A celebration of the outdoors and the nation's 250-year history rolled through the Pikes Peak region on Sept. 10, drawing students and trail volunteers into a journey that spans the width of the country.
The American Discovery Trail runs 6,800 miles from California all the way to Delaware. Its route passes through the Ute Pass area along the U.S. 24 corridor. The relay portion of the event launched July 1 in California and has been moving east through 15 states, with Colorado among them; participants are scheduled to reach Delaware by Thanksgiving Day.
The relay is designed as a cooperative undertaking rather than a competition — people cover assigned segments on foot, by bicycle, on horseback, or by wheelchair, collectively aiming to produce the country's longest relay completed without motorized transport. Three batons, each named for a phrase from the Declaration of Independence — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — are carried along the route, with copies of that founding document sealed inside them. Organizers have framed the batons as a tangible link between communities and the country's founding narrative.
When the relay reached the Ute Pass segment, members of the Friends of Ute Pass Trails took the batons from cyclist Randy Schillinger and covered a four-mile stretch on foot. The batons were also brought to Ute Pass Elementary, where students formed a line and passed them hand to hand through the full school population. Students at the school regularly use nearby trails and take part in trail construction work through outdoor learning initiatives, including the Mountain Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The day carried additional meaning for the Friends of Ute Pass Trails as a tribute to their late founder. Local relay coordinator Rob Schillinger said the group was "honoring Dick Bratton," describing him as the person "responsible for this part of the American Discovery Trail." Bratton, who died in 2021, founded the organization after settling in Green Mountain Falls in the early 1980s following his Air Force retirement; his civil engineering background and family ties to the forestry industry drew him into shaping hiking routes around the community.
When he arrived, many paths in the area were little more than worn-out social routes; he helped conceive and build connections to the town's waterfalls and to South Catamount Reservoir, and Catamount Trail has since become the area's most-traveled route. Over roughly three decades he grew the local trail network to beyond 12 miles, created the Bratton Trails Fund to carry his work forward, and spent 20 years as an American Discovery Trail coordinator, a role central to routing the trail through Ute Pass. Friends President Rocco Blasi said the event united "Dick Bratton's two favorite things — trails and community — and that he would've loved this."
The Friends of Ute Pass Trails carries on Bratton's commitment to maintaining accessible and sustainable trails across the Ute Pass area, alongside ongoing work in trail education and stewardship.
The relay is still working its way east, and whether additional Colorado communities will host baton handoffs before the route crosses into the next state remains to be seen.