More than halfway through the Elks Traverse, a linkup of the seven 14,000-foot peaks in the Elk Mountain range, Marian Krogh saw frogs dotting the trail in front of her.
She zig-zagged, trying to avoid them. “It was annoying because that was one of the runnable sections, and I felt like I couldn’t run because there were frogs everywhere,” she said.
She wondered if the frogs were real. People often hallucinate during ultra-distance events, and Krogh hadn’t slept for more than 24 hours. She took a video on her phone for future verification.
Krogh had set out from the Capitol Creek Trailhead on the Elks Traverse at 2 a.m. the day before, Aug. 16. Ahead of her lay 55 miles of off-trail travel and extreme exposure through loose, unstable rock.
In its nearly 30-year history, only a handful of people have finished the route.
It’s hard to verify whether any women had previously tackled the Elks Traverse, but official records indicate that until last month, none had.
In August, Krogh was among three women from the Western Slope who completed the traverse in the span of a week. Melissa Kelley of Fruita was first, finishing in 48 hours and 26 minutes on Aug. 13. Krogh was second, and Carly Valerious, of Carbondale, was third, finishing on August 20 in just under 37 hours.
None of them were professional athletes.
To prepare, Krogh would wake up before dawn, ride her e-bike to the Maroon Bells and climb Pyramid Peak before work.
The challenges during her traverse started almost immediately. Approaching the first 14er, Capitol Peak, she heard a helicopter flying above her. Mountain Rescue Aspen was searching for a missing person in the area. Krogh sat for 10 minutes debating where to go next.
She had planned to take a ridgeline directly to the summit. The route is exposed, involving Class 4 and 5 scrambling, but it’s much faster than the standard route: rock hopping through a boulder-strewn basin.
She worried that a lone headlamp moving along the ridge might confuse rescuers, so she opted for the slower route to the top.
After Capitol, she descended into the remote Pierre Lakes Basin before scrambling her way toward Snowmass Peak. It was a slow, terrifying slog over rocks that threatened to dislodge at any moment.
“You're just kind of looking around for a rock that might be attached,” she recalled. “And then you try it out, and you're like, ‘Oh, nope, not attached.’”
She surprised herself by how fast she made the traverse between North and South Maroon Peak, buoyed by the text messages from friends she received on top of each summit.
Descending from Pyramid Peak, however, Krogh found herself bushwacking through eyeball-deep willows. It was dark by that point, and she’d been on the move for nearly 24 hours. Unable to see much, she swiped aside leaves and branches from her face, her feet barely touching the ground.
“I was screaming into the void for a while, just in frustration,” said Krogh.
The sun rose on the morning of Krogh’s second day on the trail as she was coming down Castle Peak — the last 14er of the traverse.
Nearly finished, she stepped on a loose boulder, which flipped up, smashing her shin. Krogh collapsed onto the ground, thinking she’d broken her leg.
She had to hobble the remaining miles to the trailhead, stopping the clock at 30 hours 39 minutes and 28 seconds — the fastest woman to complete the route, according to the Fastest Known Time website, and the only one to do it solo.
Krogh hopes her accomplishment will inspire other women to try the traverse.
“I’d really love for this to have a banister effect,” she said. “I think it just takes the first person to try something, and then everyone knows that it's possible.”
And the frogs? After she finished, Krogh looked at the video she’d taken. They were real.
