The ridge at mile 85 was steep, technical and unforgiving, and a storm was looming. Kaden Coleman crawled under a tree, seeking refuge from the inevitable. Suddenly, he heard the aggressive roar of a bear. Looking over his shoulder, he found that his ears had betrayed him in the howling wind. The “bear” was a rock fall that had just been triggered above him by the raging storm—the Wyoming Range 100-miler was living up to its gnarly reputation. Moving frantically, he was too consumed to even wonder if this was the end of his Rocky Mountain Slam attempt and pushed forward, simply hoping to make it to his wife who was waiting at the finish line.
The idea for the Rocky Mountain Slam (RMS) was conceived by Phil Lowry, Leland Barker, Roch Horton, Hans-Deiter Weisshaar and others back in the early 2000s. Their goal was to put together a race series promoting the running scene in the Mountain West region of the United States. The series originally consisted of four 100-mile races: Hardrock and Leadville (Colorado), and The Bear and Wasatch (Utah). Due to the increasing difficulty of getting into some of the races, the founders added a number of 100-mile courses that would count towards the RMS, including: Scout Mountain (Idaho), Bighorn (Wyoming), Ouray (Colorado) and Wyoming Range (Wyoming). To complete the RMS, all competitors must run a combination of four of these races in one year: the Bear 100 and three other events of their choosing. Few endeavor to even begin the task. Since 1999, there has been a total of 77 finishers, with an average of three racers completing the series each year.
Besides grit, training, money and patience, the RMS requires intense logistical planning. In Kaden’s case, this meant an elite task force of friends and family. As a firefighter, he also had to be creative with his work schedule. With the ability to trade shifts and, more importantly, work extensive overtime hours, he was able to cover the logistical costs of running four 100s in a year.
Kaden signed up for a series of smaller races throughout his training and prepared for these events to build the base required for the RMS. Starting in January 2024, he ran five races in as many months and between events, he ran hundreds of miles and climbed tens of thousands of feet. After stacking months of steady training, all Kaden could do was hope he’d done enough.
Scout Mountain is held near Pocatello, Idaho, in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest – a 3-hour drive from Kaden’s home in Salt Lake City. The course is dynamic, but one of the faster races of the RMS with over 22,000 feet of elevation gain. Kaden finished the race in a conservative but impressive time of 28:33:10. However, the day after the race he was filled with dread – it had been hard. Feeling a bit broken down, he decided that the RMS could wait and Ouray – the race he was looking forward to the most – would be his last race of the summer.
Kaden spent most of July living out of his truck in southwestern Colorado while training in the San Juan Mountains for Ouray. Various friends came to visit, and during the week of the race he felt everything had come together. Set in the San Juans, this dramatic course has almost 42,000 feet of elevation gain with the low point at 7,600 feet and the high point well above 13,000 feet. Kaden relied on a large crew and finished in a time of 40:19:57. At some point during the event, he felt a spark of courage and decided he needed to give the Wyoming Range 100 a try. What he didn’t know was that Wyoming would be the crux of his summer racing.
Less than three weeks after finishing Ouray, Kaden and his wife, Savannah, were on their way to the Wyoming Range100. This point-to-point course has an average elevation of 8,600 feet above sea level, with a top-out point near 12,000 feet. The course is incredibly remote, located deep in bear country and has 24,000 feet of elevation gain. There are typically around 50 people who start the race each year, and with so few runners, much of the time running tends to be spent alone. This was especially true for Kaden, who had no additional help besides Savannah, and she met him at each aid station that allowed crew access. For Kaden, these stops provided a momentary mental break where he could rest and refocus. The sections of course between each aid station proved to be long, difficult and intense and at mile 85, he found himself face-to-face with a terrifying storm and a long 15 miles to the finish. After sprinting from the path of a rock fall from a ridge above the trail, he knew he’d finish the race and would toe the start of the Bear 100 – allowing himself the perfect position for a RMS finish.
Photo courtesy Kaden Coleman
After so much work over 10 months, The Bear 100 was a celebration. The late September race is a point-to-point course, has 22,000 feet of gain and is surprisingly runnable. Kaden’s only goal was to move steadily through the course and finish the RMS. Everyone who had helped Kaden throughout the summer showed up for his final 100-miler, and on September 28, 2024, he crossed the finish line of the Bear 100. In doing so, Kaden became the youngest finisher ever of the RMS at just 25 years old, completing Scout Mountain, Ouray, Wyoming Range and the Bear. Finishing any of these races is an impressive feat, but completing all four in one summer required additional resources beyond just pure endurance.