The Sleep Monster’s Toll

A Colorado Trail Race Story

The first sign of trouble came at 3am on the third night.

I awoke just in time to pull Badger out of high-speed death swoop towards the right edge of Highway 306. The shot of adrenaline lent me a moment of lucidity. It was cold with a biting wind out of the north. “Just a few more miles to warm food,” I thought, “then I’ll find a place to sleep.”

Over twenty-four hours had passed since I’d slept but I hadn’t felt groggy until I hit the pavement west of Buena Vista. It was there, in my spun-out and spiritless state, that the sleep monster pounced. The next five downhill miles were excruciating – trying to hold a straight line with one hand while slapping the beast away from my power button with the other. Finally, the bright lights of town sent it running for the shadows.

I turned left onto Hwy 24 and headed towards Love’s Country Store, which I believed to be open 24 hours. Actual hours: 10am – 8pm. “Why didn’t I check that?!?” I got on my phone. Google said the Shell station was open. I was skeptical but rode across town to see for myself. “Yep, 24 hours… if you run on gas or diesel… not snickers and burritos!”

I was furious at myself. I’d forgone sleep to make a pointless push to this apparent food desert. Buena Vista had sucked me in for almost eleven hours last year. I’d be damned if I was going to waste one more second in this place of lies and broken promises. Besides, I’d been over-carrying food and figured to have just enough to get to Leadville.

Dots in action during night 3 of the CTR. Courtesy of Trackleaders.com.

At least I wasn’t sleepy anymore.

In fact, I was amped. I looked at the dots on Trackleaders and saw many of the top ten only a couple of hours ahead of me. I thought of Jefe Branham, the legendary unorganizer of the Colorado Trail Race who’d had to exit the competition with a hand injury two days before. “What would Jefe do?”

“Send it,” I concluded, ignoring the obvious fact that, I. Am. Not. Jefe. It was just after 4am when I set sail from Buena Vista – Jolly Roger of the Barncats flying proud in the face of a frigid headwind.

The starch went out of my little raid within the span of ten short miles. The cold wind cut me to the bone and the sleep monster returned with a vengeance. By the time I turned onto the pavement of Highway 24, I was stopping every mile or two to lean against Badger for a few seconds of standing nap along the shoulder. First light had arrived in the Arkansas Valley and morning commuters rocketed by mere feet from my face. A few seemed to make sport of my roadside vulnerability. This was no place for sleep.

I thought of something my dad used to say when we’d pass through a place that didn’t seem to want us. “If Highway 24 is the asshole of the Colorado Trail, I’m four miles up it.” The light humor lifted me to the turn for Clear Creek Reservoir. The rising sun hit my back. The shot of vitamin D revived me almost instantly. My long night on the Colorado Trail’s worst wilderness bypass was over.

Rolling out of Buena Vista at 4am with no sleep in over 24 hours. I thought a sub-5 day finish might be possible for me. It wasn’t. But maybe one day!

The day burst forth in a daze – as if a bell had been rung that wouldn’t stop ringing. Clear Creek, Twin Lakes, my Leadville resupply, and Tennessee Pass came and went in a senseless blur. CTR racer Mike Soucy and I shared our daily catch-up in a small oasis of shade. I met a few exuberant dot-watchers while climbing away from Twin Lakes. I remember little else from that day.

A text came through from my ultra-buddy Karin Pocock. We were keeping tabs on one another through a mishmash of hastily typed phrases and emojis that only someone in the race would comprehend. One of her messages stood out. “Be careful with the brain malfunction.” Karin works professionally as a rock, alpine, and ski guide. I took her words seriously. She knew I had been cheating sleep and understood the risks.

I decided to take a solid nap before tackling the long climb up to Kokomo Pass. Camp Hale seemed like the perfect place. I stopped at the East Fork of the Eagle to tank up on food and water and deal with a minor foot issue. Finally, I laid down in the soft grass and set my alarm for 30 minutes. I figured that would be enough of a reset to get me to Copper, then I would take a two-hour sleep somewhere on the Tenmile.

Five minutes later I awoke with a violent sneeze. An ant that had crawled up my nose was now bound for the stratosphere. Its hundreds of buddies scurried over, and under, my cloths looking for holes to hide in. I shook off, packed up, and marched on.

It was early evening, overcast, and hot at the base of the climb.

The atmosphere was unsettled with small thunderheads rolling over the peaks. Part way up the climb I encountered Kieran Hook, a Colorado Trail racer who’d fallen ill on the first day and was now touring the eastern half of the route. He’d made camp for the night. We caught up for a few minutes and evaluated the weather. I felt optimistic and moved on.

As I approached tree line, a gusty rumbler blew over with a bit of rain. It chilled the air. I donned my rain jacket for the rest of the climb. It was fully dark by the time I reached the signpost at Kokomo Pass. My eyes began to wilt, and my legs got wobbly. The monster was back; this time tugging at my shoelaces. The short push to the ridge crest seemed to take eons.

The rain returned just as I topped out. More concerning, I heard new rumbles from the west – the direction of incoming weather. I was glad my escape route was now forward but knew I still had a few miles of exposed, now muddy, trail to traverse before the relative safety of tree line on the north side of Searle Pass. My rain jacket was doing its job, but I worried, and hurried, over the lightning.

Mid-way across the traverse I attempted to ride a wide bog crossing. This effort to keep my feet dry backfired. I missed the last pedal stroke and fell ass-first into the bog. It soaked me from the waist down. I unleashed a flurry of four-letter friends. The rumbles drew closer. My eyelids drooped lower.

Searle Pass never registered in my brain. There only came a point when I knew I was beyond it, and now not far from the protected groves of Guller Creek. I dropped my guard.

*Crossing Kokomo Pass just before things fell apart.*

Suddenly, I woke up standing in the middle of the trail, still holding onto Badger, but completely disoriented, and with the unsettled feeling that I’d forgotten something. I gathered myself back to present and inched forward. Then it happened again… and again… and again.

I have no memory of making any conscious decision to stop and rest. I don’t know how long I was out, or how I managed to stay standing. I only remember waking up, over and over again – each time tortured by the feeling that I’d forgotten something or someone. Sometimes it was a family member. Sometimes it was a friend. Sometimes it was many people. More than once this horror caused me to turn around and head back up the trail in search of whatever it was that needed me. Often, I’d wake up going the wrong direction. Each time I had to regather my senses and adjust my bearings.

I just wanted to lie down and sleep, but all I heard was the rumbling sky, all I felt was the cold rain, and all I saw were slippery slopes and jagged rocks. I understood I’d gone too far, but this was no place to stop. It was agonizing – to look for someone, or something, that didn’t exist; to know safety was close but not be able to reach it; to wake up headed in the wrong direction; and to do it over, and over, and over again.

It occurred to me, several times, this could be a, “find shelter or die,” situation. Even that primal instinct was not enough to keep me awake. The forces pulling my mind from my body were powerful. My moments of control were fleeting.

I twisted at the end of that cruel puppet string for nearly two hours before collapsing beneath the healing arms of an ancient spruce. The wiggles on my GPS track tell the tale. In that timeframe I covered less than two downhill miles that should have taken me fewer than 15 minutes. Within that space my brain powered down nearly two dozen times. There is one piece of trail, near a switchback, that I traversed several times in each direction. It’s hard for me to believe the facts of my insanity, but the miracle of modern technology recorded them for all to see.

“The guy who lost his shit during the Colorado Trail Race,” is not who I strive to be out there. Yet, that is exactly who I was that night. It humbles me – to have lost control; to have failed myself, my family, and my fellow racers on that level.

Yet in every failure lives a lesson. I found my breaking point and suffered the consequences of visiting the place beyond it.

I came close to the naked core of my being.

I learned useful things about myself.

This is what two hours of sleep deprived insanity looks like. It feels much worse.

They say, ‘knowledge is power.’

Seven hours later, I rose from the cold earth feeling like a tranqued-up King Kong ready for a rampage. I began by choking out an industrial grade toilet at Copper Mountain Resort. I finished, some 30 hours later, with a 150 rpm spin-of-defiance down Waterton Canyon. In between, I traded fist bumps (many) and “fuck yous” (two) with Breck Epic-ers. I drag-raced my CTR friends through Summit County. I rode off into the sunset alongside an old cowboy on his horse. I got passed, and passed back, on the Tarryall detour. I took two ghetto-ass-road-side-ditch-naps. I found a friend under a tree.

It was wild. It was free.

It was so fucking singlespeed!

And I’ve never felt more alive.

The final 30 hour push. Inspired. Defiant. Alive.

One memory haunts me…

What was it that called me back into the stormy abyss on Searle Pass? And why? My missing friends? My lost family? My forgotten something? Were you evil trying to end me? Were you good trying to guide me? Were you the trail trying to teach me? Or simply a shorted-out synapse?

I don’t understand you.

But I did recognize the feelings that drove my decisions on the other side of sanity.

They were love and loyalty.

Not fear and anger.

And I am grateful.