Grays and Torreys

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On the early morning of September 16th 2005; My brother Matt, My Cousin Brandon, his roommate Steve and I climbed to the top of Grays Peak which stands at 14,270 ft. tall and Torrey Peak which stands at 14,267 ft. After camping at the base the night before, we began the trek at 3:30 in the morning. Our plan was to be on the summit by sunrise. After hiking by moonlight for 2 1/2 hours we approached the summit to see the full-moon, in all it's orange glowing glory, still hovering in the sky. We then spent the next half hour waiting for the moon to set and the sweet warm sun to rise.

If none of you have ever spent the time between moonset and sunrise at the top of a 14,000 ft. peak I suggest you try it, with lots of warm layers.

This trip was epic. I will never forget the image of the orange full-moon off in the distance as we came up over the summit. On the way down we made some mountain goat friends and manage discourage the 40 some hikers we saw as we were running down the mountain at 9:00 in the morning. Thank you Matt, Brandon and Steve for making it unforgetable.

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Photos

The gang at 14,270 ft.
Front: Brandon,
Back: Steve,
Left: Phil,
Right: Matt

Me and my little friends
If you look closely you can see my two mountain goat friends perched on the snow. This is on the saddle between Grays and Torreys.

Matt and I
Matt and I join together after summiting both peaks. Triumphant!!!

"Bern good Wind Bad"
This is right when we got up to the wind bern on Grays. We were freezing but, look at the moon above Brandon's head!

Torrey's Peak
This is the view of Torrey's Peak from on top of Grays. If you look closely you can see the trail zig-zagging up the face.

Valley back to camp
This is the view of the valley we hiked through, the trees are where we started from.

Comments

[l vocale]

Congratulations
Terrific adventure! Thanks for sharing. The descriptions you gave are very vivid.