I have done this exact thing in the location circled on the map below. My wife dropped me off at location 1 with just my "get home bag". I egressed to a safe place to (uncomfortably) spend the night, then navigated to the parking area at Rampart Reservoir (location 2) the next day. It sucked. It was cold. It wasn't any fun, but I survived it just fine. Straight line (like I drew below) it was about 9 miles, but I estimate the actual distance traveled to be closer to 10.5 (extra distance was comprised of choosing an easier, or sometimes harder and more concealed path - but most of the time I was just following terrain and elevation to minimize perceived elevation change.) Be forewarned, It gets COLD in those mountains, even in July! I know this is a bit of a drive for you (probably about an hour and a half), but the Pike National Forest is great for this sort of stuff. I would highly recommend waiting until summer when it is really hot to do something like this, unless you really want to test your winter/high plains desert survival skills!



I haven't done anything more than a single night on my own. I went through a survival program with the AF where I was with 2 others for 5 days and no outside contact or help. That was basically a glorified camping trip where I was really hungry the whole time.