Trip highlights 2025 – bikepacking and backpacking.

This post is a quick trip highlight reel of my 2025 in chronological order. I will include Strava links if anyone is getting inspired to go for it!

50k mountain run

This one has to be mentioned since it was a great milestone for me personally. Awesome experience! Original post here.

Biking the White Rim Trail in Utah, Canyonlands National Park

This was just such an amazing experience with my family and best friends from Colorado. It’s hard for me to imaging that biking can get more fun than this! Original post here.

Bikepacking Red Feather, 3 days

Fun 3 day ride with my good buddies Cam and Josh. We could ride it straight out of our home town which is always fun. The route is a simplified version of the Red Feather Rambler described on bikepacking.com. We rode it in mid April which was totally fine since we didn’t have a lot of snowfall last year. However, that is something to be aware of.

On day 1 we rode to lost lake from Fort Collins which is a beautiful spot to camp. If you are planning to stay at campgrounds on day 2 make sure to check if they are open. Most of them open in May. On day 2 we cheated and made a stop at the tavern in Red Feather, highly recommended!

Below is a screenshot and here are the Strava links: Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Not too many photos from this trip since i just had my phone.

The Never Summer Wilderness, backpacking overnighter

The Never Summer Wilderness borders Rocky Mountain National Park to the north west. The East side of those mountains are part of the national park. I went there for an overnighter with my buddy Josh (who’s famously known for previous posts). This place was always on my list of places to go, and it didn’t disappoint.

We started day 1 on the Bowen trail and hiked clockwise up to Bowen Pass. This trail is also part of the CDT. From here it connects with the Never Summer trail and Parika Lake trail, and crosses over another pass before descending down to Parika Lake which was an absolute beautiful place to camp. That first day is pretty though since it has a bit of elevation, but also very beautiful. The second day following Baker trail back down is a breeze. Below is a screenshot of the stats and strava links for details here: Day 1, and Day 2.

I didn’t bring a camera on this trip, so all pics are taken with my (old) phone.

Bikepacking Frisco to Buena Vista via Searle pass and Colorado Trail

I took the bus to Frisco where I met up with Cam. We rode south to connect with the Colorado Trail going over Searle and Kokomo pass. Then coming down from Kokomo we would have to climb over Tennessee Pass before descending down towards the Leadville and Buena Vista area.

Day 1 was a really tough day. I think I may have taken the price of the heaviest rig to ever cross Searle and Kokomo Pass. My bike on its own is around 35 lbs and on top of that it was fully loaded. So there was a lot of hike-a-bike once we got closer to the pass. The Colorado Trail Race was going on at the same time so we met a few of the guys going in opposite direction. We saw the 2nd place finisher at the top of Searle Pass. He was definitely packing lighter than us! Anyway, this was also a really beautiful ride and the downhill from Kokomo Pass was super fun! Once we came closer to Tennessee Pass we were hammered. So, we found a really nice place to pitch the tents off of the trail. Day 2 was also a really nice ride mostly downhill to Buena Vista, where we camped just north of town before heading home with the bus on day 3. We didn’t follow the CT on day 2, but it is definitely possible to do so.

Strava links to Day 1, and Day 2.

Lastly I have to finish with two pictures from a group cabin trip to Hermit Park

Hoping for more great adventures in 2026 ❤️

White Rim Trail

I did this trip in March 2025. I will admit that I cheated a bit on this one since it was not self-supported as all of my other trips have been. My good friend Cameron had arranged the trip with a bunch of my best friends, so there was no way I could not go! We had our families going too and the support of a jeep, but even though it wasn’t the way I usually do it, it was still great fun!

We did the trip over 3 days from March 16-18 with great weather. We did have a rain storm on the last night, it didn’t give us any trouble in the canyon but after we climbed out of the canyon and we thought we where out of harms way, it turned out that the last bit of dirt road had turned in to complete peanut butter mud. So, I actually ended up snapping my derailleur clean off in the last 10k or so. So I guess it was not the worst trip to have some support on!

We stayed at the Gooseberry and Hardscrabble campgrounds which were both great. I did the ride on my steel gravel bike with 650b 47mm tires, which worked out totally fine however, not ideal. I guess the ideal bike would be a bit wider tire and maybe front suspension. The trail is not technical at all, it is all a 4×4 road so I’d probably give it a 5/10 in technicality.

I have some great memories from the trip since my family and a bunch of my best friends were there. Below are the pictures and my stats from strava. I thought 3 days was the perfect amount of time. There is so much to see so I was glad that I wasn’t in a hurry. Water can be an issue, so if you are doing it self-supported there’s an argument for doing it over two days I guess. The trip is very well described on bikepacking.com.

Screenshot of the stats:

Strava links to: Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

50k mountain run

To have this experience was a long time goal of mine – the feeling of running 50k in the mountains! I wasn’t supposed to do this until April/May, but I decided to give it a go yesterday and was able to finish it (March 8, 2025).

I have enjoyed 90% of the training process. I started building my running base slowly about a year ago, and the last half year I’ve averaged around 3x a week running. It’s been great to have a concrete goal to work towards and then achieve it. I’ve had injuries along the way, but I just adjusted and kept running. I didn’t follow a concrete training plan, but my goal initially was to run intervals once a week, 10-12k fast run once a week, and a long slow run once a week…that didn’t happen. Mostly, because of the injuries I’ve had to manage, but I also like to go more on feel. For me it keeps it more enjoyable, and when it’s something I do in my free time, it has to be somewhat enjoyable. I pulled my calf muscle late last year, and then re-pulled it once or twice. So, I ended up not running intervals at all, and only the last month or so I’ve started to run faster on my 10-12k’s. Everything else has been very slow runs which was a new experience for me.

I didn’t really get to run beyond around 19k in training, and I was supposed to build those longer runs over the next 1-2 months…but I ran out of patience. Yesterdays run was far from planned, the days leading up to, my diet was horrible and I didn’t anticipate giving the 50k a go until I was actually running. From the get-go my body didn’t really feel great, but when I got on the trail it was very enjoyable and the conditions where great. The first half of the trail is awesome, it starts from Arthurs Rock parking lot in Lory State Park with a big climb of around 650 m elevation going over 7,5k up to Horsetooth Rock, then from there a beautiful downhill on the Southridge trail with views of Longs Peak. Then from the Horsetooth Open Space parking lot it goes back up the Spring creek trail and connects with a big downhill along the Towers road and then connecting with the nomad trail that goes back to Arthurs Rock parking lot. Those first 25-26k are so beautiful and was really enjoyable. Still, after this first half I wasn’t committed to do the 50k, but I wasn’t ruling it out either. Initially, I was supposed to finish my run after that first part. But then I was thinking, “I already spent 3,5 hours running, let me try to do this 7,5 k loop around the valley and see how I feel”. So that’s what I did, and now I only had 17-18k left to go. I could see the end now, it’s doable! So I set out for another loop and counted down every k. I was talking to myself and hyping myself up the whole time. The second loop started getting painful but when I finished it I had just short of 10k left. Now, there was no way I was not going to do it. So I did the last loop which was pretty painful, and then finished the last 2k left. Man, what a great feeling!

In a sense, it was good that I wasn’t fully prepared for it, because a big part of doing the 50k in the mountains was to get the feeling of pushing myself beyond what I normally do. So, when I’m not fully prepared it becomes more a test of my will since it gets more painful.

The numbers (Strava link):

50K

1541 meters of elevation (5056 feet)

Run time: 6h 51 min

Total time: 7h 53 min

I wanted to share my experience here, and hopefully this is the kick start of writing more on this blog again. Between starting my own business and raising a little kid, I havn’t had much time for this blog. But, as it says on the welcome page, this is a life project and I plan to write about more adventures this year…I have a few planned 🙂