2,021 miles. 141 days. Enough elevation gain to climb Mount Everest nearly 13 times. An adventurous route that includes most of the state of Colorado.
That’s what Donovan Rice just accomplished this month – on his own two feet.
But perhaps the most remarkable part is he didn’t follow a trail. Instead, he designed a route of his own: an ambitious loop weaving around Colorado’s public lands and iconic destinations, covering as much of the state’s diverse, wild beauty as feasibly possible.
“The design philosophy behind the Great Colorado Route was beauty, breadth and epicness,” Rice said.
Born and raised in Colorado, Rice — known as Iceman on the trails — became an avid thru-hiker after attending the University of Denver.
Thru-hiking involves backpacking a long-distance trail continuously, from end to end, in a single trip.
Rice had already completed several of the country’s quintessential thru-hikes, including the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Eastern Continental Trail. But after logging thousands of miles elsewhere, he found himself wanting something more: a return to his roots, to the mountains where his love of adventure first took hold.
That’s when he began dreaming up his next challenge: a full-length thru-hike that would loop around his home state.
“I just pulled out the public lands map and started dropping pins all over the state in areas I wanted to visit,” Rice said. He began asking himself, “How much juice can I squeeze from just one state? What is the most maximalist approach to truly experiencing Colorado?”
The challenges of connecting the dots
What sets Rice’s Great Colorado Route apart from other established thru hikes is that it is a route as opposed to one long continuous trail.
It involves extensive cross country travel, deliberately taking the path less traveled. The route connects trails and public lands and requires road walking as well as scrambling on mountain ridges. Rice said he designed the route to highlight areas the Colorado Trail or Continental Divide Trail miss.
The route spans 13 fourteeners, 47 thirteeners, three national parks and all 11 of Colorado’s national forests. Highlights include Great Sand Dunes National Park, the Maroon Bells, Indian Peaks Wilderness, Pikes Peak and the Devil’s Causeway.
Designing the route was one challenge, but making it possible to hike was another. Rice had to connect public lands without trespassing, account for permits and camping restrictions, and identify reliable water sources amid summer drought conditions. He also routed the hike through towns every few days to replenish food and supplies without carrying an overly heavy pack.
Without established GPS tracks or the detailed waypoints found on apps like FarOut, he had to rely on paper maps.
“I had to be a little bit more old school and just literally look at the map and see a blue line or a dotted line and guess whether or not the water would be flowing,” he said. “There is only so much you can figure out when drawing a line on a map, you just have to scout it out in person.”
On May 14, Rice set out into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park with everything he needed loaded in his 13-pound pack. “I basically just started doing a big counterclockwise walk around the state,” he said.
The route’s rugged terrain left little room for error. While descending a steep gully during a traverse of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Rice lost his footing when a rock slipped beneath him.
“There were other portions of that traverse where if I had fallen in a different spot, I’d be dead at the bottom of a cliff,” he said. The fall was a sobering reminder of the route’s risks. He hoped to make those dangers clear to future hikers, noting that the terrain could be unforgiving.
Summer brought another set of challenges. Wildfires filled the air with smoke, and some planned routes were closed because of nearby fires. “If the entire summer looks like this, I don’t know if I can do this when there is this poor air quality,” he said.
He said at another point in the trek, he watched his pack roll and fall almost off a cliff, which would have sent his shelter, food, water and live tracker into the abyss.
Thousands of miles and four pairs of hiking shoes later, Rice completed the loop, finishing largely unscathed save for a few painful blisters.
“This is definitely my most ambitious trek that I’ve ever embarked on and to emerge on the other side uninjured, healthy and in good spirits is an incredible feat on its own,” he said.
For Rice, completing the loop was about more than reaching the finish line. He hoped his journey would inspire others to pursue their own outdoor ambitions. “As long as I inspire someone to go hike their dream hike, that’s a win in my books,” he said.
Although Rice hiked alone, documenting the journey on Instagram gave him a sense of community. Followers cheered him on and discovered parts of Colorado they had never seen. “There were lots of people rooting for me,” he said, recalling comments from people surprised by both his accomplishment and the landscapes he shared.
Raising awareness about conservation was central to Rice’s journey. He hopes that by introducing people to Colorado’s lesser-known landscapes, he can inspire them to become invested in protecting them. “People are only interested in preserving what they’re aware of,” he said. “I think the best way to create a stakeholder in protecting public lands is to make them a recreationist.”
Rice also created a comprehensive website dedicated to the Great Colorado Route, outlining its logistics, route details and challenges to help future hikers plan their journeys.
Just a first draft
Rice considers this route of Great Colorado Route a first draft. He plans to revisit sections where he encountered private property or had to improvise, adding easier alternatives and bailout options for hikers facing difficult terrain or changing weather.
He also hopes to develop a version that relies more heavily on established trails, opening the experience to people who may not be ready for the route’s most demanding sections.
He said someday if there was enough interest in the route, he would be open to pursuing getting it legislated by Congress and recognized as a national scenic trail.
For now, his ambition remains simple: “My main goal is to make the coolest hike possible for people who want that next big adventure.”
Rice cautions that the Great Colorado Route is not beginner-friendly, and said most hikers would find it more realistic to tackle the route in sections rather than attempt the entire loop at once.
Therefore, he has divided the route into five sections, each highlighting a different part of Colorado’s diverse landscape, from the canyons of the Western Slope to high alpine ridgelines and remote mountain ranges.
Section One: Western Canyons. A large loop around the Grand Valley near Grand Junction.
Section Two: San Juans. An exploration of the rugged San Juan Mountains.
Section Three: Pikes Path. Loosely follows Zebulon Pike’s expedition, crossing the Sand Dunes before continuing toward Colorado Springs.
Section Four: Rocky Mountain Highs. An extended ridge walk through the Mount Evans Wilderness and across the Front Range to Hoosier Pass, before dropping into Rocky Mountain National Park.
Section Five: The Aspens. Runs from Walden through the Flat Tops and Roaring Fork Valley, past the Maroon Bells and into the West Elk Mountains, ending in Gunnison.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct distance of the route.
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