Packing up and leaving after a night in the truck bed.
At 5:20am, we started up the the Grays peak trail, a part of the CDT. Grays and Torreys are the only 14ers on the continental divide.
Grays comes into view
Alpenglow on Torreys peak. We are climbing it via the Kelso ridge, which is on the right side of the photo.
Grays and Torreys. Torreys appears bigger, but Grays is actually the taller of the two by a whopping 3 feet
Torreys peak. The prominent finger of snow leading to a point just right of the summit is Dead Dog Couloir, a popular ascent route for the ice axe/crampon types.
Pat, Josh, and Torreys peak
The entire Kelso ridge is visible from this pond.
Pat demonstrates proper ice axe usage (neither Josh nor I brought one, though)
Pat
Pat and Josh get ready to leave the main trail and gain the Kelso Ridge, 6:25am
At 6:55am, we were well on our way up the ridge. This section is as hard as it typically got at any one place.
Look at the center of this photo and see if you can pick out four climbers in Dead Dog Couloir. They look like small dots, and I'm zoomed all the way in.
8:00am, looking back down at what we've climbed so far. We've been at it a little more than an hour.
An easy section near the middle of the Kelso ridge
Pat and Josh
Pat climbs a slab. This was taken more or less at the 14,000 foot mark.
Two climbers finish up the last stretch of Dead Dog Couloir. They said the route was "nice and direct."
Pat
Most guidebooks refer to this section as the most difficult part (but they're just messing with you).
Pat is halfway done. Josh (behind him) is already finished.
Looking back at the knife-edge that finishes the ridge: Straddle it and scoot along with your hands. It's not hard, but it is exposed.
Looking left and down from the knife edge: a drop down Dead Dog Couloir of more than a thousand vertical feet.
Looking ahead from the knife edge: Pat hikes the last hundred yards to the summit.
Looking down and right from the knife edge: another thought-provoking scene.
9:00am, on top of Torreys (14,267ft): Pat, me, and Josh
Looking over at Grays from Torreys. The trail (the zig-zag on the left side) was absolutely clogged with day hikers by this point (most of whom do Grays before Torreys).
Evans, Bierstadt, and the Sawtooth ridge from Torreys peak. We did that hike two weeks ago.
Lunch (at 9 in the morning)
An hour later, we are on Grays and the front end of the hiker horde has made it to Torreys (you can see the crowd on top).
The Kelso ridge, seen from Grays peak
Josh, me, and Pat on Grays at 10:20 (14,270ft)
A skier starts down the snowfield between Grays and Torreys. We decided to glissade down after him rather than hike down the crowded trail. (It took us an hour anyway, but it wasn't as boring)
Glissading down into the bowl between Grays and Torreys. Yes, it is MUCH steeper than it looks from here.
Pat, with trusty ice axe
Josh
Pat changes socks after the glissade
Abandoned mining building at the bottom of the snowfield. Kelso mountain is in the background.
Back at the truck at 1pm (an 8 hour round trip).