From: ajs@hpfcdt.HP.COM (Alan Silverstein)
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 87 19:40:12 MDT
Subject: Trip report: Grays and Torreys Peaks
Newsgroups: hpnc.general

Live from Cupertino by the magic of Internet...

(I'm on a terminal through a dataswitch to a Series 800 rlogin'd to a Series 300 from which I'm vt'd to my home Series 500 system! The S800 is blazingly fast but rlogin is painfully slow.)

Saturday, August 8 -- Grays Peak (14270') and Torreys Peak (14267')

These are a fine pair of relatively easy peaks west of Denver. They are visible from many places, including the Bakerville exit on I70 just before the Eisenhower Tunnel, and the rest stop near Dillon Lake. Gray climbed his own peak about 120 years ago, and thousands of people have followed his steps since then. I first climbed the peaks about nine years ago.

HPite Dave Grindeland, his neighbor Joe Harrington and I left town at the incredibly early time of 0515, packed into my Datsun, which is something of a rattletrap. We turned at Bakerville at 0735 (your time may vary, we made some stops). We found the trailhead at the end of the road a mere 3.5 miles from the highway, 12 minutes later. The road is rough but passable by ordinary cars (but it will turn them into rattletraps, see above).

There were about 50 vehicles parked near the trailhead at 11200'. I bet later in the day it would be hard to park within a quarter mile. What a crowd. We crossed the creek and started up the excellent trail past the closed gate at 0800.

We made good time despite many stops for Dave and Joe to blister their shutter fingers. The trail is broad, easy, and obvious. Not until high on Grays do you find any choices. We cut left up to the main ridge when we got near it at 1027, 13800'. We found a lesser-used trail pretty directly up the ridge to the summit and arrived at 1107. So we climbed 3070' in 3:07.

Clouds blew in continuously from the west just below or above the mountaintops, swirling around the peaks, a winter weather pattern. Cold and windy. Still, we had phenomenally good weather all day, 50% overcast with broken, puffy cumulus, and a cloud deck far below and away on the plains. Fun to watch them blow by.

There were about 30 people on top of Grays, coming and going all the time. I'd forgotten that the summit sports one of the largest rock shelter walls around one of the biggest, flattest circular areas on any Fourteener summit. Lots of room occupied by lots of happy people. The Sawatch Range was pretty much in clouds, but we could make out Longs, Evans and Bierstadt, Pikes, and the Mosquito Range.

After 45 minutes we mosied down the NW ridge to the saddle between Grays and Torreys, then steeply up to the next summit at 1244 (another 560' in 32 minutes). This one was a little smaller and less crowded. The great weather didn't change much, and the day got warmer.

After an hour Dave and Joe returned via the normal route. They encountered some mellow mountain goats back at the saddle. Meanwhile I took off alone ten minutes later, at 1346, down the famous NE ridge of Torreys. I was feeling strong and the ridge looked... well... interesting. It was.

It's really not such a bad route if you have experience on steep, loose terrain. It's a long and complicated mess of jagged, rotten rock. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. First, I was going downhill. Second, there were lots of options at each turn. Third, most of the time I could scramble right along the very summit of the ridge. Fourth, I had it all to myself. And fifth, while I encountered no mountain goats, their summer-shed fur was stuck to the rocks and plants all over the place.

After just an hour and a half, at 1515, I arrived at where the ridge route rejoins the main trail at about 12400'. Ten minutes later the others came along and we returned to the trailhead at 1608. We were all quite ecstatic about the gorgeous day we'd had... We drove home in no rush, arriving at 1925.