Trip Report
My climbing partner, Sam, and I pulled into Denver International
Airport in mid afternoon. Our goal was to hit the Big REI store
for supplies, then get something to eat and head up to the
trailhead. We really wanted to get to altitude as soon as
possible in order to start acclimatizing as soon as possible.
We followed I-70 west to the Bakersville exit; exit 221. At the
exit, we took a left, and just on the other side of the highway was a
sign pointing straight ahead, which said Grays Trail. I’d been up
this road last year, in August, and remembered it being pretty
rough. But, this year, instead of a Daewoo compact for a rental
car, we rented a Chevy Blazer. This helped a little bit, as we
didn’t bottom out at all. The road to the Grays TH is 3 miles of
very rough dirt road. I think that it has even deteriorated since
last year.
Last year, I drove up in the dark, so I missed the outstanding views of
Torreys and Kelso during the drive up the road. This time we got
to see this. Of course, this got both Sam and I hyped for the
climb tomorrow. Also, during the drive up, we got to see the
damage caused by the avalanche that came off of Kelso last
Winter. It was amazing to see the trees which looked like they
were tossed like toothpicks. The gully that the avalanched
crossed was quite deep also. It is amazing to think that it
filled this gully, and even made it as far as the Grays Trail
road. Wow!
We reached the Steven’s Gulch TH and pitched our little tents, just as
it started to rain. This is the first time that I have gotten
rained on during my 14ers trips to Colorado. I’ve been really
lucky. We got everything ready for tomorrow’s climb and crawled
into our tents around 9:30pm. Needless to say, it rained pretty
much all night, and neither of us slept well.
The alarm went off at 5:45am. We made our oatmeal breakfast,
finished packing for the climb, and headed out around 7am. We
both started out pretty strong. The first 2 miles of the Grays
Trail is pretty basic. Just after the two mile point, Sam and I
started discussing whether he would go with me up the Kelso
Ridge. I almost got him to go, but he decided to go ahead and
follow the Grays Trail. Smartly, I think, as this was his first
14er. So, this is where we went our separate ways. We
agreed to meet at the top of Torreys, then we would go over to Grays
together.
I left the Grays Trail at around 12,300 ft. I started off towards
the Kelso/Torrey saddle. This part is pretty easy, but I didn’t
follow any specific trail. I just worked my way up to the old
mine building. Once I got there I started up the first class
3 scramble. This was very easy, and I felt more like a
2+. After that, it was a class 2 walk for a little while. I
pretty much decided that I was going to try and keep high on the ridge
the whole way. I figured that way, I wouldn’t miss any cool class
3 & 4 stuff. I wasn’t disappointed. Just past the class
2 stuff was a class 3 climb up a steep trough. This was
cool! After that was some nasty scree climbing. This was
very frustrating and fatiguing. That lasted from about 13,100 to
13,500. After that, there was a mix of some class 2, and some
class 3. By this point, I had finally caught up with a group of
20 somethings. They were a pretty cool bunch of kids from Golden,
CO. I caught up to them, just as they were working their way
around the crux class 4 move, a climb up a buttress. This climb
up had several options. The first two from the other group had
made the move pretty easily, and several others from the group went
left to avoid the move. Then, two more from the group were going
up at the same time, and they both got kind of stuck. One was
going up on the left and one on the right. Both moves were
equally difficult. Me, and one of the other guys from the group,
kept telling them to “smear” with their feet, as they weren’t getting
any push from their feet, using them sideways. Eventually, I
decided to go up between them, and show them what I meant. This
was a tough move also; straight up the slab. Someone referred to
me as a spider. <grin> After I made it up, they figured out
what we were talking about, and they made it up pretty easily.
They were very excited that they successfully cleared this. The
next move was the approach to the knife edge, and then the knife edge
itself. This wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. By
then, I had gotten so use to the exposure, that it didn’t really bother
me. We all cleared it pretty easily. After that, it was
just a class 2 climb/scramble to the top!! I made it in just
under 3 hours.
I waited about 20 minutes, then my partner, Sam came up the main
route. There was a solid “high five” to Sam for his first
14er. After another 10 minutes on Torreys, Sam and I headed down
to the saddle, towards Grays. I got started up Grays pretty
solid, and Sam wanted to take a break. He told me to get going,
since he knew that I wanted to get Edwards also. So, I went
without him. I got to the top of Grays in about 35
minutes. I only spent 5 minutes on Grays, then booked towards
Edwards. Initially, I just headed down some of the Grays
switchbacks, until I found myself at an altitude that I could start
working east towards Edwards. The initial walk towards Edwards
from Grays was definitely a pretty easy class 2. This was
partially due to the fact that I was still going downhill. There
are 2 ridge peaks before you reach Edwards. Needless to say, I
knew that, but it still didn’t help me from being deceived by the
“false peaks”. As I got to the first peak and most of the second,
I was still climbing mostly class 2+. I mostly kept to the top of
the ridge for these peaks. Since, the route is pretty vague, I
wasn’t able to follow it much after Grays. So, there were several
times that I got myself into some class 3. A lot of this was
because I was trying to stay on the top of the ridge. As I was
trying to get past the second peak, I made my biggest mistake of the
day. Somehow, I decided that I needed to circumnavigate the peak
by going around the North side. There seemed to be a trail
leading that way even. Well, class 2 talus quickly turned into
class 3, then class 4. The biggest problem was that the rock
wasn’t very stable on this side. At one point, I even grabbed
onto a great hand hold, and the whole rock moved. This was a big
rock too. If it had come loose, it would not have been
good. I eventually worked my way up and out of that
mistake. Then, I made sure to stay to the South of this ridge.
Just after the second peak, I discovered a mountain goat
playground. There must have been 15 goats on the south side of
this peak. I had not seen any goats all day. They must have
been hiding from the crowds. <grin> I continued working my
way towards Edwards. The rest of the way was mostly class
2+. As I walked toward the summit, I encountered some more
friendly goats. This time, it was a family of Mommy, Daddy and
baby. They were between me and the summit, so I just kept walking
towards them. They were more intimidated by me, but one time
Daddy tried to show power by thumping his hoof. But, he didn’t
get nasty, because, after all, I was a chance for some food.
<grin> It took me about 1 hour 15 min to get to Edwards
from Grays, and I spent just 10 min at the summit. I signed the
registry and headed back towards Grays.
As I was working my way back to Grays, I kept looking down the North
slopes of the ridge, thinking, “I could get down that”, but I decided
to do the smart thing and go out by a proven route. I was better
at keeping course on the way back. I stayed to mostly class
2+. The only thing that made it hard was that I was starting to
fatigue. The trip out was pretty uneventful. I made it back
to the Grays switchbacks, and followed the Grays Trail back to the
trailhead. It took me about 2 hours to get back to the
trailhead. Overall, the trip time was about 7 and a half hours.
I loved the Kelso Ridge. This was a GREAT route. The trip
to Edwards was ok, but it was much more challenging than I thought it
would be. Overall elevation gain was 4470 ft. Estimated
distance is 9.5 miles. Overall, this was a great climb!
Oh, what happened to Sam? Well, Sam made Grays (his 2nd 14er),
and made it back to the trailhead in about 6 hours roundtrip.
Unfortunately, I had the car keys, so I left him stranded was about an
hour and a half. <shrug>
|
|
Pictures
Click
on Picture for larger
Picture
|
|
|
