Two Roaring Fork Valley women break new ground on Elks Traverse this month

Editor’s note: The Aspen Times originally published this article reporting Carly Valerious had been the first recorded woman to complete the Elk’s Traverse. The article has been updated to reflect the accomplishments of the two other women who completed the traverse in the days before Valerious, but had not yet submitted their attempts to fastestknowntime.com

Three women completed the Elks Traverse in August 2025, the first time it had been completed by a woman since its inception in 1996. 

Fruita’s Melissa Kelley completed a supported run of the 53-mile long traverse first on Aug. 13 with a time of 48 hours and 26 minutes. She was followed by Aspen’s Marian Krogh who completed the traverse without support in 30 hours and 40 minutes on Aug. 17, before  Carbondale’s Carly Valerious completed the traverse with support on Aug. 20 with a time of 36 hours and 56 minutes.

Linking all seven 14ers in the Elks Mountains, the traverse has been attempted a handful of times, according to a writeup on fastestknowntime.com, but until recently, did not have a single logged time from a woman. 

“After I did it, I was really hoping that this could have a banister effect, and next year a whole bunch of strong women go out and try it,” Krogh said. “People have said for so long that a woman has never done it, and now it’s really clear that women can do it. That would be the best thing to see.” 

Valerious had been inspired to attempt the traverse after joining a crew supporting a local endurance athlete in his attempt to break the “fastest known time” on the traverse. 

The experience of supporting the attempt piqued Varlerious’ interest in doing the traverse herself and she began scouting, planning, and training for her own attempt. 

“We live in the ultimate ridge-link-up area,” Valerious said. “And it has just been a big inspiration for a while. In the summer of 2022, it was cool to see the ins and outs of the traverse when I went and ran in a drop bag and posted up in the (Maroon) Bells parking lot. It was inspirational.”

Her plan was to make her own attempt in the summer of 2024. However, within the two-day window she established in August of that year, the Roaring Fork Valley experienced heavy, continuous rain. 

“That window that I took off had a torrential downpour for two straight days,” Valerious said. “So it just didn’t happen last season, you can’t predict the weather in the mountains. I just had to let it go, because I didn’t really have any more time in my schedule.”

This summer, though, the rain didn’t come for her planned window in August. 

“It was actually two of the hottest days of the whole summer,” Valerious said. 

Despite the heat, Valerious set off. Her plan was to meet up with family and friends at spots along the trail to be resupplied with food and water when needed to fuel the long journey, which is what puts her run into the “supported” category, along with Kelley’s record-breaking route completion. According to fastestknowntime.com, a supported trip can have external support as long as the attempt is ‘self-powered.’ 

Some of Valerious’ friends joined her for portions of the run to provide encouragement and fuel. Another Roaring Fork local, Mathias Gruber, was with Valerious for the full traverse.

“My dad and Mitch came and met me at the Maroon Bells parking lot,” she said. “They set up an ‘aid station’ of sorts where we just sat down, changed our socks, and drank some broth before continuing to run.”

The traverse ends in Ashcroft at the Castle Creek trailhead and passes through several prominent backcountry zones on the way.

“I was hoping to be done early on Wednesday morning, but ended up finishing around 3 p.m.,” she said. “We did Pyramid in the dark. The rest of the night we were just running on the East Maroon Portal trail all the way to the back side of Conundrum as the sun rose. It was really ideal.”

While the scale of this run was new to Valerious, she plans to continue pursuing similar endurance challenges. 

“When I moved to the Roaring Fork Valley, I learned about the Elks, and I’m still learning about the Elks, but was super inspired by those mountains,” she said. “Before I had linked ridges and peaks, but not like this long or deep in the backcountry. I definitely plan to do more like this, hopefully lots more.” 

Kelley could not be reached for comment about her traverse but wrote a blog post outlining her experience, ‘Mel’s Musings’: https://melissakelley.blogspot.com/.