My extraordinary 15 hours with the Barefoot Dutchman

“Maybe I could have another burrito, please?”??

As quickly as the first, Anton Nootenboom polished off the second breakfast burrito I placed on his plate.?? He's hungry, and he should be.

Through a set of strange, random circumstances, the man known as the Barefoot Dutchman was now inexplicably sitting at my kitchen table in a dirty, dark hoodie, torn leggings and as always, bare feet.??

Yesterday the 37 year old from the Netherlands had walked 23 miles from Vail, Colorado to Frisco, Colorado over the 10,600 foot Vail Pass.? In the snow.? On his bare feet.? In fact, Anton had left Santa Monica, CA exactly 100 days prior in his quest to be the first person to walk across America, from Los Angeles to New York City, barefoot.??

To find himself in Vail required walking his first “marathon” of the trip, 26+ miles in one day.? A few weeks earlier, conditions in the Mojave Desert were so inhospitable to barefoot walking that it took him 8 hours to cover just 6 miles of the razor sharp, rocky terrain.? He had walked barefoot through both downtown LA and Las Vegas - which in and of itself seems completely preposterous and unthinkable.

Fit, athletic and trim with long brown hair and beard, Anton spent 10 years in the Dutch Armed Forces, did three tours in Afghanistan, and has been referred to more than once as a real life Forrest Gump - not just for his current endeavor, but for his physical resemblance as well.? But none of this caught my attention when I randomly encountered him at 5:30 PM on a Friday night in a coworking space in Vail, Colorado, where he had been invited in by staff for a warm shower, having been spotted walking barefoot on the trails on the edge of town.??

I didn’t notice that he wasn’t wearing any shoes or socks.

What did catch my attention was the question that I overheard as I was walking out the door for the evening: “It looks like we aren’t allowed to walk through the Eisenhower Tunnel… How long will it take us to walk over the Loveland Pass?”

Wait...what?

The Eisenhower tunnel is on I-70 and crosses the Continental Divide at 11,000 feet. It is 42 miles from Vail. This is not something that one just walks to.? Loveland pass at 12,000 feet is no picnic either and can be dangerous and difficult to traverse even in an automobile.? In fact, in just another 24 hours Loveland pass would be closed to all automobile traffic due to 4 inches of new snow and black ice covered switchbacks.? Loveland pass is just over 45 miles from Vail.? I stopped and turned back to face him.? “What do you mean, walk?”

In 2019, after leaving the Dutch Army, Anton struggled with the psychological challenges of his post military identity, his relationships and finances, and found himself in a dark, unfamiliar, frightening place.? So he went to Nepal, and there he decided to try to push himself to do something that had never been done before - walk to Mt. Everest base camp, barefoot.?

His success unleashed his emotions, opened up his mind to new possibilities, and he founded his new organization “Brave Men Talk” to promote awareness and treatment for Men’s mental health challenges.? Then in 2021 he broke the Guinness world record by walking barefoot 1300 miles across Australia’s East coast.? He was onto something.

Who is this dude, and why was he in a coworking space in Vail on a Friday night???

After chatting with Anton for a few minutes I decided that I liked this guy, which it turns out was a common reaction of virtually everybody I saw him come in contact with - and given that he would, at some point, be walking right by my neighborhood on the way to Loveland Pass (if he even made it that far - which I doubted he would), I gave his support van driver, Chris, my address and phone number and told them to reach out if they needed some local support when they got near the pass.

Up to this point in the journey, Anton had spent most of his “walk” supported by his girlfriend, a camper van, and a single sponsor (a shoe company, ironically) but after a long 3 months she was taking a couple well deserved weeks off.

Chris, it turns out, was driving his own van down the highway in Utah when he saw a slouched, bearded, barefoot man slowly pushing a small cart along the side of the road. Chris pulled over and asked the man if he needed help, shoes, shelter or food.? When the Barefoot Dutchman said “thank you, no” and explained what he was doing and why, Chris was so moved that he decided right then and there to quit his job in cyber security and become the support / advance team for The Dutchman, using his drone to check if trails were passable up ahead and driving his van to leapfrog Anton to find suitable places to rest, eat and sleep.??

At 8 PM on Saturday night, 27 some odd hours after I had first encountered the Barefoot Dutchman, my phone buzzed with a text message: “We are 10 minutes out”.

And thus began my extraordinary 15 hours with the Barefoot Dutchman.

When Anton walked in the front door he was dirty and exhausted, but smiling.? Did I say walked?? The man could barely stand up and moved gingerly with each step, like he was 90 years old.? But his energy, his aura, was powerful.? I had expected him, after the last 2 days of walking over snowy mountain passes and through yesterday’s surprise May snow shower, to at least have on a warm pair of socks or fuzzy slippers… or something.? We offered him some.? Nope.? “I’m all in” Anton explained.? “The next time I put anything on my feet - even a bandaid - will be after I complete this journey in Times Square in October.”??

“Well, how about some soup then?”

For the next three hours, we sat mesmerized as we learned about this man, his mission, his history and his 1000 mile barefoot walk to get to this point, our couch.?

He was engaging, funny, passionate, fully committed to his cause, and I told him directly, “You are clearly crazy - but you’re not insane”, to which he replied with a hearty laugh, a slight head tilt and a Dutch accented “Maybe.”

Walking barefoot across America.? Think about that for a moment.? Truckers drive across the country - and that seems brutal. I know people who have biked across the country. That’s pretty hard core. And I have heard of people who have walked across the country.??

But barefoot??

?It seems outrageous to even just say out loud, let alone seriously consider, let alone actually try to do it.? Who is this guy?

The next morning when Anton woke up, coffee and breakfast burritos were ready to go.? But he didn’t appear to be in a rush to get back on the road, and he thanked us profusely for the warm bed, hot shower and food.? We talked some more about his life, his walk, and his mission,? and then we asked him a question: can we walk with you, barefoot, for a short while, if we are able?

Even in late May at 9,100 feet in Frisco, Colorado, at 9:45 in the morning, it’s cold.? There is visible frost on the ground, and the surrounding peaks are all still fully covered in snow.? And that’s where we were when Anton stepped out of his van with Chris at the wheel, at the exact spot that he had stopped walking the night before.? It was there that I took a deep breath, removed my shoes and my socks and put them in my backpack.? The Barefoot Dutchman started to take tentative steps on the gravel on the side of the road, and I followed.? My feet were already cold, and I was nervous and anxious about the pain that I was certain I would feel with my first barefoot steps.??

It was cold, and it did hurt, but within a few yards we were on the shoulder of the road, where if you were diligent, you could avoid the large “legos” as he referred to them.? But there was no avoiding the endless jarring ocean of pebbles, pieces of asphalt, small slivers of metal and who knows what else gathers on the side of the road after a hundred thousand cars drive by.? I questioned out loud if I would be able to walk like this for more than 15 minutes. He assured me that I could. It was very slow, each step deliberate and intentional.? You needed to look directly down at every foot placement, watching for anything that could potentially cut, poke, split or lodge.? The pavement was cold, and it hurt my feet.? I’d assumed that after 1000 miles Anton’s feet would be well padded, seasoned and his nerve endings blunted by the abuse.? I asked him how long one has to walk barefoot for this nicely paved path not to hurt?? He replied “what do you mean?? This hurts like hell.”? 1000 miles in, and this paved road still hurt him?? And he had thousands of miles to go. This just didn’t compute.

As I got into the 2nd mile walking barefoot, the sheer magnitude of what he had accomplished, and what he was attempting to accomplish began to set in.? We moved at just 2 mph, and these had to be the easiest conditions he would experience.? And he was in pain, as I was.? Barefoot through Las Vegas?? The Mojave Desert? Over the Rockies and hundreds of miles on 1000 degree steaming asphalt through the heart of Kansas in the summer?? What he is doing, and trying to do, is just beyond belief, and my comprehension.

I looked ahead.? I saw mountain peaks 17 miles in the distance and knew that was just the start of the grind up to the pass, which was beyond view.? From there, he was still 3 days walk to Denver where he would be reunited with his Girlfriend.? And much of that walk would be on the tiny shoulder of the superhighway i-70, with memorial day traffic screaming down from the mountains back into Denver.

After 2 miles I couldn’t go on without incurring real damage to my feet, so I stopped, we hugged and I sat down to put my socks and shoes back on.? They felt wonderful, and warm.? And Anton kept walking.

4 hours later I got into my car and drove 15 min up the road to meet he and Chris for a lunch stop.? While waiting for him to come up the path I told the restaurant and retail workers in the shops nearby that we were waiting for the Barefoot Dutchman, and that he was right now walking from LA to New York, barefoot - and would be passing by in a few minutes.? They all rushed outside, and when he approached they asked for pictures and when they heard his mission, they thanked him.? Several men, and women, in that moment, opened up to him about their own struggles with mental health.? This is a pattern that I had seen over the past 15 hours - that anyone who encountered the Dutchman, opened up, shared struggle and vulnerabilities and thanked him for what he was doing.

At 8 pm that night I got a text from Chris.? “We’ve made it to the summit of the pass”.?

It had been blowing snow for the past 2 hours, freezing Anton’s toes.? What took him 8 hours took me 20 minutes in the warmth and safety of my car as I delivered them hot sandwiches.? Anton’s small tent was set up on a narrow ledge, overlooking the jagged peaks of the Rockies on the Continental Divide.? And Anton couldn’t have been happier and said he couldn’t wait to wake up and see the views.? His feet were shredded, but I was the “legend” for taking 20 minutes out of my night to bring him a sandwich.

What I can't get my head wrapped around is how someone can get up every single day, and choose this level of pain.? Pain in every single step - and he's counted over 1 million of them so far.??He accepts the pain, he told me, for everyone else who is also suffering.

The Barefoot Dutchman, going just 2 mph, came into my life and out of my life like a rocket. And he's blasting across the country with 2000 miles to go, through hundreds more small towns and large cities and desolate, grueling stretches of pebble, glass and thorn covered road.? It's beyond insane, it's crazy. I know that I don't have it in me, but I'm not positive the Barefoot Dutchman agrees.

This dude’s going to make it, I just know it.

If you want to follow Anton’s journey you can find him on instagram at @thebarefoot_dutchman. You can also learn more about his foundation, and donate to his walk at www.bravementalk.com. And shout out to the team at Gravity House in Vail for inviting a lone barefoot trail-walker in from the cold.

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