We recently spent four days camped out at timberline up Hope Pass —about 11,800 feet in altitude — helping support the highest aid station for the Leadville Trail 100 ultramarathon. This remote checkpoint is situated about 43 miles into the LT100 course, and 57 miles on the return trip.
Our main job was to filter water from a nearby lake and pack five-gallons jugs on burros up a short hill to the camp for the runners. The llama packing crew which had done this for decades retired last year, so a group of pack-burro racers stepped in. This seemed historically and poetically appropriate to Leadville’s rich mining heritage.
Harrison and I joined fellow pack-burro racers John Anderson and Joe Polonski. As well as Harrison’s friend Adaline, a former teammate on the Colorado Mountain College running team. Also along for the adventure was Ryan Hillborn, a friend of burro racer Alexis Knight, who was unable to make the trip because her home was evacuated due to a wildfire. Ryan just happened to be a master plumber which proved fortuitous. Mary and our friend Kendra Jeronimus also made a day hike out of our pack-in.
The pack burros included our own Oliver and Full Tilt Boogie, along with Jake owned by Joe, and Alice, and Penny owned by John.
It had been quite some time since I’d camped out three straight nights at high altitude. We packed in our own camping gear, as well as food on the burros for the four-mile hike with 2,200 vertical feet elevation gain to the camp. Along the way we passed clear rushing creeks and a stand of Arnica flowers still blooming in the late summer warmth. We arrived at the camp and got set up for our first night.
After coffee and breakfast the next morning we saddled the burros and set to hauling hundreds of gallons of water. Right off we had the first of several problems with the filter system, which Ryan was able to solve with his plumbing skills. John, Joe and I made several trips with the burros back and forth to the camp.
Meanwhile, our aid station captain Paul Anderson, also a burro racer, arrived hiking in from the Winfield side of Hope Pass. Paul, who is allergic to bee stings, was a bit groggy, having passed out on the way up following an encounter with perhaps the only bee still foraging above timberline.
When the filter began to slow down we took a break from packing water. Harrison, Adaline and I went for a short but steep and rocky hike on the race course to the summit of Hope Pass, elevation 12,600 feet. This was a nostalgic and bittersweet jaunt for me as I had my own history with the LT100, crossing this pass several times in training and races nearly four decades ago. There was the DNF in 1987, when I dropped out at 79 miles. The following year I was running strongly when I cratered a little farther along, then crawled in for a 27:11 finish.
By the time we got back down from the pass Ryan had the pump going again and we made several more trips before dinner. More of our pack-burro friends hiked up to join us. Marvin and Lisa Sandoval arrived with their three mini donkeys, including the famous Buttercup. Roland Brodeur and partner Maggie Vail joined us as well. Soon the alpine meadow around the aid station had taken on overtones of a KOA Campground. The next morning Molly Pendleton, who Harrison also met at CMC, hiked in before sunup, stirring up a small herd of elk on her way. Other volunteers also began to trickle in.
With more than 700 runners headed our way from Leadville, breakfast was quickly thrown together. Harrison had a meltdown when one of the volunteers told him he could not make a pancake. He apparently had been under the impression there was some reasonable expectation of cooking his own. A few minutes after he had calmed down he was found guilty of dipping a finger into pancake batter for a taste test. This set off a day-long chain of tantrums large and small.
The outgoing runners began trickling in to the aid station about 10 a.m., starting with eventual winner David Roche who broke his own record by 13 minutes, and Anne Flower who finished second overall and broke the 31-year-old women’s course record. As the day wore on middle-of-the-pack runners crowded the aid station.
The burros were a big hit, drawing many smiles and compliments. Several runners stopped to get pictures or to simply pet them. In total the burros packed nearly 500 gallons of water from the lake to the camp.
Things quieted down and we awaited the onslaught of runners on their return trip. At the 4 p.m. cutoff, Paul headed back up Hope Pass to sweep the course to Winfield, trailing the last runner that we allowed through the checkpoint. Meanwhile, I was elected to be the cutoff emissary for stragglers still coming up. This was a solemn job as I greeted about 20 entrants and broke the news that their race was over, and I needed the electronic chip from their bib number. They were invited to help themselves to food and water before heading back down to Twin Lakes. I assured them that despite having to drop, they had accomplished something very few people are capable of doing. They were all very gracious and many actually seemed relieved.
As the evening progressed I was able to re-enage Harrison with handing out gels to incoming runners. However, the night concluded with him picking up a hot rock next to the campfire. This sent him shrieking into a nearby stand of Krummholz. After this Adaline and I finally convinced him that he was tired and should get to sleep. I was also quite frustrated and exhausted by this time. I’m not suicidal or anything, but I did go to sleep with absolutely no fear of high-altitude pulmonary edema.
People sometimes wonder why I put Harrison —and myself — into situations like this. It’s simply because I want to provide him with as many authentic experiences and memories as possible before I really am gone, and in hope that these experiences somehow lead him to a more typical life. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn’t. I am thankful for Adaline and Molly who did so much to help calm him down during several outbursts. Also to Lifetime Fitness and the Leadville Race Series for including someone like Harrison in the support staff at this aid station and several others over the past four years.
The final morning we woke up to ice and frost on the ground. Harrison was up early singing choir songs in the frozen meadow as if nothing had happened the day before. I badly needed coffee and wanted to use a table. However, the kitchen area was a stomach-turning aftermath of discarded ramen noodles, instant mashed potatoes, sports-drink mud, cauldrons of leftover broth, bags of trash, recyclables and surplus food. The scene triggered my ADHD so badly I would not have known where to begin, especially in my uncaffeinated state.
Thankfully, as I found my own camp stove and made coffee away from the disaster area, Lisa and Marvin jumped in and worked their asses off to get things straightened up for the outfitter to haul out. As the sacred hot beverage brought me back to life I noticed a single Canada Jay, aka “Camp Robber,” briefly picking through discarded noodles on the ground, and then flying off.
The bright sun hit the meadow and soon we had our camp broken down and the burros loaded up. As we departed I noticed the Camp Robber had returned with a few friends who were busily cleaning up scraps. Soon we were on our way back down the steep trail, past the smiling Arnicas and the singing creek. Down the trail, as we passed the 10,000-foot contour, I felt the refreshing resurgence of available oxygen.
On the drive home it occurred to me that often when Harrison has a meltdown, I have later realized he was actually correct on some level. I thought about the total chaos of the aid station, the mess, and so many runners passing through so late at night. Three nights of hypoxic camping. I realized internal meltdowns were endemic to everyone up there, including myself, but some of us were more or less keeping them contained.
Aside from all of that it was an amazing opportunity and experience, and it was quite beautiful.
Hal Walter
Hal Walter is a writer and burro runner calling Westcliffe home with weekly stays in Leadville. Read more of and support Hal and Harrison at halwalter.substack.com/.
