BEND, Ore. — Nearly 500 miles in nine days through the heart of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Some 90,000 feet of elevation gain. Blisters, vomiting, hunger, sleep deprivation and hallucinations.
Jeff Garmire does not hold back in his new film “Free Outside,” which candidly documents his achievement of the unsupported fastest known time (FKT) to complete the 486-mile Colorado Trail from Durango to Denver.
According to FKT guidelines, unsupported means “no external support of any kind. This means you carry everything you need from start to finish except water from natural sources.”
So Garmire, 32, hiked the entire route in August 2020 without any resupplies and without any contact from friends, family or members of his film crew. It is believed to be the first time a film crew has captured an unsupported record.
“That was kind of the goal, since there haven’t been a lot of films like this,” said Garmire, an outdoors writer and author who lives in Bozeman, Mont. “Show what actually happens when you’re not funded by North Face or something. Let’s just piece together as much as we can about the actual experience for most people on the trail, rather than be more glamorized. It was cool to show the highs and lows.”
Before his trek across Colorado, Garmire — whose mother is from Bend and who learned to ski at Mt. Bachelor — was no stranger to adventure or the documentation of it. The Oregon State University graduate has completed the calendar year triple crown (hiking the entire Appalachian, Pacific Crest and Continental Divide trails all in one year) and he has climbed all 58 of Colorado’s 14ers (peaks higher than 14,000 feet). He holds FKT records on the Arizona Trail, the Pinhoti Trail in Alabama and Georgia, the Long Trail in Vermont, and the John Muir Trail in California.
Garmire’s 2019 book, “Free Outside: A Trek Against Time and Distance,” chronicles his triple crown quest.
Hunger pains
Living in Colorado from 2014 to 2018, Garmire had always thought about trying the Colorado Trail, but had never gotten around to it. That changed in 2020, when he connected with filmmakers to shoot a pilot for a possible TV show about the feat. The pilot was never picked up, but Garmire and director Dylan Harris decided to make a film on their own. Another director, Jason Fitzpatrick, came on board and the result is the feature-length “Free Outside.”
“The crew would film some of me and a lot of the trail, and then I would have a camera and film myself along the way,” Garmire said. “We never communicated throughout the whole thing since we wanted it to be truly unsupported and not have contact. We came together with the perfect footage to make a feature film about it.”
Garmire completed the trail in nine days, 8 hours, 18 minutes. He called it “a true lesson in rationing and just mental perseverance. You get pretty low when you run out of food and still have 40 miles left.”
He carried a full-size backpack to haul all his food and gear, which included a tarp and simple quilt for sleeping two to four hours per night. Garmire, who walked most of the way but ran occasionally, wore trail-running shoes and carried two battery packs for his gimbal camera to film the experience.
Rather than take the time to filter water from lakes and streams, he would add a drop of bleach to a liter of water. “Wait 30 minutes and it’s treated,” he said.
Garmire tackled about 50 miles per day while staying above 10,000 feet in elevation for most of the route. The Colorado Trail tops out at 13,500 feet.
He started the trail just outside Durango, climbing straight up a few thousand feet into the San Juan Mountains, which make up most of the first 150 miles. He got pummeled with rain, and even some snow, as the trail flattened out near the Continental Divide. After that, he took on a series of mountain passes through the Collegiate Range before descending into Denver.
Garmire said the toughest part was the last two nights.
“I was just so tired and out of food, which really eliminated strategies to turn my negative mindset around,” he said. “The hunger pains started to come in waves the last morning, and each one got more intense. That was the low point. I was very happy to get to the finish.”
Garmire, whose first major mountain summit was South Sister when he was 9, also has his sights on possibly attempting the 750-mile Oregon Desert Trail, which starts just east of Bend and stretches to the Oregon-Idaho border.
“I would love to do the Oregon Desert Trail, something more remote and something that’s kind of coming into its own,” Garmire said. “I’ve thought a lot about that.”
