The Colorado Trail, an iconic 567-mile high-elevation trail that crosses the Rockies, owes its existence largely to Gudy Gaskill, a charismatic, six-foot-tall woman who could make tough things seem…
Sage Lafleur, 19, is seen hiking behind a Colorado Trail sign near Buffalo Creek Campground near Bailey, Colorado on July 16, 2024. Gaskill not only carried out the vision of a state trail, beginning slowly in the late 1970s but also gave birth to it. In 1972, she lobbied Congress, along with forester Bill Lucas, credited with the Colorado Trail idea, to change federal law so that volunteers could be allowed to build trails on public land.
In 1985, caught up in the story, my father, Ed Marston, then publisher of High Country News, volunteered my sister, Wendy, 15, and me, 13, for a week of trail building. That’s how we learned how to swing those axe-like tools called Pulaskis on the Molas Pass to Durango section. I joined a trail crew to revisit my childhood adventure this summer, and from Aug. 7 to 11, Denver friend Jeff Miller and I worked to repair trail in Chaffee County’s Collegiate Peaks Wilderness.
My fellow volunteers were largely thru-hikers, skilled backcountry voyageurs who spend their holidays hiking the trail from Denver to Durango in one go. Mark Stephenson, 26, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was one of the trail’s most ardent fans. But our camp had moved six miles away and 2,700 feet uphill. We made it, slowly, and once at camp, we quickly became free-store proprietors. But there was another problem: I’d left my tent poles at home. Crew leader Matt Smith, an engineer from Golden, easily came up with a fix: He used parachute cord to rig up the tent fly, then added a tarp to ward off the rain that soaked us every afternoon and night.
We owe thanks to those original trail stalwarts — forester Bill Lucas, journalist Merrill Hastings and of course, Gudy Gaskill. Their vision created of one of the state’s wonders.
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