Peaks: Grays and Torreys
Date: September 12th
Route: Standard from Stevens Gulch Trailhead
Partners: Annah and friends

With the last couple years of climbing that I’ve been blessed with; I find it hard to drag myself back to some of the easier 14ers here in Colorado. Some of my friends make fun of me for needing an adrenaline rush for it to truly excite me, but sometimes the weather can do it too!

Annah flew into DIA at 11:31 PM on Thursday night and I was there to meet her at the gate. Annah is one of my best friends in the world, and when she moved to California a couple years ago I lost one of my main climbing partners. When she called and told me she was coming in for the weekend AND that she wanted to climb a mountain while she was here, I was in! In order to accommodate other plans around Denver for the weekend we chose Grays and Torreys for their proximity to the front range.

The forecast did not look favorable calling for rain and snow before noon turning to rain after noon. The forecast called for around an inch of snow accumulating at 13,000 feet…is the weather man ever right? As we pulled into the parking lot there was already an inch of snow below treeline.

After waiting for everyone to show up we headed up the trail.  This is probably one of the most familiar trailheads to me.  This would be my 9th time up grays and my 10th time up Torreys.  I remember climbing them after work on clear summer days; summiting at sunset and returning late at night.  It was snowing lightly as we headed up through the 3 inches of fresh snow that had fallen in the last few hours.

The route up Grays is somewhat of an uneventful climb in the summer, but to be honest, enough snow had fallen to make it interesting.  The snow got deeper as the day went on and as we climbed higher.  Around 12,500 there was actually enough snow to make it hard to find the highway that is the Grays Peak Trail.  Around 13,000 feet we were encountering in excess of a foot of snow! (Remember the forcast was for an inch)  Not everyone in our crew had come prepared for this kind of snow.  A couple members headed down around 13,500 with cold feet five of us continued the last few hundered feet to the top.  I feel like my size 14 feet were given the task of breaking trail most of the way up; people seemed to like the trench I left behind me.

At any rate we made it to the top in some of the most brutal weather I’ve ever exerienced in a Colorado September.  The visibility was nil for the most part and we huddled together for a quick summit photo

At this point Annah and I were the only ones particularly set on heading over to Torreys and we certainly wouldn’t regret it.  We said our good-byes and set off towards the saddle as everyone else headed down the Grays peak trail.

The visibility was still next to nothing as we descended towards the saddle.  Even without being able to see the cairns the size of cars, or the trail; it felt pretty natural as to which way to go.

Right about the time we reached the low point between the peaks we looked to our left and got our best view so far, the clouds had temporarily lifted, the sun had come out and we were greeted with an expanse of snowcovered peaks as far as the clouds allowed us to see.

With another bout of terrible weather approaching we high-tailed it on up to the top of Torreys and managed to make it while the sun was still out, at least for a bit.

On our way down to the saddle the weather came back in worse than it had all day, the wind picked up to an almost unbearable level as it ice blasted the right side of our faces for the last hundred yards before dropping off the ridge to return to the main trail.  I suppose I forgot to mention that my pooch Hudson was along for the trip, he didn’t seem to enjoy the ice either.

It was somewhat hard to find what is usually a highway down to the Grays Trail, but after stumbling around a bit on the rocks and snow we found ourselves back on the Grays trail and headed back down.  There was nearly no sign of our tracks from earlier, nor from our friends a short time before.  But remembering the general route we found the trail down and as we came into the flatter part of the valley the sun showed itself again.  And so did Torreys!!

The sun stayed out the rest of the way down and it actually got warm again, we strolled down the trail throwing snowballs for Hudson to chase, enjoying the amazing change in weather that comes with such a great state.

We strolled up to the trailhead where every one was waiting for us to arrive.  Annah was extremely happy to be back in the mountains of Colorado after living on the beach in CA for the last couple years.  All of us hungry it was off to BeauJo’s Pizza in Idaho Springs for some great pizza and conversation.  It was fun to return to somewhere I had been so many times with a friend I don’t get to see nearly often enough.

Thanks for reading

JW