After two hours of exhausting work, the rain finally relented and moved off to the east. It is something else to saw wood and go gathering wood and blow on a fire at 11,000’. Everything you do winds you when you aren’t acclimated to the altitude. We were just grateful that the rain had stopped so that we could enjoy our luxury meal. We stuck our steak filets in a grilling basket and laid them next to the hot coals.
We poured ourselves some red wine in our titanium coffee mugs to round out the meal…
Instant garlic mashed potatoes were the side and Marisa found some smooth river rocks to act as plates for our steaks. They turned out perfect and we really enjoyed our meal as the sky grew dimmer in the west. Some threatening clouds rolled around, but the rain held off and eventually the skies cleared and the moon rose.
We heated up some water to take bird baths and get cleaned up, enjoyed some hot cocoa and chocolate, then finally got into our sleeping bags around 11PM. Sleep was fitful and it got surprisingly cold (40s?). For some reason I had expected a bit warmer temperatures since Denver was reporting 98 degrees during the day, but I should have known that those high mountain valleys can cool off significantly faster. I shivered through the night cursing that I hadn’t brought my warmer sleeping bags instead of my summer bag. I was too lazy to get up and put on my thermal underwear, which I *had*thought to bring, instead suffering stupidly through the cold.
Eventually I tossed and turned and at one point I awoke and flipped on my camera to check the time. 5:30 AM! Time to get up, start breakfast and get a move on the trail. It was very cold and very dark and I headed out to my Jet Boil skillet and mixed up pancake batter to make El Grande Pancake. I also heated up some water and we enjoyed a hot cocoa/coffee mix while we ate the pancake. I didn’t have much of an appetite and only ate three spoonfulls of pancake while Marisa wolfed down the rest. As we rummaged around in the dark getting our packs ready for the extremely long and difficult hike ahead I glanced once again at the clock on my video camera. I laughed.
“Tell me what time it is,” I said to Marisa.
She looked at her camera and said “6 AM”. Uh…well, I forgot to do the two hour deduction from east coast time and we had actually gotten up at 3:30AM on mistake after only getting about four hours of sleep. She took it well and I swore that it wasn’t an intentional mistake. This east coast time mistake would later prove to be extremely fortunate and save us a lot of misery.
So a bit after 4AM we started heading up the forest service road until it branched off for Ruby Gulch to the east. It was typically spooky walking with just our headlamps illuminating our view since the moon had already dropped below the western ridge of the valley. In typical Clark Griswold fashion – we found next year’s Christmas tree at around 12,500’…
After a bit over an hour of walking we were above treeline and had come to the abandoned mine near the top of Ruby Gulch. We sat and waited about 15 minutes and took a break while we waited for a little bit of light to start helping us identify the route up the southwest ridge of Grays Peak.
We soon had enough light to start moving and we slowly started working our way up the slope to gain the southwest ridge. The route took us up the ever increasing slope and it is hard to describe how labor intensive it is to move up the slope for flatlanders like us. We took a cue from the high mountain mountaineers and used the “rest step” technique to just slowly and methodically work our way up the slope.
We saw a herd of deer at one point crossing the grassy area just above us on the slope but my pictures were blurry.
Soon we spotted a herd of mountain goats cresting the ridge above us and they slowly worked their way across the steep slope effortlessly while we slogged along below them. They are beautiful animals and they live in an incredibly harsh environment.
For a couple of hours it seemed we continued to plug along to gain the southwest ridge. Eventually the grass/alpine foliage gave way to rocks and a little bit of scree. The footing was pretty good, but the angle of the slope continued to increase.
Every so often I’d look up and hope to see the top of the ridge, but it always seemed the same distance away. It was just a matter of picking small goals and working toward them, then picking new goals.
As the slope increased we headed slightly more toward the west to take some of the slope out of the climb. Our goal was just to reach the crest of the ridge so that we could start working upward along the spine.
Finally we made it off the slope and onto the spine of the southwest ridge proper. This is looking down the spine with Ruby Gulch on the left from where we ascended and Chihuahua Gulch on the right where we had made camp.
Looking further to the northwest we could see our descent route if everything went according to plan. The ridge running from the upper left to the center of the picture is the southwest ridge of Torreys which would lead us to a saddle from where we could descend further. Chihuahua Lake is tucked in to the south slope of Grizzly Peak there.
We worked our way up the southwest ridge of Grays and the rocks finally revealed a bit of a path from prior hikers.
The slow but steady progress took us ever higher. The scale of things out there is so tricky and what looks like a short hike away can be hours and hours. I love how small it makes everything and everyone feel…
We stopped near a bump just prior to the final 400 vertical feet to the summit. We slathered bagels with cream cheese and fueled up for the final push. The slope above would get increasingly steep and there was nothing to do other than step, breathe, step, breathe.
The angle got pretty impressive and Marisa’s fear of heights started to kick in. The final 400’ is pretty ugly medium sized scree that feels unstable underfoot. Once again, you just plug along uphill and finally, miraculously, you finally realize you can go no higher.
I couldn’t believe how well Marisa did. She hung in there and toughed it out and really impressed me with her ability to overcome her fear. The route was beautiful, but not easy for us low-landers. But our reward was a hike where we saw no other hikers until we reached the summit and the knowledge that we took the road less traveled. Marisa on her first 14er summit – Grays Peak.
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