Episode
Trail Stories - Creating the Great Colorado Route
- Podcast
- Hiker Trash Radio
- Published
- May 16, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2218
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
What makes someone freeze their tent to the ground, twice, and come out the other side a triple crowner? For Donovan "Iceman" Rice, the answer starts with a grocery bag full of snow on Mount San Jacinto and ends with 400,000 feet of vertical gain across a route nobody has ever walked. This is the first episode of Trail Stories, and it begins exactly the way every great trail story should: in the dark, in the cold, with a problem to solve. Iceman is a triple crowner — PCT, CDT, and the Eastern Continental Trail — who spent two years designing the Great Colorado Route, a 1,700-mile scramble-heavy loop through the heart of his home state. He's three weeks from starting. In this episode, Doc traces the arc from a chaotic grad school chapter in New York City (gambling addiction, intervention, rehab) to the moment Iceman's father offered him an image that changed everything: an elevator going one direction. Down. The question is what floor you choose to get off on. Trail Stories is a narrative format. Iceman carries the episode in his own voice. Doc's narration connects the moments. The full uncut conversation with Iceman drops Wednesday, May 20.