By Francesca Governali
Brian ‘Tartan’ Watt likes to tell people, “You either complete one long trail or three, never just two.” After accomplishing his post-retirement goal of thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014 at age 65, and then surprising his family by thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2019 (turning 70 somewhere in Virginia), the Triple Crown of hiking became his goal. “I got fixated on the PCT, then the AT and CDT, and thought ‘Well I can still walk,’ so decided it was something I should try and the journey grew from there,” Brian explains.
Brian had covered about 600 miles of the Continental Divide Trail in 2016 before a respiratory ailment knocked him out. His eldest son, Justin, wondered if having a hiking partner might help his dad chip away at the miles of the CDT that remained. Of course it would, but given Brian’s health and age, the risk of contracting the coronavirus or carrying it into a small town during the summer of 2020 seemed too great (particularly while getting to and from the trail). So they came up with an alternative. Rather than hiking together, Justin would drive his dad to the trail and then meet up with him every few days to resupply his food and gear, keeping him insulated from the virus. Brian decided that he’d attempt a thousand-mile section starting in South Pass, Wyoming, and ending just south of Cuba, New Mexico (where he stopped in 2016).
One might suspect that hiking had been a longtime Watt family tradition, but Brian and Justin got into it independently — for Justin it was something he discovered after college and for Brian it started as a retirement project. Brian’s commitment and flexibility in retirement has allowed him to dive into thru-hiking and take the necessary time to plan for and complete each hike. As Justin describes it, his dad approaches hiking similar to how he approached his career: “Dad is very professional about it. He hikes and plans for his hikes like an engineer.”
While his detail-oriented planning skills and training hikes with a fully loaded backpack around Austin, Texas, prepared him for a good deal of what was to come, the support of the whole family — his wife and three kids — allowed this hike to happen despite the pandemic. With Justin providing on-the-ground support (drawn from his experience thru-hiking the Arizona Trail in 2019), the rest of the family aided in hike preparation and tracked Brian as he shared his location with an inReach satellite communication device.
After driving from Texas to Wyoming, Brian and Justin were eager to start the adventure, each looking forward to something new. For Brian it would be an entirely different hiking experience, getting a resupply every couple of days and seeing a familiar face to provide companionship and emotional support. This experience on the CDT was different from his hikes on other trails because “hiking became much more social” seeing Justin so often. In Justin’s case, he would be getting to know a much broader CDT corridor as he navigated to all of the access points by car and honed his approach to supporting a hiker. But despite the careful planning and anticipation, on day one of the trip, Brian’s first steps on the CDT this summer were in the wrong direction.
Waking up after Brian had departed, Justin recalls that,
“around 9am I heard footsteps coming from the north, and started to get out of the tent to say ‘hi’ when I heard Dad call out my name. He had accidentally hiked northbound for 5 miles before realizing he was going the wrong direction. Which meant he’d already hiked a staggering 10 miles over 4 hours that morning, without making any forward progress on the day’s 15-mile goal. The night before, exhausted by the drive and our various chores, neither of us had confirmed which way he was supposed to head out in the morning. He was kicking himself, but at the same time, was relieved that I was still there, so he could gulp down two cold sodas. Then I accompanied him for a few hundred feet, southbound, and he was off.”
From that point on, Brian kept hiking in the correct direction and the pair settled into a rhythm of meet-ups every two to three days. Justin started to realize he didn’t have as much free time as expected because of the long driving distances between meet-up points. A typical day for him included a variety of chores from buying food, to refilling the solar shower affixed to the Jeep, to making sure the Jeep could make it up the (often treacherous) roads where they planned to meet. Justin recalls listening to lots of audio books and hiking northbound every couple of meet-ups to join Brian part way and hike back to the Jeep with him.
Justin’s support not only benefited Brian — once the pair made it to Colorado, many Colorado Trail hikers got used to seeing the Jeep along the trail. The pop-up tent secured on top of the Jeep was visible from over a mile away, so it became a beacon on the trail, advertising ice-cold sodas and friendly conversation while Justin waited for Brian. On busy days, Justin gave out more than 20 sodas. “I was supporting a small community of hikers with liquid calories,” he reported, laughing.
People were often delighted to learn about the unique approach Brian and Justin took to the CDT — a son supporting his father on a section hike. Their relationship grew and adjusted to the role reversal with Justin doing much of the planning and keeping them on track and Brian depending on his son as the leader, turning over responsibilities that he would have been on top of in the past.
Despite the precautions necessary for hiking during a pandemic, Brian and Justin are thrilled with the success of their adventure. Justin expressed how fantastic the experience was as a fulltime “Trail Angel” for his dad, explaining, “I loved it so much that I’d like to do something like this going forward.” Of course, he knows he’ll have to return to his day job, but loved the experience of being the “pit crew” to someone with such a singular focus while also getting to support others along the trail. He hopes he’ll be able to support his dad when he decides to complete the rest of the CDT.
The trip that they planned in just three weeks “truly turned out to be a crazy adventure.” From getting caught in a snowstorm in New Mexico to becoming a well-oiled hiker and support team, Brian and Justin both look back on their three months on the trail fondly. With all the preparation and coordination of technology, maps, and people, Brian had a successful hike. Never once, in all of their 36 meet-ups over 69 days and 1,060 trail miles, did they fail to reach one another. Brian believes the CDT has been the most challenging of his long hikes, but has plans to complete the whole trail — “I’m glad I got the section done, but gosh darnit, I still have 1200 miles to go.”
Adapted from interviews with Justin and Brian Watt and Justin’s blog post, How to Coordinate a Supported Thru-Hike.
Brian Watt lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Kathy. Before retirement he was a software engineer at IBM. Always a late bloomer he ran 10 marathons in his fifties including the Boston Marathon. In retirement he is an avid long distance national trails hiker and works part-time on websites for the University of Texas at Austin. Read more about his CDT hike on his blog.
Justin Watt is currently on a pandemic-extended sabbatical in Fresno, California while his wife Stephanie pursues a Doctorate of Physical Therapy. He’s looking forward to supporting his dad on the CDT in 2021.
Francesca Governali is CDTC’s Community Engagement Coordinator. In her free time she has been improving her altitude baking skills, tackling her next big knitting project, and continues to enjoy getting to know Colorado’s public lands.
