At 5 A.M. on July 10, 2016, Wookie Kim left his car in the parking lot of the Four Pass Loop, a rugged 27-mile route through Colorado’s Elk Mountains, with several passes around 12,000 feet. The run was on Kim’s bucket list, and he was eager to tick it off.
At the time, he was working in a high-pressure D.C. law firm, working grueling hours with minimal access to the trails he loved, so he was excited to spend a long day adventuring with friends in the Rocky Mountains. A nagging headache bothered Kim slightly, but he assumed it was dehydration, so he kept hydrating, just to make sure. He’d been at altitude for a few days, and he wasn’t worried. It’s probably nothing, he assured himself.
Normally a fit athlete used to tackling sub-three-hour marathons, he was annoyed when he wasn’t able to keep pace with his running partner, Will Dorsey Eden, also from D.C. He was more annoyed than afraid when his feet began to stumble on West Maroon Pass’s technical terrain, since it was well within his pay grade as an experienced ultrarunner. Maybe it was just an off day? Kim shook it off and kept moving.
Halfway…
