BY HAL WALTER, PHOTOS BY TIM VAN RIPER
Colorado’s original adventure sport isn’t skiing or snowboarding. It’s actually the obscure and quirky sport of pack-burro racing.
Recently named the state’s official “Summer Heritage Sport” by the Colorado legislature, it certainly deserves the recognition. It has a 64-year history of rough-and-tumble competition and has had myriad write-ups in national newspapers and magazines, as well as coverage by radio and cable television programs. Yet, sadly, pack-burro racing remains relatively unknown.
When I ran in my first pack-burro race in Leadville back in 1980, the whole race was sort of a whimsical notion for me. I had no idea what I was getting myself into — not just for that race, but for my entire lifetime as well.
I finished “Last Ass Over the Pass” in my first attempt, and even after I completed that epic 19-mile run up and down 13,187-foot Mosquito Pass with a donkey, it never occurred to me that I would write a book on the subject, be a central character in a documentary film or be a world champion in the sport six times. Pack-burro racing would also lead me on a path of a rural lifestyle that would prove to be far different than anything I could have ever imagined.
In fact, after that first attempt, I couldn’t imagine I’d ever race again.
But I did race again, and everything in the 33 years since that first race now serves as a testimony to a lifetime of adventure. I’ve now run up and down Mosquito Pass at least 75 times in conditions ranging from thunder blizzards to skin-scorching sunshine.
As I wrote in my book Wild Burro Tales, there’s been something different and yet something the same about each trek. I’ve crossed the finish line with seven different burros, and two of these burros have now crossed into that great pasture in the sky. I’ve finished last. I’ve finished first a few times, too. But over the years the thing that has impressed me most about my trips up and down Mosquito Pass is that they have provided a stunning backdrop for a life filled with wonder, magic, change and challenges. In other words, pack-burro racing has become a metaphor for life itself.
For those who don’t know what pack-burro racing is, it’s part running race, part rodeo and part mountain climb. Humans and burros race as teams over long, high altitude distances usually on rugged mountain courses. For example, Fairplay’s 28.6 mile world championship course boasts more than 3,000 feet of vertical gain and descent; a two-mile long, above-timberline grind across an expanse of tundra known as American Flats; two crossings of icy Mosquito Creek; and a climb up a narrow path through a rock glacier to the summit of Mosquito Pass.
Prizes range from $500 to $1,300 for first place. The winning team is the first burro and racer to cross the finish line as a team. In the case of close finishes, the first burro’s nose to cross the line determines the winner.
There are some other quirky rules. The burro is required to carry a packsaddle weighing 33 pounds and the rig must contain a pick, pan and shovel to commemorate the mining history the sport celebrates. The lead rope may be no longer than 15 feet. Riding is not allowed.
These rules have been in place since the first Rocky Mountain Pack-burro Championship Race in 1949. Legend has it that the sport was originated much earlier by miners racing back to town to file their claims at the courthouse, or it may have started from a bar bet between prospectors. While such yarns provide a nostalgic basis for the sport, the truth is the first documented pack-burro race was the brainstorm of local merchants hoping to attract tourists to Fairplay’s Gold Days celebration. At stake in the first 22.9-mile race, starting at the Lake County Courthouse in Leadville and crossing Mosquito Pass to Fairplay, was $500 cash and a trophy presented by the Rocky Mountain News.
Of the 21 starters, 13 entrants finished. Melville Sutton of Como and his burro Whitey were the first to reach the finish line at the Prunes monument in Fairplay. After topping the Mosquito Pass summit in about two hours, Sutton battled it out with Fairplay’s Ed Knizely and Prunes IV over the final 15 miles for bragging rights as the sport’s first champion.
Thus a new tradition was born. Burros had carried the loads for miners since gold and silver were found in the 1880s. Now, with mining on the wane, the job of keeping this heritage alive was resting firmly on the backs of these sturdy animals.
Since that original race from Leadville to Fairplay in 1949, the sport has evolved to include a triple crown of races each summer in Fairplay, 28.6 miles in distance; Leadville, 19.3 miles; and Buena Vista, about 11 miles. Other shorter races are held in the Colorado towns of Georgetown and Idaho Springs.
With my 32nd consecutive race at Leadville’s Boom Days last summer, I’ve been involved with pack-burro racing for half of the sport’s existence and well more than half of my own. I’ve had the good and unlikely fortune to win a few of these events over the years, including six world championships at Fairplay, four victories at Leadville and a couple of wins at Buena Vista. I say “unlikely” because I don’t consider myself to be any sort of super athlete — as some pack-burro racers are — but have found success through determination, animal know-how and by simply showing up enough times.
Pack-burro racing is actually a Zen sport. It’s difficult to have everything working right for you — where both you and an animal not especially known for its cooperative nature are in tune, physically and mentally. Finding that space in which I am totally in sync with the burro is how I’ve managed to win at this sport.
Back in 2000, I had led the Fairplay World Championship race with my burro Spike for almost the entire distance. In about the last mile, I looked back and could see 11-time winner Tom Sobal running up from behind. He and his burro Bullwinkle quickly caught up and passed us. It was like a bad dream and quite deflating to be dropped so quickly at the end of such a long race. We picked up the pace but they just pulled away, trotted over the last hill and out of sight into town. Still, Spike and I didn’t give up.
There’s an old ghost town at the north end of Fairplay, then a couple blocks of pavement to the finish line. As Spike and I came down the last hill into the ghost town, I saw Tom and his burro weaving back and forth on the pavement. I was surprised because I’d figured they’d already finished and won. Spike picked up the pace and as we neared the finish line, Bullwinkle veered off the street and up onto the boardwalk of the Park Bar. Spike and I coasted right on by for the win.
Pack-burro racing is also a gnarly and somewhat dangerous sport. Consider the animals’ herding instinct as a shotgun or pistol blast sends competitors racing out of town. Out on the course there’s the combination of high-mountain environment, treacherous footing, and unpredictable equines. I’ve seen entrants taken to the hospital after falling, being caught in ropes and dragged, and even kicked.
The natural elements also can get your attention. Once fellow burro racer Curtis Imrie, and I were training above timberline on the Fairplay course. A thunderstorm rolled in over the top of the Mosquito Range, and we crouched on the balls of our feet to watch it pass. A bolt of lightning shot down from the black clouds and, just above the talus slope where the race course winds, the lightning bolt branched into several forks and then illuminated the entire area with a purple glow. We looked at each other in disbelief.
Is it worth the risk? Heck yeah! Two weeks later I caught the figurative lightning in a bottle and won a fifth world championship on this same course.
Even if danger were completely removed, pack-burro racing is a tough sell to most athletes. It’s a demanding sport that almost requires an alternative, rural lifestyle in order to house, transport and train a burro. Plus, these big animals have a way of getting in the way of big egos. Over the years, I’ve seen some fantastic athletes give the sport a try with various results. Some elite runners have quit in fits of frustration. The problem with many super athletes is that they take themselves way too seriously.
I started racing burros when Joe Glavinick, a legend in the sport and nine-time world champion, was heading toward retirement. But I saw enough of his act to know that fun and adventure were the only reasons to be doing this.
During one of my earliest training runs on the Fairplay course, Curtis and I were running down Mosquito Gulch when I heard footsteps and turned around to see Joe and friend Jim Feistner. They had crossed over Mosquito Pass from the Leadville side, passed us quickly and ran on out of sight. A few miles later when we reached the old Veterans of Foreign Wars post, just past South Park City, we saw their burros tied up out front.
It was one of those clear, dry summer days when the high-altitude sun reflects off the snow and talus slopes and parches your body. Curtis and I went inside and found Jim and Joe sitting at a table in the dim light of the bar, cooling down with a couple of beers. It looked pretty good to me, but since we still had to run that last few miles to Fairplay, Curtis and I ordered water, talked to the Leadville pair about the upcoming race and then headed out. We figured they were done.
We weren’t 20 minutes down the road, running the old two-track along the Middle Fork of the South Platte River, headed toward Fairplay, when I heard a burro coming and turned. Joe caught up to us and passed without so much as a word. When we reached Fairplay, his burro was tied up outside the Park Bar. Whenever I think I might be taking pack-burro racing too seriously, I remember how a man more than twice my age fueled by Coors passed me like I was standing still.
For me, pack-burro racing has been the adventure of a lifetime, and that adventure seems to be lasting a lifetime as well. Now that Colorado’s original adventure sport is the official Summer Heritage Sport it’s still all the same to me. The enduring and endearing qualities of the burros, the allure of the backcountry and the competitive nature of both humans and animals continue to inspire me to get my ass up the pass each summer. Hee-haw!
Writer Hal Walter and his wife and son live on a small ranch at nearly 9,000 feet in electric co-op territory in southern Colorado. You can read more of Hal’s adventures at hardscrabbletimes.com.