Hike Big

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Trip Report:

I thought I knew what I was getting myself into, but I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. The route and the hike it self are extremely beautiful and to be quite honest a lot of fun. Oh, it’s also painfully over populated by people who have no idea what they are doing.

Before I dive into stories of the fun domestic mountain predators I’ll comment on the trail itself. You start off with a 3 mile 4WD access road to the trail head. If you were not expecting to have to 4-wheel it then you’ll probably get the joy of leaving your car a half mile in and adding two and a half miles to your hike as well as easily another 500 to 800 feet of accent. Thankfully my Honda Element is equipped with 4WD, much to the chagrin of the Land Rover that followed me up. He said I was brave for bringing that up here. I tried to give him a high five and chest pump but he seemed to misinterpret my gesture.

Trailhead just after the bridge.

Once you’ve made it to the parking lot and successfully fended off a barrage of 4WD snobs you should find yourself at the bridge to the trail. In my book, you can never go wrong with a bridge start. The trail leads you up some reasonably steep switch backs before it levels off a bit to take you around Kelso Mountain. Once around the bend you get a clear view of both peaks. Making your way over some rock flat lands you reach what I lovingly refer to as ” . . . and then we went up . . . “.

It’s at this point you really can start to separate who’s done this before, and who thought it might be kinda fun to climb a mountain. There’s no stopping the accent until you summit Grays and while it does get a tad steep it’s consistent and a good climb over all. While I do commend anyone who gets out and does something with their weekend, stepping over soccer moms and dads who “used to be able to do this sort of thing” gets a little tiresome.

And Then There Was Up.

The view from Grays is just beautiful. You get a great view of the valley you just came through as well as the surrounding mountain ranges. Mt. Evans, Bierstadt and the Sawtooth between them are also visible. A fun treat was being able to see the gully Aaron and I went up to summit Evans the week prior.

After you get your snack on and have taken a hefty share of pictures it’s on wards and upwards. Oddly enough Grays is just slightly taller then Torreys but when your up there you would swear Torreys has a solid 300 feet on Grays. Making the decent into the saddle you are met with a lot of rough terrain but nothing out of the ordinary for being up that high. The climb up Torryes is brutal compared to the rest of the hike. It’s a steep climb and is very unforgiving. Thankfully, on either summit, there is very little exposure.

View From Grays Peak

The view from Torreys is equally stunning and you get a good look of the ridge between Torreys and Kelso. It appeared as though there were a couple of different approaches for Torreys and might be worth looking into for next season as a warm up.

While this is the busiest 14er hike in Colorado it is still a lot of fun and well worth the effort. In fact, I would do these guys again just for kicks and practice.

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Stories:

As promised I have a few stories about lovely characters I met along the way. As I said before this is the most well traveled set of 14ers in the state and true to the statement there were a lot of people up there.

My favorite domestic predators was a group I saw in the parking lot. At first glance you would swear they knew what they were doing. They had the right gear, the right attitude and drove up in the right car. They hit the trail before I did but I noticed something fishy as I waited in line for the potty. The two older gentlemen in the group had GPS units. While, this unto itself, is not a surprising thing it just seemed out of place on such a walk-up of a hike. Especially since the preferred method between the two of them for syncing up with the satellites was to hold the GPS unit over your head, and shake it.

I wish that was the end of it, however, while navigating the switchbacks, barely a half mile in, I run into these intrepid explorers yet again. Not being aware of anyone on the trail but themselves and walking two abreast I was forced to reduce myself to their pace as well as listen in on some light hearted trail conversation.

One of the older gentlemen starts off with “Hey, I think it’s about time for a break, I need to take my coat off” The leader of their group (who I suspect is apart of CMC, I think they had a big group out there that day) “A break? We aren’t going to stop until about half way up!” Our good friend found this disturbing “One break?! Just one?! That’s not right, we should have like,” he pauses to consult his inner explorer, “like 5 breaks!”. Personally, I blame an over loaded pack. The mesh webbing on the sides of his tautly stuffed pack had all manner of pre-packaged nuts, trail mixes, small sports drink bottles and granola bars to potentially feed and rehydrate each person on the trial that day. Believe me, his guess-timate of 5 breaks was carefully calculated to the ratio of snacks he intended to consume. I just hope he brought enough for the return trip.

I said it once, but I’ll say it again, I commend anyone who makes an effort to get out and do something, anything at all. I’m sure our weekend warrior will learn his lessons and transform into a mountain jockey in no time. Each trip up we have something new to learn, not only from our own actions, but from the suffering we witness in others. I know I, for one, will always be shaking my GPS from this point forward.

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Trip Report:

What can I say, it was awful.

I wish I had something more then that but I don’t. There were two saving graces to this hike. One, I got to see a Pika for the first time and two, we saw a Mountain Goat.

The hike over all wasn’t actually that bad. We started off from the Guanella Pass trail head and followed the Bierstadt trail until you reach the first big boulder just after the creek crossing. There’s a path that leads you into the willows where you bush whack for quite aways until you reach a gully. Now, from the parking lot you can see the gully and it looks about as do-able as a grizzly den. Once you reach the gully, however, it looks, well, just about the same.

The fun part of the Gully is all the wild life. It’s a haven for Pika and Marmots a like. In fact I have never seen as many Pika and Marmots on any other hike then I’ve seen here and judging from all of the wool I’d imagine the Mountain Goats favor this area as well. If you’ve never heard a Pika taking the gully to Evans is the way to go. You are serenaded by what sounds like squeaky toys the entire way up, literally.

After crawling up scree, boulders and fending off madness the gully widens into a vast open area. To the right is the sawtooth between the two peaks (Bierstadt and Evans), to the left is Mt. Spalding (a piddly 13er) and up the middle is a false summit for Evans. If you’ve ever done Evans you know what I’m talking about because as you approach your hopes get high. You start to think to yourself “oh, I’m almost there” then you are crushed as you find out you’re still faced with a one mile traverse across some of the worst/uneven hiking ever. When you finally near the summit you get to join the rank and file of tourists that took the road to the top.

Yes, you heard right, you can drive to the summit. There’s a parking lot just 50 to 100 feet shy of the top. Sitting there, short of breath, smelling like the goat you passed on the way you wonder, why did I climb Evans again? Oh, that’s right, it was on the list.

Long story short, the view isn’t all that great (if you’ve ever done any other peaks that is) and the top is extremely crowded by tourists in flip-flops and shorts. I know it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey and while these people drove to the top in their cars they missed out on some of the breath taking scenes and sites (Pikas!), but wow what a buzz kill.