On Fri, May 22, 2020, at 4am, I will make a 2nd solo and unsupported attempt to complete the 142 mile Kokopelli Trail. The trail connects Loma, Colorado to Moab, Utah, and is perhaps best known in the mountain-bike community, but more runners have discovered it in recent years.
The La Sals mountains.
As of May 16, 2020, Scott Jamie and Nick Pedatella hold the supported FKT in 1d 6h 20m 58s, Kevin Hadfield the self-supported FKT in 1d 9h 21m 23s, and just a few days ago, on May 11, 2020, after a failed 2019 attempt, Yngwie Ocanas grabbed the first unsupported FKT in 1d 21h 38m. Needless to say that he set the bar very high. Congrats!
I made my own pathetic, unsupported, and solo attempt on Thanksgiving Day, Nov 28, 2019 and failed miserably. I didn’t even make it half way because, alas, the weather was a lot worse than predicted: a massive winter storm dumped 3 feet of fresh snow in the La Sal mountains as I made my way toward the range. I should probably never even have started.
The day after the storm. There was clearly no way to get through this snow. And that wasn’t even close to the high point.
After seeing Yngwie’s FKT literally a week before my planned start, I had to revisit pretty much my entire planning. More hair was lost, more spreadsheets and visualizations were created, more comparison were done, more fruitless fine-tunings of calories and gear were attempted.
The 142mi Kokopelli trail, connecting Loma, CO, to Moab, UT.
This time, the weather forecast looks a lot better:
Tracking
The planned start is on Fri, May 22, 2020, at 4am. You can track me in the embedded map below or go here. The track shows a 3mi out-and-back to the Westwater Ranger Station to access water at mile 41. This is not part of the official route and I do not plan to grab water there.