Grays Peak
- Compleated: Jan 31, 2007
- 14,270 ft.
It was exciting to hear that Chris Davenport had finished his project; skiing all of the 14ers in under a year. Congratulations Chris! January 31st and we are off to a late start. We arrived at Bakerville at 8:00am and on were on the trail by 8:45am. This time we had someone new come along with us. Alan, who is real handy with the camera, grabbed his gear and took some great shots of Chris and me on the mountain. Chris and I skinned up the trail while Alan wore snow shoes. For those who plan to hike Grays or Torreys Peak, you should plan for a long day because the road to the trailhead is closed during the winter. Unless you have a snowmobile, you will be hiking for a couple of hours to the trail head. The temperature was about 10 degrees, cloudy and there were 15 mph winds. As we got into view of Grays and Torreys Peak, we noticed that the mountains were covered in a haze at about 13,000 ft As we got closer to the base, things seemed to clear up enough to see Grays summit, which was a bummer for Chris because there was not a consistent line to snowboard down. At about 13,500 Chris stayed put and turned his attention on Torreys Peak to study its couloirs and take pictures while Alan and I headed for the summit. About a 100ft from the top, Alan gave me the go ahead to head to the top myself while he rested. Although Alan has been training in the gym and doing cardio, this being his first time on a 14er the altitude had gotten to him. There are lots of ways you can train for a 14er but nothing is better than the real thing, being on the actual mountain. On the top of the summit I spent 15 minutes taking pictures and soaking up the views the summit had to offer and then it was back down the mountain for me. As I made my decent the spin drifts were getting pretty bad, if you weren’t paying attention, it was an unpleasant surprise as it passed. As we descended Grays and rounded the corner of Mt. Kelso, which is a neighboring peak, it was getting dark enough to break out the head lamps. On the way back down the trail there was not a cloud in sight. We stopped a couple of times to view the stars that were overhead. Making it down to the car we arrived at 7:40pm. Quite tired we headed home for some much needed rest. For those who plan to hike Grays or Torreys Peak, you should plan for a long day because the road to the trailhead is closed during the winter. Unless you have a snowmobile, you will be hiking for a couple of hours to the trail head. The temperature was about 10 degrees, cloudy and there were 15 mph winds. As we got into view of Grays and Torreys Peak, we noticed that the mountains were covered in a haze at about 13,000 ft As we got closer to the base, things seemed to clear up enough to see Grays summit, which was a bummer for Chris because there was not a consistent line to snowboard down. At about 13,500 Chris stayed put and turned his attention on Torreys Peak to study its couloirs and take pictures while Alan and I headed for the summit. Chris has already summitted Torys 4 times before. About a 100ft from the top, Alan gave me the go ahead to head to the top myself while he rested. Although Alan has been training in the gym and doing cardio, this being his first time on a 14er the altitude had gotten to him. There are lots of ways you can train for a 14er but nothing is better than the real thing, being on the actual mountain. On the top of the summit I spent 15 minutes taking pictures and soaking up the views the summit had to offer and then it was back down the mountain for me. As I made my decent the spin drifts were getting pretty bad, if you weren’t paying attention, it was an unpleasant surprise as it passed. As we descended Grays and rounded the corner of Mt. Kelso, which is a neighboring peak, it was getting dark enough to break out the head lamps. On the way back down the trail there was not a cloud in sight. We stopped a couple of times to view the stars that were overhead. Making it down to the car we arrived at 7:40pm. Quite tired we headed home for some much needed rest.
