An idea struck Donovan “Iceman” Rice in 2024 at the Colorado-Wyoming border. He had just finished the 700-mile Colorado section of the Continental Divide Trail and couldn’t get over how much he’d enjoyed it. Rice had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2020 and fell in love with thru-hiking. But no part of that trail, or any part of the New Mexico section of the CDT, resonated with his soul like the mountains of his home state. The scrambling, the alpine ridgelines, fourteeners, and endless side quests had been an absolute thrill for the 29-year-old from Golden.
He reflected at the border, “If there were a 2,000-plus-mile hike that was a longer version of what I just did, that would be my dream hike.”
That moment planted the seed for Colorado’s newest thru-hike, the Great Colorado Route (GCR). Over the next several years, it would grow within Rice’s mind until life presented the perfect opportunity to sit down and build it. He was between jobs and put all of his energy for several months into mapping and planning the route. The result was an epic, 2,000-mile backpacking loop that traversed the breadth of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
Rice posing for a selfie near Island Lake (Photo: Donovan Rice)
“[The GCR] goes as far west as Rattlesnake Arches, as far south as Alamosa, as far east as Colorado Springs and as far north as one mile shy of the Wyoming border,” he explained to Backpacker.
When he was finished mapping (or as close as he was going to get), there was only one thing left to do: hike it.
On May 14, 2026, Rice embarked on his journey, starting in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. He wouldn’t return for five months. In that time, he’d gain thousands of online followers who tracked his journey and cheered him on. He’d grow a beard, meet hundreds of new friends, and eventually become the first person to complete Colorado’s newest long trail.
The Great Colorado Route
Because it’s a loop, you can start the Great Colorado Route from pretty much anywhere along it. Rice began in the far west and hiked counterclockwise. The trek touches some of the most beautiful national parks and other public lands in the state. Highlights include national parks like Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Rocky Mountain; wilderness areas like the Indian Peaks, Eagles Nest, Flat Tops and Lost Creek; fourteeners like Pikes Peak and the Maroon Bells, and more.
“I really, really liked Indian Peaks Wilderness and the Wild Basin inside of Rocky Mountain National Park,” he said, recalling some of his favorite segments. “And then, I was also a big fan of the Sangre de Cristos and walking directly across Great Sand Dunes National Park—across the dunes themselves.”
In total, the GCR passes through three national parks, two national monuments, all 11 of Colorado’s national forests, 29 wilderness areas, eight wilderness study areas, and accesses 13 Fourteeners, and 47 Thirteeners.
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Colorado’s “Fourth” Long Trail
Officially, Colorado has two long trails. There is the famous Colorado Trail, which extends from Denver to Durango and covers 567 miles of the state’s mountain region. There is also the previously mentioned CDT, which starts at the US-Mexico border and follows the continental divide up through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana to the border with Canada.
A third route exists, though it’s not technically “official.” The Northern Colorado Route was mapped and designed by another thru-hiker like Rice, named Kevin Silvernale, who established it in 2024. That thru-hike starts in Estes Park and traverses the northern Rockies before terminating in Glenwood Springs.
When Rice was designing the GCR, he reached out to Silvernale. He wanted advice on whether he should make the route as accessible as possible for as many people as possible, or if he should design it more selfishly, to his hiking tastes and mountain preferences.
Silvernale didn’t hesitate. “He was like, ‘Dude, make something that resonates with you. Hike your favorite hike,’” Rice recalls. “And it was really cool to give myself permission to do something a little more extreme.”
Rice warns that the GCR isn’t for first-time thru-hikers or beginners. He tracked 364,000 feet of vertical elevation gain, and “that’s probably an undercount.” He loves scrambling, doing off-trail navigation, and connecting routes that don’t have an official connector. Rice said he didn’t design it to be difficult for difficulty’s sake, but rather because he wanted to experience as much of Colorado’s diverse landscape as possible, without backtracking, doing too many out-and-backs, or road walks. In fact, from the outset, Rice set design rules he wanted to follow.
“The three core design philosophies were beauty, breadth, and epicness,” he said. Beyond pursuing those, the route had to avoid crossover with the CT and the CDT. It also couldn’t have technical rock climbing or require special equipment like packrafts or climbing ropes, and it had to be doable, but challenging for an experienced hiker like him.
Staying honest to those rules kept things very interesting on the trail, he said.
“This whole hike was kind of a scouting mission,” Rice said. He’d find closed trails, or obstacles no other hikers had reported online, and have to problem-solve his way around them. “It was a lot of building the plane while flying it.”
The Wonderstruck Effect
During his four-and-a-half-month journey on the GCR, Rice started an Instagram page and used Corsa Live Tracking for people to follow his progress. And boy, did they. Rice’s Instagram for the GCR has 7,482 followers (as of this writing). If you scroll back to the very beginning, it’s clear how interest in his adventure built over time.
“It was kind of a funny evolution as the trip progressed, where more and more people would start recognizing me,” he said. “It started off as, ‘Wait, are you That Guy?’” As the hike went on, he graduated from being ‘That Guy’ to ‘Great Colorado Route,’ to, finally, ‘Iceman.’ Being recognized, he said, was “a really surreal experience.”
While the hike itself was the reward he sought from the beginning, he said that the heroes of his trip were the small towns dotted along the route. Just about everyone Rice met was stoked about the hike, and many offered support along the way.
“The vast, vast majority of responses I’ve been getting are overwhelmingly positive,” he said.
When he finally arrived back at Black Canyon of the Gunnison on October 1, Rice said he felt a sense of accomplishment that was totally unique compared to his other thru-hikes.
“Not only did I complete this trek, but I created this trek … It definitely made it more awe-inspiring,” he said. “I would say that was probably my primary emotion for the entire trip: this experience of awe and being completely struck with wonder.”
The post “Beauty, Breadth, and Epicness”: Colorado’s New, 2,000-Mile Thru-Hike Is Gorgeous and Hard as Heck appeared first on Backpacker.