Shovels and Pancakes: Gudy Gaskill and the Building of the Colorado Trail

Many Coloradans will mark Earth Day by getting out to enjoy the beautiful, natural places spread far and wide across our state. Some of these outdoor enthusiasts will take advantage of the Colorado Trail, a hiking path that spans 567 miles across Colorado’s central mountains, crossing eight mountain ranges from Denver to Durango. The Trail was constructed almost entirely by volunteer hands between 1974 and 2000. It has had a profound impact on how Coloradans and tourists alike enjoy the outdoors, allowing hikers, mountain bikers, horseback riders, and cross-country skiers increased access to the natural beauty of our mountains. 

One charismatic woman was the Trail's primary driving force, and she saw the project through to completion over a course of twenty-five years. Gudrun “Gudy” Gaskill’s infectious enthusiasm for the outdoors helped in her negotiations with U.S. Forest Service officials and private property owners, and with mobilizing thousands of volunteers each summer. In addition to handling logistics – mapping, fundraising, planning, aka the “office work"– she also helped with the dirty work – digging, setting up camp, and getting up early to keep the trail-building crews motivated and fed.

Gaskill’s strength of character and persistence challenged norms for women of her generation. She also overturned expectations that older adults will slow down as they age. Gaskill’s story is intertwined with the Colorado Trail, and her work was a great gift to the people of Colorado. Her papers were recently donated to the Denver Public Library, and are now open to all researchers.

To Build or Not to Build: Environmental Controversy & The Trail to Nowhere

It’s hard to imagine today, but the idea of the Colorado Trail was met with some controversy when it was first proposed. In the early 1970s, a U.S. Forest Service official called together various environmental organizations to propose building a public recreation trail across Colorado that would be similar in concept to the Appalachian Trail. Gaskill attended the meeting as a representative of the CMC. Not all attendees were as enthusiastic as Gaskill about a trail: some of the organizational representatives present opposed the project due to fears that increased public access would have a negative impact on the wilderness.

As Colorado has grown in population and begun experiencing overuse and abuse of popular hiking destinations, we see the environmental groups’ fears were not entirely unfounded. Building a trail that leads from cities directly into the wilderness gives inexperienced hikers easy access to the backcountry, resulting in a heightened potential for negative ecological impact. 

Proponents of the trail idea, however, argued that increased exposure to Colorado’s mountains would build respect for nature – something that had been lacking in much of the state, where trash and abandoned mine tailings were not an uncommon sight at the time the trail was proposed. The trail proponents argued that increased natural recreation would enhance public support for environmental protections and programs. Gaskill’s son Steven summarized her thinking in a recent KUNC radio story, 

“You know, if you want to save wilderness, No. 1 you have to have people that understand it and have seen it, so they'll fight for it….then she said, 'No. 2, if I build a trail, people will use the trail and that will be a corridor where people will see the wilderness, and the rest of the wilderness will stay wilderness.'”

As an added pro-building argument, proponents knew that a trail could bolster Colorado’s tourism, at a time when the ski industry was still in its early years of development. Another goal that certainly must have been top of mind for Gaskill, were the intangible benefits outdoor recreation provides for the health and psyches of humans.

Despite early debates, in 1974 the pro-Trail camp was successful in forming the Colorado Mountain Trails Foundation, launched with a $50,000 Gates Foundation grant. The organization mistakenly assumed they’d be able to stitch together roads shown on historic maps and complete the trail in time for Colorado’s Centennial celebration in 1976. Gaskill participated in drawing a new detailed route through Forest Service districts, stitching together existing, inactive, and nascent park trails with long neglected mining and logging roads.

The Colorado Mountain Trails Foundation quickly discovered, however, that, after decades of neglect, many of the trails on the map were trails in name only, while in actuality were entirely overgrown or washed out. Another challenge that arose was that the organization’s operational costs soon ate through the bulk of their grant funding. Needless to say, the Trail was not completed in time for the 1976 state centennial, nor for many years to come.

The trail clearing and construction work itself would take nearly two hard-working decades to complete, leading Denver Post critic Ed Quillen in 1984 to dub the project the “Trail to Nowhere”.

Summer after summer, Gaskill recruited new crews, largely by word of mouth, for weeklong projects camping and working in remote wilderness areas. The Colorado Mountain Club and Colorado Trail Foundation usually provided funding for food, and for many years tools were borrowed from various sources, or provided by volunteers themselves. 

For the volunteers, this work was a labor of love. Many crew members built lifelong friendships through these weeklong “vacation” projects, and as is documented in the collection, many continued to correspond with Gaskill for years after their crew experiences. Trail work was hard physical labor, but volunteers managed to enjoy themselves as well. Each crew fostered their own culture, with poems, stories, jokes, on-trail birthday parties, and even a Colorado Trail song being shared over the years.

In her earlier years, Gaskill’s life had challenged traditional gender roles common for her generation, and in her later years she also refused to be limited by stereotypes about age. Gaskill continued participating in winter sporting events into her seventies, placing in the Senior Winter Games and Rocky Mountain Senior Games for sports such as snowshoe, ice skating, and ski slalom. In a 2008 interview recorded by the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame when Gaskill was 80 years old, she proudly stated she had adventure packing down to an art, managing to successfully pack only eighteen pounds for a weeklong hiking trip. That seems like a worthwhile life goal to most backcountry hikers.

On July 14, 2016, Gudrun Gaskill died following a stroke. The legacy she left behind continues to inspire and enrich the lives of Coloradans and tourists, and will for generations to come. As tourism has turned into a multimillion dollar industry, and Colorado’s population has exploded, the Trail remains a peaceful refuge for many. 

Happy Earth Day to those of you out on trail!