Ep. 882: The First Ski Traverse of the Colorado Trail - Nicolette Jones & Mark Johnson
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 580 Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2022
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Skiing: Mark and Nic's first known traverse of the 486-mile Colorado Trail on skis in spring 2022, completed in 27 days of extreme navigation, emotional, physical challenges, and gear failures, called one of the hardest experiences of their lives.
In spring 2022 Mark and Nic completed the first known ski traverse of Colorado trail. They took 27 days to cover the 486 mile trail, recalling the experience as one of the most difficult things they have ever done. In spite of the variety of navigation, emotional, and physical challenges and a whole slew of gear failure and malfunctions, Mark and Nic feel extremely lucky to have had this experience.
While it may be a while before Nic can talk Mark into another month long ski traverse, they look forward to many other adventures to come!
Read more about the adventure on their blog: walkskicycle.com
Wild Snow article about the adventure: https://www.wildsnow.com/32012/friends-and-resupplies-on-a-ski-traverse-of-the-colorado-trail/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey folks, welcome to the adventure sports podcast. I'm your host, Mason Gravely. Today we are talking to Nicolette Jones and Mark Johnson, who are the first people that we know of to complete a ski traverse of the Colorado Trail. |
| 0:31.9 | So if you've ever heard of the Colorado Trail, it's nearly 500 miles from Durango, Colorado, way in the San Juan Mountains, all the way to |
| 0:39.9 | just about to Denver. It's like right on the outskirts of Denver. And it's basically a grand tour of |
| 0:46.8 | the Rocky Mountains here in Colorado. I say here and Colorado. I'm not there anymore, but |
| 0:51.4 | there in Colorado. And I've done most of it on bike, and that was hard |
| 0:58.0 | enough. Tons of it, you couldn't even walk. It is crazy to me to think you could ski this and do it skiing, |
| 1:04.5 | like the danger, the cliffs. It was treacherous in places in the sense of thinking about it covered in snow and ice. |
| 1:12.4 | And Nick and Mark are going to tell us about this unbelievable experience, how they pulled it off, |
| 1:18.0 | where the inspiration came from, and getting through the navigation, the emotions, the physical challenge, |
| 1:25.8 | gear failure and malfunctions, and how they did this. This is so |
| 1:29.7 | crazy. And why no one's ever done it before? So I'll be honest, this kind of was one of those |
| 1:34.8 | episodes that I really thought, wow, kind of hits you. Anything is possible. So congrats to Nick and |
| 1:41.2 | Mark. They also recently got engaged, which is awesome. So we're going to talk about that as well. |
| 1:45.9 | I guess if you make it through that and you make it through some of the other stuff they talked about, you can make it through anything. |
| 1:51.2 | So good luck, y'all. |
| 1:52.2 | And thanks for being on the show and talking about this crazy adventure. |
| 1:56.0 | Let's jump in. |
| 2:09.0 | All right, folks, you heard a little bit about Nick and Mark's story in the intro, but I wanted to welcome them to the show. |
| 2:16.9 | Welcome. How are y'all doing? Good. How are you, Mason? Doing well. Doing well. So I always ask this first, |
| 2:19.9 | and I think it's two different places. I'm not sure different towns, but I know it's at least different computers. Where are y'all coming from today? |
| 2:25.2 | And where is home for you if those aren't the same places? Right now, I'm in Albuquerque, New Mexico, |
| 2:30.9 | visiting my family. They're still in the town that I grew up in, but home right now |
... |
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