Having spent the previous day riding Trail Ridge Road, I couldn’t plan a climb which required a night spent out-of-town. Reviewing the list of peaks close to Denver, I decided to try the “mountaineer’s route” on Torreys: the peak’s north ridge.
The guidebook promised a good “introduction to ridge running on Colorado’s peaks” which involved some bouldering. I suspected that the route might just be a bit risky to solo, and wished Donna could accompany me. But with her broken foot on the mend, I had few options, and decided to chance it. The guidebook had, after all, been... er... somewhat imprecise on other occasions. Maybe the ridge wouldn’t be all that daunting.
I was up and on the road early, and pulled into the trailhead parking area at about 6:15. I had crossed the creek and started the march up the trail by 6:25. As I hiked along, I recalled the assault Donna and I had made on Torreys’ neighbor, Grays Peak, back in 1990. In the darkness, we had missed the correct trail, and had wound up having to bushwhack through the willows. By the time we found the trail, Donna’s legs were badly scratched and my sunglasses had vanished.
I made good time, and was soon at the point where a decision had to be made. The trail wound on, up the basin, but the low point in the Kelso-Torreys ridge beckoned. I studied the ridge, studied it some more, then started off, having decided that failure on the ridge wouldn’t necessarily spell failure on the peak: in the event the ridge turned me back, I would have a pretty decent chance of retreating to the trail, and climbing via the more pedestrian route.
A short hike off the trail brought me to the tiny cabin next to the mine shaft just below the saddle. I took a picture, then climbed onto the ridge, which was still broad and gentle. But somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of the way up the ridge, things became just nasty enough that I deemed continuing the route solo imprudent. As I turned around, ready to descend and go for the summit via the trail, I came face-to-face with a mountain goat.
He was no more than five feet away, on top of the ridge, eyeing
me quizzically. I fumbled for my camera, trying to move quickly, yet not
so quickly as to scare him. Or her. My haste would prove unnecessary, though.
As I snapped away, he ambled along the ridge crest, directly above me, in
all likelihood intentionally posing, hoping to increase his chances of receiving
a handout.
When I had exposed enough film, I wished him good luck, assured him that my trail mix probably wasn’t good for him, and started back down the ridge. He followed me for a while, then appeared to give up on me. I was glad I had tried the ridge, and been rewarded with such an encounter.
I got back on the trail, and continued the march up the basin. It wasn’t long before another mountain goat appeared. As I approached, he got to his feet, walked slowly about the area of the trail, and then seemed disappointed when I made no move to share my edibles.
I would see several more of the goats, both on the ascent and the descent. All were remarkably tame, and most would get their picture taken. I had, after all, climbed thirteen fourteeners without seeing one of the critters.
The trail started to switchback, and I took the first of two branches which left the main trail to contour across Grays’ north face, into the Grays-Torreys saddle. I crossed a small snowfield, then ascended a larger one as I climbed into the saddle. The wind felt to be gusting to thirty or forty miles per hour, so I took a short break in the low, rock windbreak in the saddle before starting off again, heading for Torreys’ summit.
The last few hundred feet were steep, and the trail became confused as scree gave way to talus. Since gaining the saddle, I had been watching two other climbers work their way up the peak; as I dragged myself onto the top, I greeted them, inquiring, “What?! No false summit? I was looking forward to a couple hundred more feet of this!” It was about 10:35.
My companions were relative neophytes at fourteenering. One had two peaks to his credit — Grays and Torreys, both done that morning — and the other had those two peaks, plus Capitol and Longs. (There’s a study in contrasts!) They were pleasant company, the weather was perfect, and the view was incredible. Mounts Evans and Bierstadt, and the Mosquito, Gore and Sawatch ranges all glistened in the morning sunlight. The wind whistled among the rocks as I signed the CMC summit register.
Soon, another young man joined us, then up came a young woman in running garb. She caught her breath, then started down, having shown no interest in signing the summit register. The three of us guzzled water and snacked or smoked, and talked about peaks we had climbed, and peaks we wanted to climb. I took some pictures, but decided against a self-timer self-portrait, what with all the company.
By 11:15, the last of my companions had started down, and I decided to follow suit. I retraced my route into the saddle, across the snowfields and back to the main trail. Below the switchbacks, I heard whooping and hollering from above, and was at first unable to determine the source. Then it became apparent that three climbers who had been on the snowfields only a minute or two before were now crossing the deep snow at the head of the basin, a couple of hundred feet below the snowfields. I had missed their glissade. But I knew where to practice my own technique, next Spring.
At about 1:45, I was recrossing the creek at the trailhead, anxious to remove pack and boots. I had bagged my fourteenth fourteener, but not quite the way I had wanted to. On the other hand, I had been rewarded with several close encounters with the mountain goats, and had taken some impressive photos of them.
