Every list of trips starts somewhere. Mine starts with the Four Pass Loop, a circuit of about 26 miles through the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness outside Aspen, Colorado, which I backpacked in August 2019.
The route
The loop crosses four passes, every one of them above 12,000 feet: West Maroon, Frigid Air, Trail Rider and Buckskin. Each pass drops into a different drainage and then climbs straight back out of it, so the gain adds up fast. Published figures put it near 7,900 feet of climbing with a high point around 12,500 feet.
What makes it hard
Summer afternoons in the Elk Range bring a real chance of thunderstorms above treeline, and four high passes mean four exposed stretches to time. The rhythm that works is simple: start early, get over a pass before the clouds build, and camp lower in the next valley. The area is also a permit zone, so the planning starts long before the trailhead.
Why it mattered
It was the trip that made me want more. A year later I was on Mount Rainier, and since then I've added the John Muir Trail, the Teton Crest Trail, Glacier National Park and the High Sierra. Distances and conditions for each are in my field notes.