PORTLAND, Ore. – Ted Keizer is slight, soft-spoken and bespectacled – nothing you’d expect from a guy known in hiking and running circles by the name Cave Dog.
Keizer, who got his nickname because he once slept in caves to save money, is an ultrarunner, ultrahiker and ultramountaineer. Some call him a speed hiker. Even he finds his sport hard to classify.
“It really is hard to put labels on me, but mountaineer probably is best. Hiking is my passion,” he said.
Basically, Keizer goes on long run-hike climbs through wilderness areas, and up and down mountains, to break speed records. Last summer in New England, he completed the 273-mile Long Trail in four days, 13 hours and 15 minutes.
The time was 2 hours, 3 minutes faster than the mark set by Ed Kostak in 2000 for the nation’s first long-distance hiking trail, which spans Vermont north to south along the Green Mountains.
It wasn’t easy. Keizer collapsed and promptly fell asleep at the finish line.
Keizer, 34, is on a new quest to hike at least 50 kilometers (31 miles) of all 50 states in 100 days in honor of a founder of the Wilderness Society, Bob Marshall, who lived from 1901 to 1939 and was a recreation and lands director for the U.S. Forest Service.
The quest, sponsored by performance apparel maker Duofold, started in Portland and wraps up in New York state at the end of November. It will take Keizer through the streets of San Francisco, to a portion of the old Iditarod Trail in Alaska, the Appalachian Trail and to the Adirondack Mountains.
Keizer first came to Duofold’s attention about a year ago when he was spotted wearing the brand in a magazine article. Later, a proposal was made for a 50-state hike to celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary.
“We thought, ‘Hey, what about that Cave Dog dude?” said Jeanne Wilkinson, Duofold’s director of marketing.
Keizer was raised in Coos Bay, Ore., a town best known as the birthplace of the late runner Steve Prefontaine. He went to Brown University, were he was student body president, and appeared on track for a political career in Washington, D.C.
“I had some friends who sat me down and said, ‘You’re going off to D.C. and you’re going to be influencing laws that tell other people how to live their life, and you haven’t lived your own,’” he said.
So Keizer took off, living in and out of his car for 10 years. At one point in his post-Brown ramblings, Keizer was a ski bum in Crested Butte, Colo., and cut corners by sleeping in a rock cave in the mountains for two months. Eventually, he learned to make snow caves for a night’s rest.
“It caused a bit of a sensation in this little town,” he said.
Keizer was pals with a local cook nicknamed Scurv E. Dog, so people started calling him Cave Dog, and the name stuck.
It was about that time that Keizer discovered the Colorado 14ers, the state’s 55 peaks that are more than 14,000 feet.
“So I thought, well, maybe one day I’ll go out and find somebody to drive me around and I’ll run up and down them,” he said. “I just had no idea how incredibly involved it was. It was 41/2 years between that moment and when I felt I was ready to challenge the record.”
Cave Dog studied endurance, nutrition, mountaineering, hiking, running, and just about anything else he thought would help him. He trained continually.
Dubbed the Mighty Mountain Megamarathon, Keizer completed the task in 10 days, 20 hours and 26 minutes, breaking the record by 43 hours. That was five years ago.
“I thought, well, if I don’t break the record and I don’t have a good time, I’ll move on to something else,” he said. “I had no idea how incredibly fantastic it was going to be. It was amazing, it was the highlight of my life.”
Since then, Keizer has tackled, and conquered many of mountaineering’s speed records.
He took on the Adirondack’s 46 high peaks in New York in three days, 18 hours and 14 minutes, a record. In the Catskills, he holds the record in the Crazed Catskills Ultramarathon, which involves 35 peaks in the range.
In 2003, he set the course record for the Barkley Mountains 100-mile footrace in Tennessee, which only three other people have completed. Then he took on the South Beyond Insanity Ultramarathon, climbing all 40 peaks on the North Carolina-Tennessee border over 6,000 feet.
Old pal Scurve E. Dog is part of Keizer’s Dog Team, a kind of extended support system and fan club. Keizer said there are 65 Dogs all across the country, including his girlfriend, “Sugar Dog,” and brother, a radiologist nicknamed “Rad Dog.”
Keizer jokes that he takes “dog naps” rather than catnaps on his hikes. His motor home is The Kennel.
“It’s kind of become a thing,” he said.
Michael Benge, editor of Trail Runner magazine, said Keizer is well known, but his accomplishments are difficult to quantify because he operates independently.
“There’s the classic 100-milers or 50-milers, where there is organized competition and it’s easier to classify,” Benge said. “He’s interesting. He’s certainly motivated. “
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
