Erin Ton holds 91 FKTs (Fastest Known Times), a feat surpassed by only one other woman. In 2023, she returned to the mountains where she first hiked with her family as a child, and summited 57 of Colorado’s Fourteeners in 14 days, smashing the previous record. She stands out on the trails not only for her speed, but also for her attire, often hiking in high heels!
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Erin Ton holds 91 FKTs (Fastest Known Times), a feat surpassed by only one other woman. In 2023, she returned to the mountains where she first hiked with her family as a child, and summited 57 of Colorado’s Fourteeners in 14 days, smashing the previous record. She stands out on the trails not only for her speed, but also for her attire, often hiking in high heels.
Erin didn’t consider herself athletic when she was younger, but growing up in Colorado, with Boulder’s Flatiron mountains virtually in her backyard, she was always immersed in nature, going on short day hikes with her friends and family. It wasn’t until she went away to college in upstate New York that she started hiking more. “That’s when I started making weekend trips up to the Adirondack mountains or the Catskill mountains and would just sleep in the back of my car. And I loved it more than anything.”
She intended to take a gap year after college and then go to law school, but when she discovered mountain running, law went on the back burner. For now, she wants to see what she’s capable of as an athlete, and her favorite challenges are FKTs.
“What I love about FKTs is they combine the elements of adventure with the competition. So whereas with an organized race, you’re given a designated course and aid stations, FKTs have that component of creativity where you need to go out there and scout the route and really learn a mountain, and even just little shortcuts you can take if it’s an open course record. They’re like a puzzle in a way, which I really enjoy.
“And in addition to that, you really get to immerse yourself in the local communities that you travel to. FKTs have brought me all over the world, from Patagonia right now to the Himalaya and Nepal. You really get to learn what trails and what peaks are important to the locals there, and who the local legends are. I think it’s a very uplifting community.”
Spending time in other communities has changed the way that she looks at life. “I think it’s increased my awareness and my calculus of how I evaluate what’s actually important to me in my life and what’s not. I wouldn’t describe myself as a minimalist or anything, but I don’t like to own any objects that I don’t actually have a utilitarian use for or that add value to my life.
“I think it’s the same with where you invest your time. So investing into people and experiences that are actually going to enrich your life versus I think so many people in the States are just chasing this elusive idea of comfort. And you have to step out of your comfort zone in order to actually feel fulfilled. Otherwise it’s just like this endless hamster wheel.”
Erin’s FKTs span short redline efforts to multi-day events. One that particularly stands out to her is her record-breaking, self-supported 2x rim-to-rim-to-rim crossing of the Grand Canyon. “It’s almost a hundred miles when you do two laps of it, with a lot of climbing. That was the longest run I had done at the time, and it was important to me because it showed me what my potential was in the sport. Prior to then, I think I felt a little bit of the imposter syndrome, not coming from a traditional athletic background. I didn’t run track or cross country in high school or college. And so it showed me what my capabilities were.”
Less than a year later, she embarked on a challenge that held special meaning for her – summiting the Colorado Fourteeners. “That was a super special project for me because the Fourteeners really are what kickstarted my athletic career. Starting out, just hiking them, I’d see these people running up and down them in these funny little vests. And I was like, ‘What are they doing?’ That’s when it kind of clicked, like, you can go so much faster and see so much more of nature if you just run, which was an idea like I didn’t even fathom before that. And so I kind of wanted to commemorate my start with this project.”
There are 58 Fourteeners in Colorado, but she deliberately chose to omit one, for which she initially received some criticism, despite surpassing the record for the number of peaks climbed in 14 days – she summited 57, while the previous record was 55. “I don’t regret choosing to not include this peak, Culebra Peak, in my project. For those who don’t know, a little bit of backstory. It’s a privately owned Fourteener in Colorado, and I never wanted to hike it, more so for ethical reasons. It’s owned by a Texas oil billionaire. They charge you $150 to hike it. They also have a huge trophy hunting operation within the premises of their land, where you can pay thousands and thousands of dollars to kill mountain goats. And just as somebody who respects nature a lot and admires it, that wasn’t something that I wanted to support with my money.
“So I made the decision to omit that one from my record and, later on, after some back and forth negotiation with FKT, they actually created a separate category that includes only Fourteeners that are on public lands, which I think is super exciting. And I really hope more women and people in general pursue that in the future. It omits a few other peaks that are different. They’re technically private, but the landowners still encourage recreation. It’s more from a liability standpoint that they’re private. So I think it opens up the doors for people to go really fast on those peaks.”
Her Fourteeners FKT garnered Erin a lot of attention, but she’s perhaps most widely known for hiking in heels – and sometimes in a cocktail dress, as well. She had joked with friends about hiking in heels, so after she summited all of the Fourteeners the first time, she decided to celebrate by hiking the first one she had climbed, the highest, Mount Elbert, in heels. “I’m a very all-or-nothing person. So it’s like, if I’m going to wear heels, I might as well put the dress on.”
She hiked other Fourteeners in heels, and after a reporter saw her on the trails and wrote a story about her, people took notice. “Most people in person are cheering me on, like that’s badass. But there have been some, men in particular, who’ve been critical online about it and that honestly kind of just lit a fire under me. It’s like, ‘You know what? I’m going to finish them all again, but in high heels.’ And so now I’ve even climbed some of the more technical peaks in Colorado, like Capitol Peak, Long’s Peak, and the Maroon Bells & Pyramid in them. As long as the rock is solid, the toe placement is actually pretty good.
“It started out as more of a joke, but I think over time it has evolved into a project with a larger message about women’s empowerment. I’ve had women reach out to me and say it’s inspired them or made them feel a lot more comfortable if they want to wear makeup on the trail or just embrace their femininity. I think so often women are placed in one box and it’s like, yeah, the majority of time, I’m wearing running clothes and my hair is gross. But I think being outdoorsy and being feminine aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Resources
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