Trail Sisters
Adventure Grant

At 11:50pm on October 6th, 2022 Kyle, José and I left Refugio Cotopaxi to begin our summit attempt at the Cotopaxi Volcano at 19,347 feet. We were among a team of 20 individuals, ten of whom were amputees – including Kyle – who were attempting to summit Cotopaxi that morning.

Kari Hays is a 2022 Trail Sisters and The North Face Adventure Grant recipient.
Three strangers met in-person in early October in southern Oregon.  The reason for coming together was complex, and simple, at the same time. They each sought connection, in a time of continued uncertainty, loss, and mental and physical exhaustion.

My 85-year-old grandmother has dementia. Her oldest memories, however, are crystalline. She returns to these stories so often that our family knows them all by heart. My favorite is her story of the two summers she spent as a teenager working at a resort on an island off the coast of Maine called Isle Au Haut. 

In order for you to understand the importance of this trip for me, I must give you some background information of my desperate need for it. This grant provided by Trail Sisters and The North Face came as a sweet blessing, precisely at the right time. I now have come to realize that the biggest problem I’ve had for many years, is that of balance.

We chose to tackle three sections of the Long Path. The Long Path is a storied 357+ mile hiking trail stretching from the George Washington Bridge in New York City to Altamont near Albany. It runs north into the Palisades along the Hudson River before veering west into Harriman State Park and the Catskills.

I’m floundering in thigh-high snow, the struggle mostly futile, trying to catch up with my field partner. We are high above Yellowstone National Park, following the three-day old GPS points of a wolf wearing a radiocollar used for research, studying its diet and behavior by seeing where it goes and what it leaves behind.

LA Freeway is a route from Longs Peak to the Arapahoes along the Continental Divide. It links the tallest point in Rocky Mountain National Park to the tallest point in the Indian Peaks and tags every peak along the way. Although it’s only 36ish miles long, there is approximately 20,000 feet of elevation gain, tricky navigation, and 5th class scrambling.

I have long thought about training for the Ruby Crest Trail – a point to point 35 mile/9k vert trail that winds its way up and down the Ruby Mountains in eastern Nevada. The Ruby Mountains, aka the Duka-Doya Mountains of the Te-Moak Tribe, are Nevada’s hidden gem. They span rugged peaks, sagebrush meadows, and crystal cool alpine lakes.