Part 3
I am writing this blog to reflect on my experience with Nolan's 14 and June 14, 2025 a day that completely changed my life.
I was absolutely all in on Nolan's 14, consuming the majority of my free time. Nolan's, Nolan's, Nolan's. I identified every finisher I could from Strava files, random blogs, articles, etc. I pieced together and consolidated all of their splits to understand pacing to meet the sub-60 hour requirement. I analyzed everyone's training. So many different approaches. I re-read blog posts of notable finishers Joey Campanelli, David Hedges, Eric Lee, Joe Grant, Teddy Bross over and over again. Listened and re-listened to podcasts interviewing some of these folks and more. I could not get enough. I don't think I've ever been so obsessed with a goal. I wanted it to be this obsessive, it had to be.
Given the insanely low success rate (for an already alpha group of humans that even contemplate doing this) I hired a coach, Tyler Fox, in February 2025 to specifically help me train for the effort. We started marking out weekends for Nolan's training on the line. Collaboratively, we marked out 4 weekends. However, on my personal calendar, I was planning to be on the line almost every single weekend in June, July and August leading up to my target date of Sept 12th.
Throughout my training leading up to Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim I felt great. I was super motivated for R^3 and was very focused on a goal of sub-10 hours. However, something inside just began saying, "This is really your last rodeo with these insane physical feats. Nolan's is the last one." I can't remember if this spurred before or after R^3 specifically, but it was around then. Climbing up S Kaibab really broke me down. It completely made me re-evaluate my why and discover that my old "why" (ref: the person I want to be consistently does the hardest physical shit of all time) is no longer really applicable given how different my circumstances are now. I set this "why" to force physical training (for said "hardest physical shit of all time") that would hold me accountable in life. I couldn't spend late nights out getting fucked up and ride 100 miles on my bike the next day to prepare for the Triple Bypass. But now...? I haven't had a sip of alcohol in 2025 and don't know if I plan on ever having any ever again. I haven't used nicotine in months. Substance issues aren't a thing for me anymore. I am so far from that.
Further, this "why" is essentially psychotic, which served its purpose when the hardest possible things I could think of were: Triple Bypass, IRONMAN, Leadville 100. However, there becomes a point, especially here in CO, where things get harder due to "risk" + physical limits (as opposed to just physical limits). To be direct, by risk I mean bodily harm, but likely death. You can't appreciate how real this is, until you encounter it...
June 2025 was arguably one of the most stressful periods of my life. Work was absolutely insane. I had a ton of travel and trips during the month and Taylor and I's relationship was strained. Coming off R^3...I was immediately focused on getting into the Sawatch as quickly as possible. Although my coach Tyler and I had set aside 4 specific weekends for scouting, Nolan's was really all I could think about. When it came to training, I didn't care about anything else but just getting on the line.
June 8th, 2025: First Day on Nolan's Line
June 8th was my first day on the line with none other than Alex Walker, the current FKT holder of Holy Nolan's. I was so nervous getting out with Alex as I hadn't been at altitude yet this year and had been following along his "training" for the past few weeks. Reason for quotes is that I don't think Alex would say what he does is "training." He has a love for the mountains that I have never witnessed before. Alex consistently does 20-30 hour / >20k vert weekends, but I don't think he'd ever call it training. It's his passion.
Alex and I were planning to start at Brown's Creek TH, hit Tabeguache, Shavano, Mt. White (13er) and Antero. I arrived at the trailhead around 5 pm Friday night to pack in for an early night of sleep for a 5 am start. Alex and I had been loosely in touch about the gameplan, but as the sun went down I hadn't heard from him and was beginning to worry he may not be making it.
Sure enough around 9 pm, he texted me that he had just wrapped his day a bit further west and would be arriving later in the evening. I found out later the next day that his "day" was >12k vert.
I wake up to meet Alex and sure enough he is there a few cars down at the TH, cool as a cucumber and excited for the adventure at hand. We start rolling and it is immediately evident how fit Alex is. We were hiking faster than I have ever hiked in my life. While I could barely catch my breath, Alex was talking completely unencumbered as if we were taking a casual stroll around Wash Park.
As we start approaching tree line from Brown's I can start to see Tabeguache to our left. Absolutely no trail, a river, and a ton of gnarly terrain & brush to get through to reach the summit...welcome to Nolan's.
We bushwack through the initial set of dense reeds to get to the river, walk over a very narrow branch to reach the other side, bushwack again and then begin walking through the forest to get to tree line. As we break tree line, we begin ascending STRAIGHT up. There are so many underrated aspects of Nolan's and this is one of them. Established trails will likely never exceed insane level grade, due to switchbacks. When you are off-trail it is all about shortening point-to-point distances. So when you see the summit, you do everything you can to straight-line it. We go up this agonizing, rocky climb, I have no shot of keeping up with Alex as he goes ahead of me. The altitude + the grade was absolutely smoking me. At the steepest point I'd say I was having to stop every 30 seconds. It was truly insane.
We finally get to the top and are so relieved. We make the short traverse over to Shavano and then make the descent back down, where I was introduced to my first bout of glisading!
We then continue down the Nolan's line towards Antero, having to re-cross the river, bushwack and proceed off trail on technical, rocky terrain. At this point I was really struggling, I had really underestimated the demands of the day and keeping up with Alex was just straight up hard work.
I bailed on the idea of Antero and/or Mt. White (Alex's primary objective of the day, to work towards completing the CO bicentennials) and instead decided to try and take a nap at the center point between the two while Alex summitted Mt. White. I eventually remembered that he had service as did I and that I wanted this adventure to be over. I texted him notifying him that I was ready to descend and that I'd meet him back at the cars. I slowly made my way down the trail. My legs were so heavy from the travel of extremely technical and slow terrain...it felt impossible to move fast. The more I descended, the more I wanted the day to be over. Finally, alas, I made it to the car.
I was so extremely wiped out and just wanted to get back home. All I wanted was for that 'adventure' to conclude. I laid in the back of my car and began reading, waiting on Alex. Eventually, Alex texted me asking how it was going and I replied to him that I was done, waiting at the car for him. Unbelievably, Alex told me to go on and head home as he wanted to check out some other parts of the route.
This was a major wake up call for me and really caused me to think: "Is this challenge really appropriate for me?" I could barely stand the easiest 1/10th of this route and all I wanted was for this to be over. Whereas Alex's love for the mountains and exploring prevails over everything. Alex was built for Nolan's...I wasn't sure if I was.
Overall Stats on the Day: 19.9 mi, 7.4k of vert - not bad on paper, but man if you've been in serious backcountry terrain at altitude, you know what that kind of day really is.
June 13, 2025: A Day I Will Never Forget
Work was at an all time level of psycho. I was working insanely long hours, stressed beyond belief, eating like shit, terrible sleep, unable to really train properly, the whole gamut. However, Nolan's...
I decided that on Saturday I was going to get back out for a solo scout of Antero --> Princeton from the Alpine TH...the first real access point on the line South > North. My plan was to go from Alpine, up to Antero, back down to Alpine, up to Princeton and back. Pretty solid & doable day on paper.
After an insane workday on Friday, I quickly hopped in Taylor's car and jetted off to Alpine. I arrived there at dark and immediately set up for bed. I actually slept somewhat decent and was stoked to get going upon waking up. I quickly got dressed, got my gear together and began making the trudge up the fire road to get to Antero. The climb up was so beautiful, lots of streams, very beautiful approach, just all around great. I summitted in decent time and was just in love with the day I was having thus far. I began descending and I vividly remember feeling so bad about cutting all the switchbacks to be on the Nolan's line. It felt fucked up and kind of entitled. I was actively destroying such a precious and sensitive environment, all in the sake of speed & efficiency? I don't know it felt off and I felt guilty for it. There's a trail literally right there!
Aesthetic ridgeline up to Antero
Lookback on approach up to Antero
Once on the CT, I was able to actually run downhill at a seemingly decent pace. It was so fun! I made it back to the car in a very decent time and began to change my socks (given all the unavoidable water crossings), restock on fuel & hydration and get ready for the real meat of the day: Mt. Princeton.
For those that haven't been on Princeton, it's hard to describe the eeriness that this mountain already commands. Princeton TOWERS over everything else as you pull into Buena Vista. It is so in your face. Approaching it on the standard hiking route is even fairly intimidating. It is a no joke, uninviting mountain - lacking any real wildlife, plants or animals.
As I took off from Alpine, I was moving really slow on the 'run'...I remember fully disconnecting myself from a running identity and instead connecting with the identity of a total savage. The savage does not necessarily move quick, but he never stops or loses focus. The savage does not care about falling, technicality of terrain, bleeding, scratches, poison leaves, etc. The savage just moves. Stoically and unencumbered. So with this new lens, speed didn't matter, just forward momentum.
I had some trail to start with that was actually really nice. It is really solid stuff that drops you off at this nice river stream, that you have to cross to begin the bushwack and approach to Princeton. I trudged through the thick of the forest, hitting surprisingly VERY steep terrain early on. As I made my way out of tree line, I began the journey up the backside of Princeton in extremely steep & technical terrain. The journey up was a straight up slog to get to the ridgeline. Moving slow, but efficiently.
When I got to the ridgeline was when everything really started.
June is still very early in the season for the alpine. There is still snow everywhere, especially on the peaks. As I mentioned earlier, Tyler and I had set aside four weekends beginning in late July for me to begin scouting. However, my eagerness disregarded any potential snow-induced alterations to the line. Given the snow on the ridgeline, I began having to make judgement calls on my approach to the summit vs directly following the .gpx track I had on my watch. I fairly quickly got myself into the situation of full on climbing with death fall-esque exposure. After the Picnic attempt, I am so out on that kind of mountaineering experience. After getting through that crux, I continued questioning if the summit was really worth it today. There was so much snow everywhere, making route finding & subsequent movement extremely inefficient, slow and potentially dangerous.
I continued to talk myself into it that I needed to summit. I bailed on summitting Antero last weekend. I cannot do that again!!! I nervously proceeded, stopping multiple times to re-question my decision.
Finally, I reached the summit! There were two other people up there that had ascended via the standard and we were all loving taking in the views. I nervously only stayed up there for a few min and then began my descent.
On the way up
As I began my descent, my top of mind priority was AVOID that climbing section at all costs. No matter what I do, I will not put myself in that scenario again. I descended via a backside traverse (southwest) vs the frontside ascent (northeast). I began descending very cautiously and slowly. I was in super technical terrain between snow, ice and rock. However, overall I felt good about my decision of this new route. I continued going southwest to meet my intersection point of the pre-ridgeline ascent, until sure enough...I come back to the climbing segment I was so purposefully avoiding. I look around and there is clearly no other way to keep traversing around the backside of the ridge to intersect my ascent point. All cliffed out. Given no other option, I begin my ultimate descent, with the thought that I could traverse back to my original path closer to the base.
Once again, I cannot put into words what this terrain is like. You can only know if you have experienced something like this. I began my descent into a fully remote boulder field, full of boulders ranging from the size of tennis balls to large vehicles. I would be willing to bet that there have been less than 100 human feet that have ever traveled this boulder field. There is absolutely nobody out here. All alone. Completely desolate.
As I begin descending, I fully accept that this is going to take some time given the technicality. I descend slow and thoughtfully. However, as I continue to descend, the more I notice that I am constantly slipping at the mercy of loose rock. It became quite frustrating, as no solid step was guaranteed and inhibiting my already extremely inhibited movement.
I take a right foot step on a microwave sized boulder and quickly feel it's looseness. I think to myself, "You know what, I'm over this...I've gotta start getting my footing right and making sure this stuff sticks."
I bring my left foot up a bit behind my right and stomp my right back into the boulder.
It's honestly hard to even put into words what happened next.
Immediately, this boulder becomes angrily dislodged, triggering the entire backside of the mountain to begin caving in - literally something out of a sci fi movie. As my immediate backside began to cave in, rock above me, below me, and beside me no longer had any structural support to hold it in place and began giving out and falling FAST. Within probably 3 seconds, one dislodged boulder turned into a full on rock avalanche. As I was simultaneously sliding down the mountain, back against the wall, reverse gripping and pushing whatever was behind me with all of my strength as an attempt to force some pressure on keeping things in place, boulders as large as refrigerators were barreling down the mountain all around me. This entire gulley I was in, was actively being completely blown out. The base of this area, probably 800 ft down was quickly completely unidentifiable, filled with dust in the air rising above my vantage point. It literally felt like I was witnessing someone doing multiple avalanche blasts all around me. A bomb had seemingly gone off. I wondered when the boulder would hit me from above, likely die on impact and rag doll down into this cloud of dust.
This whole thing lasted probably ten seconds, I only slid about ten feet down, and the whole gulley was completely different.
Upon this mayhem stopping, I immediately thought about three things:
- Taylor and our future family
- My immediate family: my parents and my sister
- I literally do not give a fuck about the board deck my boss has been on my ass about all week and weekend
The most notable aspect of 'burning the ships' is that there is only one way: forward. That's how I felt in this moment. What just happened was irrelevant to the fact that I had to continue moving to get back to my car. There just wasn't an option. Every step was horrifying. There was a proven chance that each step could very realistically be my last. All I focused on was getting to treeline in the least steep manner possible. Treeline, treeline, treeline. At all costs. It doesn't matter where I end up I just need to be down.
I make it to treeline. I traverse to my initial path and descend into the thick brush to begin bushwacking back to the river. I get to the river and just dunk my head in the stream. I had overwhelming feelings that this was a sign from God. A new baptism. I should be dedicating my life to Christ and maybe use this example to help others. It was so overwhelming. Borderline didn't feel real.
I cross the river to make it back to the trail and begin slowly jogging down. Once again, the savage doesn't move fast. Just forward.
I show up to my car mangled and beaten to hell. Blood, sweat, dust, dirt, snot, sunburnt, dried out. I quickly change, hop in my car, and begin heading home.
Aftermath
That experience completely changed my life. I think people toss around the Confucius quote, "We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one" often. However, it's not like you just wake up from one comfortable day to the next and realize "Oh hey, my second life begins now...hooray!" No. I thought my second life had started in the beginning of 2023 when I completely uprooted everything to make a massive life change and start a new "life" after hitting absolute scum of the earth rock bottom. I guess this is part 3.
Part 3 goes something like this...
I drove home completely overtaken by the experience. No music. No podcasts. Just thoughts.
I text Taylor and tell her how much I love her and that I can't wait to see her.
I drive straight to the house Taylor is house-sitting at the time. Right when I pull up Taylor is storming out of the front door getting into her car and drives off not saying anything to me. I thought she was infuriated with me for some unknown reason. I wait for her outside to return. She comes back and tells me that she stormed out to go chase down the UberEats driver who had the pizza she ordered for me as part of the full suite Italian buffet she put together upon my arrival. The guy apparently had gone to the wrong address and he picked the WRONG customer to mess up on. Taylor was in DEFCON 1 mode for me. Over a pizza. Because it wasn't perfect.
Taylor with an incredible Italian spread ready for me upon my arrival
I am getting blown up my boss about a low value slide deck from the moment I get reception. I ask him if I can get it out to him later the next day. He says "No, I need this by Sunday 9 am est at the latest."
I have a great dinner with Taylor and just tell her exactly what happened. I tell her I don't think doing Nolan's is smart. She helps me construct a decision tree:
- Get smarter in mountaineering and navigating this kind of terrain
- Stop
I work non-stop Sunday-Tuesday. Undoubtedly the most stressful work period of my life in recent memory. One of my best friends' bachelor parties is Wed-Sun of the same week. I forego day 1 of PTO, Wednesday. I tell my boss I am turning my laptop off at 5 pm Wednesday and am not answering a single thing until Monday morning. I don't care about this Board meeting on Monday. I am not answering anything. I am going on this bachelor party. Work will not come before my relationships.
I turn off everything at 5:10 pm. I drive to the bachelor party Thursday morning. I submit my letter of resignation to my boss the following Monday.
Why am I sharing this? Because this single event got me SO insanely self aware on what fucking matters in my life!
- Taylor, the love of my life, was there for me after this and is the most supportive and strongest woman I know
- My family is always there for me no matter what
- My close friends are there for me
David Hedges somewhat cryptically announced his comeback for the Nolan's 14 FKT after losing it to Francois in early July.
I immediately DM'd David telling him that I would be more than willing to help him in any way, shape, or form in an attempt given most of his crew fell apart in 2023, leaving him in a very tough spot last minute. To my surprise, he very kindly responded and took me up on the offer noting that he'd keep me posted as things got more formalized.
I'll save you, the reader, from more text. But I think you'll get the gist of how things panned out based on the image below:
I got to crew the guy (that I've been looking up to and borderline obsessing over) regain his speed record on the route (that I've been obsessing over) for the past year. I was able to crew him in between peaks 12 (La Plata) and 13 (Elbert) and 13 and 14 (Massive). The last one just being myself and one of the videographers, Sean Haworth! I mean this just did not (& still does not) feel real.
One goal I set for myself this year, was to help someone accomplish something incredibly and personally meaningful. It came out of my experience at Leadville where so many people gathered to help me accomplish a monumental goal. I seriously cannot comprehend the fact that this manifested into me getting to help David Hedges on this goal.
In a weird way, his accomplishment really did 'set me free' from all the repercussions of June 14th. I was manifesting SO hard that he would do this. That this would set me free. I know it really sounds woo-woo, but man this was the answer. Ever since his record, that demon has disappeared. I am truthfully so grateful and proud of the fact that my experience with Nolan's 14 was a contribution not a personal completion.
Takeaways
As much of a toll June 14 has taken on me, I am ultimately grateful for it. I don't think it's possible for anything to drive the level of life clarity that a near-death experience does. It was SO clear to me what mattered and didn't matter. No frameworks. No buzzwords. No guru or book instructing me through some proprietary way of 'really identifying' these things. It just was. Ultimate and unmatched presence and clarity.
I am further really proud of myself that I've stuck to these findings. I quit my job because of June 14th. I have worked so hard on and have prioritized my relationship with Taylor. My goals and overall target life structure is all around a future family vision with Taylor. I call my family more and listen, not just talk. Actually listen. I've committed to seeing them more times per year. I am pursuing more meaningful 'work.' I am just more in line with my authentic self. This is Part 3.
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