Torreys Peak Trip Report
Trail: South Slopes, Class 2, 8 miles, 3040 ft elevation gain
I thought I would share my love of hiking with some of my classmates from the Astrophysics department so I sent a mass email to everyone and waited to see who would respond. I was surprised by the turnout and ended up with four people (Eric, Kevin, Brian, and Joe) coming along. At first we were aiming for a nice class 3 hike up Quandary but like last time I tried Quandary the weather was not agreeable and plans had to be changed. Eric (hopefully a future hiking companion) and I decided that we should try for an easier route and hope the weather would hold out.
Eric and Kevin arrived at my house on the evening of Friday, August 29th, 2003 and after dinner went to bed nice and early. We all awoke at 3:00 in the morning and Brian and Joe arrived to my door at 3:30. We set out for Torreys Peak and ignored the Doppler radar which indicated a rain front from Colorado to Pennsylvania. Now while I love the book by Roach he really should update his dirt road to trailhead conditions. I managed to get my little Escort about one mile up the road before parking and jumping in Eric's four wheel drive. Here is a picture of us at the trailhead around 7:00 in the morning.
We started up for the mountain under very cloudy skies but there was no rain so we figured we would go until the weather became prohibitive (Insert Ominous feeling here). Everyone managed fairly well along the route and an hour or so in we had made decent elevation. It turned out that most of the trail was covered in snow, a little at first and more later on. Kevin, who is from Singapore, where it apparently is usually in the 90's, had never seen snow before.
Kevin got a fair share of snow that day. A mile or so into the hike the entire trail was blanketed in snow.
We headed for the peak and summited around 11:00 to 30 degree temperatures and horrendous wind gusts. We only stayed long enough to snap a few pictures before heading down.
On the way down conditions deteriorated quickly and we ran into some serious problems. Kevin (who is in very good physical condition) was not only a stranger to snow but also to sub 70 degree weather and altitude. He suffered from a pretty serious lactic acid build up that made it almost impossible for him to walk and I was seriously considering carrying him. The wind started to gust at upwards of 50 miles an hour and the until then gentle snow turned into torrential hail. On the walk down we were continuously and painfully hit with hail which reduced visibility to about 10 feet.. The hail was so painful we had to cup our eyes with our hands to avoid blinding. We ran down as quickly as possible but we all had some serious fears of hypothermia.
Fortunately we managed to descend rather quickly and Kevin recovered as soon as we dropped 2000 feet. Once near tree line the hail turned to snow and the wind dropped down considerably. The trail below had some spectacular views.
We safely arrived back at the trailhead around 1:00.
My guess is Eric will continue to hike these as he seems to enjoy them as much as I do but once word of our trip gets around the department I might not be able to recruit many more people.
We headed into Idaho Springs and enjoyed a nice meal of Buffalo burgers and beer. This is my 7th fourteener in about a month and I am heading for Pikes tomorrow :)
REPEATS
Kelso Ridge, Class 3, 7 miles, 3040 ft
August 29th 2004 with Jen and Brian
Dead Dog Colouir, Class 3, 7 miles, 3040 ft
May 30th 2005 with Doug Shepherd