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Climb - Grays Peak & Torreys Peak from the Chihuahua Gulch Trailhead
Distance - 10.4 miles with 4,360 feet of elevation gain
Rating - Type II, Class 2 (route 2.19 in Gerry Roach’s 14ers book)
Time - About 9 hours, including 75 minutes relaxing on the two summits
Backpack - 100oz. water in Camelback, extra bottle of water, corned beef sandwich, 3 granola bars, trail mix, 2 mini-snickers, raincoat, fleece jacket, extra shirt, compass, 2 maps, knife, flashlight, cell phone and trekking poles
I woke up later than I planned and it took me forever to get my stuff together…chalk it up to being a beginner (and being anal about forgetting something!). I got started right at 7AM. It was an absolutely beautiful day.
Even though I got a late start, there was no one else at the trailhead and I ended up seeing nobody on this route until I reached the summit of Grays Peak. The first part of the route is on a four-wheel drive route.
This is one of the many (three or four) times you have to cross the creek; trekking poles came in handy on this hike (more on this later). At this junction, you want to stay to the right and pick up the trail BEFORE you cross the creek. I crossed the creek, went to the right and then ended up crossing the creek back over to the other side again. I then realized that there was an easy trail that I could have picked up without crossing the creek at all. The trail is pretty much directly to the right of where I took this picture from.
This beautiful doe was very playful…she leaped around watching me and didn’t seem like she was scared of me at all.
I really enjoyed this part of the hike…very beautiful and not too much elevation. Grays is off in the distance to the left.
A group of deer off in the distance…I will be heading towards them soon.
This is a picture of an old mine at the end of the trail. It was pretty cool and I spent a little time checking it out.
This shot is from the mine, looking to the Northwest. You can see my deer friends again, watching my every move. I have been spoiled up to this point, with very gradual elevation gain…things get much tougher from here on!
A look back down at the mine. I am about half way up the southwest ridge of Grays here and I am getting a little tired. I took several breaks on my way up.
Finally made it to the top of the ridge…here is a shot of Grays summit, about a mile off to the Northeast.
Standing in about the same spot as the picture above; I have just turned around and took a shot of my view to the Southwest.
Getting closer…still on the ridge approaching the climb to the summit.
The summit climb is about 500 feet up loose scree…very frustrating! At this point, I have a blister on my heal, my legs are cramping and I am making very little progress as it seems like I am sliding down just as much as I am climbing up. This is a look back at the progress I have made so far…
…and a look up at how much is left. This is the one part of the climb where I was truly unhappy and wanting the climb to be over. The last 100 feet seemed to firm up and was much easier to climb; just in time!
I finally reached the summit at 11:30AM. It was kind of funny to not see anybody all day on my route and then see all of these people when I got to the top. You can’t see everybody but I am guessing there was about 75 people on the summit. Most of these people took the well defined North Slopes route, which is more gradual and a little shorter than the route I describe here.
This is a shot from the summit of Grays Peak off to the Northeast. In the large picture you can see the well defined trail (that I mention above) which starts from the parking lot and runs all the way to the top. I rested atop Grays Peak for about 45 minutes; ate some lunch, tried to work my cramps out and patched up my blister.
Time to head over to Torreys Peak. Here is a picture of Torreys from the top of Grays Peak. See the trail (and the people)?
I reached the summit of Torreys Peak at 1PM, taking about 45 minutes to get there from Grays. It was pretty steep but it wasn’t too bad of a climb overall because of the well defined trail. This picture is looking out to the Southeast; you can’t see the peak of Grays but the trails lead to it.
Looking Southwest from Torreys Peak.
That’s me, complete with my “Revenge of the Nerds” tape job on my glasses (they are prescription, so I really needed to wear them…I am blind without glasses!).
Overall, I really liked this hike. It was beautiful and provided the right amount of challenge for my second climb. The summit of Grays was challenging and frustrating but without it I think I might have felt like I didn’t push myself enough.
One more thing I should mention; on my return trip, I slipped off a rock at one of the creek crossings and was soaked up to the knees. My boots and socks were drenched. I still had a couple of miles to go and by the time I got back to my car, my toes (from slipping forward into the front of the boot) were killing me. It made me very thankful that I hadn’t soaked my boots in the morning on my way up…it would have made for a very long day. Next time, I will seriously consider removing my boots before crossing water. My trekking poles (which I wasn’t sure if I needed) also definitely came in handy.
