Hike: Fourteenth Fourteener
Saturday I hiked the Grays Peak and Torreys Peak combination for my 13th and 14th fourteeners. Gotta love the twofers. Now only 41 more to go!
I left home at 4 AM and arrived at the trailhead about 6. The road to the trailhead was impassable to passenger cars, so I ended up picking up three other hikers and taking them to the trailhead with me. It was a rough road. It's a good thing I got there when I did though, as there were a lot of hikers and minimal parking space. That's always the problem with peaks that are close to Denver.
Anyway, it turned out to be a beautiful day and a great hike. I always forget how cold it is up there that early in the morning! Grays is a nice Class 1 hike and the saddle to Torreys is Class 2. I think they are both Grade II, so not a piece of a cake, but definitely one of the easiest I've done. Torreys is the more aesthetically pleasing peak, so most of my snapshots are of that one. I just took my little Nikon Coolpix along.
Beautifully crisp morning and sunrise over Grays and Torreys near the beginning of the trail. Grays is on the left and Torreys on the right. If you look closely, you can see the trail winding up Grays.
Torreys straight ahead. A couple hikers in the foreground give perspective.
A panorama of the Torreys massif as I was climbing Grays.
The saddle between Grays and Torreys; Torreys Peak on the right. I'm about 40 minutes from the summit of Grays.
Getting closer to the summit of Grays, Torreys and its saddle on my right.
After summitting Grays, I had to descend to the saddle and ascend Torreys. This is the view of Mt. Kelso to the right of Torreys.
