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Grays and Torreys PeaksSeptember 28, 1998 - from Stevens Gulch - Summer
On the second weekend since relocating to Wyoming from Maryland, I made another day climb, this time of Grays and Torreys Peaks. Dan, my college climbing partner, and I had been to the Stevens Gulch trailhead a decade earlier but the weather did not cooperate on that trip. Now, just over ten years later, I was back to take another shot at this pair of 14'ers connected by a saddle. I parked at the summer trial head and took the well beaten trail up the basin, making good time for a person just ten days removed from the flatlander’s life. I passed the cut off for Kelso Ridge but did not give it a thought, as my climbing experience to date was limited to trail based class 1 and 2 walkups. The Gray’s Peak trail is in fact an old carriage route and outside of some confused braiding on the flank of Grays, climbers are deposited on the summit with the only toll collected being a willingness to keep a steadily pace. A few hours after starting, I was on the top and looking down the connecting ridge to Torreys in the distance. I had come as far as Grays so now it was off to Torreys. I descended the connecting ridge and headed up the trail to the top of Torreys but by this point the altitude factor had really kicked in. The trail is not that steep but I found myself stopping often and the route ahead seemed to become increasingly vertical before my eyes. I knew it was the air, or lack of it, so I kept trudging along . . . one step at a time. I write this narrative as a devotee of the rest step and a great deal more climbing experience, but at the time, I was hurting. Well, I made the top, vowed to get into better shape and was thankful that a climb like this was now in my driving distance "backyard."
A winter's climb of Grays or a spring snow climb of Kelso Ridge . . .
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