Michael “Cougarbait” Robertson

The Collegiate Loop is the 166.9-mile circuit formed where the Colorado Trail splits into its Collegiate East and Collegiate West options and rejoins about eighty-three miles later. It only became possible when Collegiate West was completed in 2012, and there is nothing else quite like it in the Sawatch: 33,400 feet of climbing, nine separate excursions above 12,000 feet totalling 21.9 miles — every one of them on the Collegiate West half — and a lap that passes within three and a half miles of twelve of Colorado's fourteeners.

Michael runs it clockwise from Blank's Cabin Trailhead. South first on Collegiate East to the junction on the Monarch Crest, then north up the west side — Monarch Pass, Boss Lake, Chalk Creek Pass, Hancock Pass, the 12,856-foot high point above Tin Cup, Cottonwood Pass, Lake Ann Pass and Hope Pass — to the north junction at Twin Lakes. From there he turns back south on Collegiate East under Huron, Missouri, Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Princeton, drops to the loop's low point in Chalk Creek at 8,202 feet, and climbs the last sixteen miles home.

Unsupported is the strictest style in the sport: everything carried from the start, water taken only from natural sources, no caches, no resupply, no company, no trail magic. The pack weighs 14.06 lb leaving the trailhead and 5.28 lb once the food and water are gone.