Day 6: Grays Peak (14,270) and Torreys Peak (14,267)
Miles hiked: 8.3
It’s really easy to get all the information you need to hike
Colorado’s 54 14ers. (Of course, hiking them is a bit trickier.) There’s a
website, 14ers.com, that was built by a dot.com
millionaire and has turned into the official source for hike descriptions,
pictures, maps, and forums about everything from the most difficult routes, to
parking updates, to the ethics of sharing water on the trail, to organizing
group hikes.
The site breaks down the 14ers into four categories:
Easiest, moderate, more difficult and very difficult. There are 37 peaks in the
first two categories, whose trails are mostly considered Class 1 or 2 hiking,
meaning they have established trails to their peaks.
Grays Peak (14,270) and Torreys Peak (14,267) are in the
easiest category. They also happen to be the closest peaks to Boulder besides
Longs Peak, which is in the More Difficult category (we weren’t tackling
that!).
So I wasn’t too worried about being able to handle an
8.25-mile hike, even though I would be climbing 1,000 feet higher than I’ve
ever been. Eliot had never climbed anything close to a 14er, but he was ready
for the challenge, too.
As it turned out, the scariest moment of the trip came on
the drive to the trailhead. From descriptions and updates on 14ers.com, we knew
there was a 3-mile drive up a pretty rough dirt road to the base of the trail.
Sedans vehicles with low bases were not encouraged to make the drive,
especially considering there was a huge pothole or crevice in the road about
half way up.
From all accounts, though, trucks, SUVs and even Subarus had
been just fine. When we reached the spot, it did look pretty intimidating, but
Eliot accelerated over its right side and steadied the Lexus. We were safe.
Everything from there was a piece of cake.
We knew from reading the website, word of mouth, and
“Halfway to Heaven” that especially on 14ers, it’s not a good idea to be on the
severely exposed peaks in the afternoon. So after waking at 5 to make the
drive, we were on the trail at 7:37 a.m.
Our goal was to be off the second summit and having hiked
4.5 miles by noon.
With the trailhead at about 11,200 feet and the sun just
beginning to warm the trail, it was 43 degrees when we set out. I immediately
put my pants and fleece on. It was just warm enough hiking to stick with the
baseball cap instead of the winter hat, but I kept it in my Camelbak’s outside
pocket.
It was windy, but not too fierce — maybe blowing at 15-20
mph — which made for a pleasant ascent.
From the hike’s outset, the surrounding scenery was
astounding. To our left loomed a long, horizontal red-clay wall of rock that
provided a cool, canyon-like feel as we began to walk on a wide, well-marked
rock path. Just ahead of us to the right rose a triangular, verdant ridge that
we would make sure to include in all our pictures looking down from the
mountains.
By the half-mile mark, as we passed a few slower groups,
Grays and Torreys appeared directly before us in the distance, Gray’s rounded
top to the left, the mile-long saddle dropping 500 feet and then climbing
another 500 to Torreys’ pointy, rocky summit.
Torreys looked much taller even though it’s the shorter
peak. I surmised this was because it was closer. It wasn’t until we reached
Torreys’ summit that we gained a perspective demonstrating Grays’ miniscule
height advantage.
We had read reports of hundreds of people making the hike on
weekends, and I was wondering if we’d be immersed in crowds for the majority of
the hike. Doing it on a Friday, though, definitely made a difference, and while
we were never entirely alone on the trail, we had separation from the other
small groups and dogs making the ascent.
The first couple miles were pretty moderate, as we headed
straight at the saddle between the two peaks. Then we began the true ascent of
Grays, turning to the left and following several long switchbacks slowly up the
mountain.
I made the comment to Eliot that I felt I was getting closer
to Grays’ summit a lot quicker than I had come within Audubon’s the previous
day.
However, we weren’t going to gain the top easily. Every
minute or so, I stopped momentarily to catch my breath. We were getting up
there. The air was getting thinner.
And while the switchbacks were nice in making the slope of
the trail more moderate, they also made it way longer, as we zigzagged our way
up the talus slope.
But then, kind of suddenly, I noticed that only one
switchback above us, a person was sitting next to a sign. And I shouted to
Eliot, “We’re almost there, man!” I don’t like to joke around when it comes to
gaining summits — we really were on the brink of our first 14er.
A minute, and a few deep breaths, later, we were standing on
top of Grays Peak, 14,270 feet, scribbling our names on the official summit
scroll, a notebook of paper tucked into a tube tied to a rock by a cable.
We were on the peak of a Colorado 14er, not to mention the
tallest point on the U.S. portion of the Continental Divide.
Despite the relative ease of the hike, the accomplishment
and the feeling couldn’t be diminished. It was pretty damn cool. It wasn’t too
windy, either, and, amazingly, I hadn’t made a single change to my outfit the
entire hike and felt comfortable.
Perfect day.
Still, we were well aware of how quickly a white, puffy
cloud could turn into a dark, ominous one, so we didn’t linger long. After the
obligatory photo shoot, we scooted down the loose rock saddle with Torreys Peak
on our minds.
The approach up Torreys was completely different from the
trail up Grays. It was direct. It was mostly straight. And it was steep.
We enjoyed the change. While the going was difficult and the
breaths were short, before we could say “No. 2!,” we were standing on top of
our second 14er. It wasn’t yet 11:30.
We rested for over 20 minutes, we took photos, and we
admired the view of the zigzagging trail up Grays and were able to retrace our
route almost all the way to its starting point.
The view to the distance, of course, was as spectacular as
we expected and stretched for hundreds of miles. We could make out Longs Peak
way to the north. Other 14ers in the Front Range, including Mt. Bierstadt and
Mt. Evans, loomed nearby. I wished I had a map, but because of the tremendously
detailed description on 14ers.com and an already dwindling budget, I didn’t
have one for the area.
As noon crept up on us, we knew it was time to descend the
saddle then take a left on a path that connected to the Grays trail well below
its summit. For all we knew, a thunderstorm could be imminent.
Apparently, others hiking the mountain(s) had no idea,
because as we descended, we passed several groups heading in the opposite
direction who probably still had more than an hour of hiking to reach either
summit. We saw people with just T-shirts and short. We saw others in regular
sneakers.
In the right conditions — as was the case on that particular
day — they were fine. But the scene demonstrated to me why, most likely, a lot
of accidents happen among Colorado’s highest peaks. At its easiest, Grays and
Torreys is a hike anyone can do in just about any clothing with minimal
supplies.
At its worst, however, things could be drastically
different. Unfortunately, for many people, this isn’t realized until they’re
caught in the storm.
As for the descent, it was one we simply didn’t want to end.
The sun was shining, the summits were framed perfectly in front of a partly
cloudy sky with small patches of crystal-clear blue peaking through. The trail
was gouged between two of the coolest, most picturesque ridges you’ll ever see.
We stopped at a stream a few hundred yards above the
trailhead and soaked our feet in ice-cold water (our guess: about 50 degrees).
I could only take it for about a minute. Then, finally, we hiked down the final
stretch, completing the hike at 2:17 p.m. — 6 hours and 40 minutes after
beginning it — and hopped in the Lexus for the most difficult part of the trip
Part II.
All in all, it was a memorable day. As I learned, you don’t
need any crazy experiences, any animal sightings, and definitely not any
thunder to make these hikes one of a kind.
Simply hiking a 14er, or two, on a sunny, perfect day is
recipe for pure bliss.
Two down. Only 54 to go!
I’ll be back, Colorado, I’ll be back.
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