TransRockies Run: Stage 2 Recap – Hope Pass!

It’s time for my recap of Stage 2 of the 2025 TransRockies Run. This stage took us from across Hope Pass to Twin Lakes. We started the day in Buena Vista and ended it in Leadville.

MORNING AT CAMP

We were up around 4:45a to start preparing for the day. It was an early start since we had to take buses to the starting line.

This is a pretty accurate depiction of what sleep looked like for me during TRR according to my Oura ring. Lots of awake/asleep time both falling asleep and waking up – mostly due to all the activity going on in tents around you. Tons of movement throughout the night. I think I rolled over and repositioned myself in my sleeping bag at least 20 times per night. And 6-6.5 hours was pretty standard for total sleep. I’ll show my resting heart rate and HRV in another post – THAT was interesting!

On mornings that we had to move camp, we not only had to get ourselves ready for the day but we had to pack up all of our things and drop our duffels with the luggage team so I ended up needing a lot more time every morning than you’d think.

This was the only morning that I did hot breakfast after getting myself dressed and packed up. You’ll see that every other morning, I did pre-dawn breakfast and coffee and then got packed and ready for the day. That was a better flow for me and gave me more time to digest before the day’s stage started.

I also quickly learned that I didn’t particularly care for the hot breakfast options and would rather have the oatmeal/toast bar that was offered in Chillville.

After wrapping up breakfast, we walked to line up for the buses to the start. It’s no small feat to move 540 runners and they had a whole fleet of white water rafting buses waiting for us.

After passing mandatory gear check, we boarded the bus. For stages 2-6 we were required to have a light jacket (rain shell), light gloves, emergency blanket and something that covered our ears in our hydration pack. This was for our own safety as conditions can change so quickly at high altitude. Luckily, we never ended up needing any of that gear!

STAGE 2 STARTING LINE 

We arrived at the start with about 30 minutes to spare. My friends and I staked out a spot in the sun. I finished drinking my carb/electrolyte bottle and made two trips into the woods for the bathroom. I drank G.1.M. Sport every morning before we started and I really think it made a positive difference for me. PRO TIP! I love the taste of this (lemon lime!!!) but it’s hard to get fully mixed up and can be gloopy. It was a game changer to make my bottle the night before so it had time to fully dissolve. Each serving has 350 mg of sodium, 20 g of carbs and B vitamins.

Then we shed our layers and got ready to goooooooo!

The drop bag situation was so impressive! We stuffed our layers and bottles in ours and passed them over to be transferred to the finish as we were lining up.

And then they cued up Highway to Hell and we were off!!!!! The cool thing about the starting line was that no matter how tired or nervous you felt, the vibes were so high that you took off feeling a surge of excitement and adrenaline!

CLIMBING TO HOPE PASS 

We kicked things off with about 1.5 miles of run/walking on a dirt road. It was a nice way to warm up for the truly hellish climb that was to come (speaking of Highway to Hell).

We made a right turn onto the Sheep Gulch Trailhead where arrived at our only full aid station for the day. We were encouraged to stock up on waffles, gels, chews, etc for the miles ahead.

And then it was time to climb…and climb…and climb. We gained 2,670 feet in 2.5 miles and my friends…the grade was steep! Sometimes I felt like I was moving so slow that I wasn’t moving at all and had a 40-minute mile in there.

The trail up to Hope Pass starts in shaded forest before giving way to wide-open expansive views and alpine meadows. The best way to describe the trek up was being part of a conga line because there were so many of us on single track in a single file line. It felt like both a lot of pressure and good motivation/accountability at the same time. I tried to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep climbing and only stepped aside if I really needed to catch my breath. It was a bit demotivating to leave the line and then have 50 people pass you haha.

Breathing was absolutely the hardest thing about this climb. It was our first time getting up to higher elevations. The incredible views made it all worthwhile but I struggled for sure. This was far and away the most challenging stage of TransRockies for me.

The interesting thing is that even though I was completely breathless, I’d look down at my Garmin and my heart rate was maxing out at 130. From a cardiovascular and body/muscle standpoint, I was okay on the climb but I was hitting my VO2 max because of the altitude. I found this trivia tidbit after from Vail Health:

An athlete reaches their lactate threshold sooner at altitude than if they were training at a lower altitude no matter what level of fitness you have attained. If someone has had their maximum aerobic power (VO2 max) measured at sea level it will most certainly be lower if it were measured at altitude around the same time frame. In fact VO2 max is reduced by 1 percent to 2 percent for every 390 feet above 4900 feet in elevation.

Given that we climbed to 12,500 feet elevation, this makes a lot of sense! I was really feeling the effects of the altitude and as I approached the top, often felt like I was snapping out of that weird space between being awake and falling asleep where your mind starts to dream but not really.

And then…somehow, someway…I made it! I saw this photographer and was reassured that I was so close.

She wasn’t lying! Just a few more steps and I was atop Hope Pass. It was an amazing feeling and payoff after all of that climb and the views were insane. According to the U.S. Forest Service, Hope Pass offers views of the Collegiate Peaks (14ers) with exceptional views of Missouri Mountain, Mount Belford, Mount Oxford and Huron Peak.

TransRockies Run makes the top of Hope Pass a party and there were course supporters dressed up, dancing around and pouring Fireball. I did not partake in this ritual but it’s safe to say that Fireball was the official drink of TRR – it was everywhere!

I snapped a few pictures, made a video to send to Finn and then started my descent down the other side.

HOPE PASS TO TWIN LAKES

Again, the sweeping views were unbelievable looking down to Twin Lakes where we would complete Stage 2. We were only about four miles into our day at Hope Pass and those four miles were hard earned. We had nine more to go to finish at 13.

There was technical downhill that took us to our second aid station of the day. This aid station only had water because they had to bring everything in on mules.

Eventually we reached a gentler grade with more runnable terrain.

I did the least amount of running of any stage in Stage 2. The climb and altitude really took it out of me and I just didn’t have much gas in the tank on the way down and had a headache. I focused on continuing to hydrate, taking in calories and moving forward.

After miles and miles of forest, we eventually made our way lakeside.

It was very runnable and any other day I would have crushed this run but not on Stage 2.

Struggle in action haha. I was like, “why are we still climbing at this point in the stage?” One of the friends I made during the week got me in this shot she was taking for her social media. This is the face of someone ready to be DONE!

One last push through dirt road and a parking lot and done I was!

STAGE 2 FINISH LINE

Elizabeth was waiting for me at the finish. She is a master climber (seriously – her wheelhouse!!!) so she finished a bit ahead of me.

Though it was my most difficult stage, I was very proud of my effort. We were warned prior to TransRockies not to be fooled by shorter distance days and that they were “short” for a reason. They weren’t kidding on Stage 2!

I visited the food tent for PBJ + salt and vinegar chips along with a whole bunch of peanut M&Ms and ginger ale. Honestly, I was not feeling great at all and my head was killing me. Elizabeth and I queued for shuttles to camp in Leadville. I was ready to get out of the finish area.

It was a monumental effort to get settled at camp when we arrived. I kept having to lie down because my head hurt so badly. I drank water, took some Tylenol and made my way to the shower truck. The combo of those things finally turned things around for me and I felt markedly better after my shower. The city of Leadville is at 10,100 feet so there’s really not a lot of relief from the altitude there. I stopped by medical just to check in and they encouraged me to keep hydrating and that I was okay as long as my symptoms were subsiding and not getting worse.

EVENING IN LEADVILLE

Around 4p, Elizabeth and I decided to go for a stroll around Leadville. It’s a very cute mountain town and felt nice to do something relaxing like that after a day of work. I was able to pick up a couple of souvenirs for Finn and a hat for myself at the famous Melanzana.

Dinner was hosted inside a local gym in town because there wasn’t enough room for the catering tent at camp. We were one of the first in line and loaded our plates up with lasagna, grilled chicken, salad and garlic bread. This was my favorite dinner meal of the week by a landslide.

We grabbed an ice cream cone on the way back to camp. I had salted caramel and cookies and cream.

Back at camp, we had our nightly meeting to recap the day and review the next day’s stage. We also learned that a couple had gotten engaged on Hope Pass that day and that we had a fully blind runner participating in TRR!

I spent 20 heavenly minutes in the squeezy legs chair.

Sunset was gorgeous. I got my gear organized for the next day which always including filling all of my bottles and packing my hydration pack.

All snug in my sleeping bag!

Final stats for the day (Strava’s grade adjusted pace really making me feel good about myself LOL):

• Time – 5:01:47
• Climb – 3,435 feet
• Average heart rate – 123 bpm
• Run time – 53:03
• Walk time – 3:29:30
• Idle time – 39:14 (breathing breaks, top of Hope Pass, aid stations, bathroom breaks)
• Max elevation: 12,573 ft
• Min elevation: 9.200 ft

And that’s a wrap on Stage Two of the 2025 TransRockies Run!