music in and like I've run up on I'm sure as you probably have as well like run up on bears, and I'm just like, oh hey, there's a bear, bear runs away, and I don't like really. I haven't like had any issues where, like I think this animal is going to attack me yet, um, but that's probably very naive to say so yeah, no, I've encountered bears in in the wild before, but they're pretty skittish and yeah, tend to mind their own business.
Speaker 2:It's like if they have a cub, that could be a different story. I think it's also from my experience of like working at the wild animal sanctuary Like they're just big, like dogs, and they're so cuddly and lovable.
Speaker 1:I just want to give the bear a hug, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no like during my 14 year project. My biggest fear going into it was mountain lions in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a very valid one. I uh and people ask me about that all the time I got questions like you ever see him? I've only ever seen one, um, and he was walking across the road. Did you have you run up on any yet, or?
Speaker 2:I. I have seen a couple before. They've all been up near, like estes park, longs peak, and they've been at a distance or I've been in a vehicle so they haven't posed like an immediate threat you haven't challenged one, well it's also like if, if you see one, it's likely not stalking you. Like if it's actually stalking you, that you won't know about it it's on your back or biting your neck until pretty terrible.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, I don't know like. I think I'm more afraid of running into, like running up on a moose and spooking a moose and getting chased by that. Yeah, because I think that could actually run me down.
Speaker 2:Um, maybe not, I don't know. Yeah, those are some big and powerful animals so cool though.
Speaker 1:Oh, my god, I remember when I saw my first moose in colorado when I first moved here. I was like what a neat animal, like so cool. Yeah, that area, um, near the decalbron, um, you know, like london, yeah, mosquito, like the whole mosquito gulch area, like where mosquito pass road is, for some reason it's like loaded with moose in there, like in the summer interesting thick with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I usually see a bunch up in the indian peaks yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, on that note, it's been well over an hour, so I don't want to keep talking about mountain things I don't want to uh take up all your time. Do you have any uh, any other things you want to discuss, or I think that uh pretty much encompasses it all.
Speaker 2:The only other thing I do on the side is sometimes climb 14ers and high heels okay I was.
Speaker 1:I was going to bring that up I wasn't sure Cause that's so. There's like this little missing period that I didn't address was the climbing 14ers and high heels project, and then you were on the Dina fit. Uh, was the deal with trail which was? I was going to make that connection because I feel like I'm kind of following you in this like sponsor world, like I was on that Dina fit team too as well. That's kind of how I I found out about you when you were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. No, I wasn't officially like the trail hero team athlete. I wasn't even on that, oh really, yeah, no, I. So my relationship with Dina fit.
Speaker 2:I won this local vert challenge of who could get the most vert in a month and I think I got like 155,000, and it was put on by Dina fit, and so Put a Casarubia, send you some gear, yeah, he decked me on some gear, and then I was invited to race with one of their athletes, raya Coble um, at the trans Alpine race, which is like an eight day stage race Um, and it's also a partner race, and her original partner had to drop out due to health issues, and so when she was searching for a new partner, michael was like hey, have you heard of this girl, aaron Tun? She does all this vert. We think she could be a good partner for you. So, yeah, they flew me out to to Europe to race with her, and we ended up winning the race.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was huge surprise Cause partner race. You know one could be strong on the ups and the downs and we had never run together before.
Speaker 1:She's a beast, she's a legend Like that's pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 2:She's, yeah, and she does a lot of scheme out too. So yeah. Wow. And then after that race, um, they told me I needed to get a coach. But we're willing to foot the bill. So oh shit okay thankfully sportiva swooped in and I'd been wearing sportiva shoes, the bushidos, for like years and years hiking love sportiva man, they're, they're, uh yeah, the prodigios.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm literally wearing man right now in the house. Probably shouldn't be doing that, but I'm going to get yelled out for that. Um yeah, I just dude. I love the produce Like I um.
Speaker 1:Before then I was running in the mutants a lot and it's just a heavier shoe you know, uh, more technical, heavier shoe, and I was like trying to questioning like, okay, how am I, I gonna race in these? I could have gone down to the captivas, but it kind of bothered my feet. I was like, oh man, enter the prodigio I just love this shoe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you ever wear the akashas?
Speaker 1:I've never tried them.
Speaker 2:No, no yeah, they're the most cushioned shoe, so they're good for longer efforts, but they are a little bit on the heavier side are they yeah, and now that I'm, I've tried the protege protege. I can tell a significant difference.
Speaker 1:I honestly think I would like eight pairs of them. I love this. They are like every color. Let's, let's do this like I'm, like I don't need anything else like this.
Speaker 2:And mutant I'm good, yeah, no, we we had the athlete conference in Boulder this week, as you know, and they had some of the reps from Italy there and they're gonna release a protegeo pro.
Speaker 1:Oh, no shit. Yeah, I'm not privy to this. Oh my gosh, I'm excited for that A little bit more cushion, higher stack height, so. Ooh, all right, all right, that's exciting.
Speaker 2:I also floated the idea around to them of making a sportive high heel. I think it's.
Speaker 1:I keep a high heel. I think it's. I think it's about time let's get into that. Actually, really, one more question before we get into that the levante, what did you have? You tried that one? Yet I have. And that's a women's only shoe, correct? Right what's the difference between like that and like how does that feel what? Versus the?
Speaker 2:um, I haven't ran in it as much as the prodigios, um, so I haven't been able to pick up on a lot of the minute details. The there's a little bit more ankle support, okay, um, yeah it seemed to look more like a solomon shoe.
Speaker 1:It like seemed more kind of almost like in the back it had a more heel cup kind of in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, you guys got your own shoe. That's pretty dope. Yeah, no, it was cool.
Speaker 2:They like consulted, like claire and silke and boulder, like throughout the whole development process. So they've been working on it for a couple years. Oh, that's so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:I'm glad I gotta get it I gotta get rose a pair uh okay, so let's dive into the high heel project.
Speaker 1:Uh, because I feel like this is how you came on a lot of people's radars as well, like hiking these, these 14ers, in a cocktail dress and high heels. What inspired this?
Speaker 2:That started when I finished the 14ers in 2020. And I wanted to celebrate by getting all dressed up, and naturally, if you're going to get dressed up you have to go all out and wear high heels too. And I climbed Mount Elbert in high heels because that was the first 14er that I ever did. So I just kind of wanted like a full circle celebration and had some fun with it. And then I have a younger sister and she wanted to hike a couple with me in high heels, so we did beer stat and quandary together, and so it kind of started as a joke. I didn't anticipate that I'd be making it a goal to finish them all in high heels.
Speaker 1:It's pretty wild, yeah, and painful.
Speaker 2:You know it's not as difficult as it looks. They kind of give you some leverage on the way up. It's like the lifts and like snowshoes or skis, for example.
Speaker 1:What about traction on the way down? So I only wear them for the ascents. Okay, smart.
Speaker 2:I pack trail runners for the descents.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:I'm not looking to cause permanent damage to my feet, but on the way up it feels like I'm actually doing less work, you know, when you think you're like on the forefront of your foot most of the time anyways.
Speaker 1:I didn't even think about the physics of it. That's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, yeah.
Speaker 1:I got some ideas. Now no, I'm kidding. How much faster can I go? Never mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, there were some articles written about it and we got some pushback from, you know, old men on the internet. Dude haters gonna hate, and that kind of lit a fire under me. I was like, hmm well, what if I just finish them all in high heels? And so now I'm about halfway through. I've done like the Bells, capitol Pyramid Longs and high heels.
Speaker 1:Jesus, what do you got?
Speaker 2:left San Juans little pyramid, longs and high heels. Jesus, what do you got left? Uh, san juans. Okay, all right, a lot of the, the, the boring peaks and the saw watch the collegiate peaks.
Speaker 1:Big hills, okay fair. Big piles of rocks, that's right. Did you do wait? Did you do the the needle in those?
Speaker 2:not yet. Okay, I was like whoa yeah that's, that's next level. That's like space age yeah, they don't have the most traction or grip, but it's.
Speaker 1:It's all about foot placement and foot pressure now let me ask you this if you were to like, like, put like, uh, like, sportiva sticky rubber like on the forefoot, like, is that cheating at all? Or like I don't think so. Okay, I'm the only one doing this, as far as I know, so I gotta make up up my own rules I think we got to talk to sportiva and see if we can get like a, like a proto version, made with like some just just enough sticky rubber on the right you know one, one or two traction points yeah no, I went through like four pairs of cheap heels from target and they all broke.
Speaker 2:And then this italian designer brand reached out to me, called mink shoes, and it's all like vegan leather and suede and they custom made me a pair and they're really nice. I was like you do realize I'm just gonna destroy these, but hey I'll take them, that's amazing. They've held up pretty well. So yeah, it's either sportiva has to do a collaboration with them or we just got to get our own Sportiva heel.
Speaker 1:That'd be dope. That would be dope. Oh man, Very cool. Well, on that note, I just want to thank you so much for coming on. Let's get some plugs going. Let's plug your Instagram.
Speaker 2:It's just my name, erin, underscore ton seven. Cool yeah. Instagram Strava. That's my two primary social media.
Speaker 1:A jam and you're heading south after this right.
Speaker 2:I am, yeah, immediately after this. So I'm going to be in New Mexico for a week, arizona for a week, cali for a week and then Oregon for a week.
Speaker 1:Oregon, nice yeah.
Speaker 2:Climb Mount Hood, hopefully, depending on conditions.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this has been a blast, absolutely.
Speaker 1:What'd you guys think I told you you were going to like this one? Erin is just so damn inspiring and, like I said, there's just no telling where her ceiling is. It was really exciting having her on and getting to talk to her, and I was really appreciative that Aaron like opened up and talked a little bit more about her story, um, as well as really opened up about her 14 years effort. Uh, I mean, honestly, if you didn't walk away from that inspired um or had some, you know, just positive feelings overall from what the human spirit can accomplish by doing something like that, then I don't know. Before we leave, I just had some quick plugs for Erin's Instagram. Erin's Instagram is just Erin, underscore ton seven, and you can find her on Instagram. And you can also find her on Strava and you can find her on Strava by just searching her name and she will come up. Go ahead and give her a follow and also let her know what you guys thought about the podcast. Send her a DM, send her well wishes and also wish her luck on some of the big thing projects she's going to be working on this summer. I'm so excited for her to accomplish these and to continue to rewrite the history books on the women's FKT side. It's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, guys, thanks so much for listening to this one. Yeah, until next time. Steep Stuff Pod. Thank you.