The PHurrowed Brow

At this point in my life, I may well have all fifty shades of gray sprinked in my beard and hair, but perhaps you mistake the thrust of this post and its title. Both refer to Grays Peak (14,275 ft.), which I have attempted to climb on three occasions. Each visit to the trailhead in Stevens Gulch and each attendant effort to get myself to the summit has represented a step forward in my improvement as a hiker. There are eleven years between the earliest and most recent attempts. While yesterday’s post presented an abstract meditation on accepting failure as an (occasionally) inevitable precursor to success, today’s is something of a case study of taking failure in hiking stride.

I made first attempt to hike to the top of Grays Peak in August, 2012. Just about 3 weeks before that (July 21, 2012), I had been invited by an excellent friend and colleague to join him and his sons for an attempt on another 14er, Quandary Peak (14,272 ft.). Briant had scaled numerous 14ers before, and he was a knowledgeable and patient guide for me as I, terribly unfit, tried to make my first ascent. I only accomplished about 2/3 of the necessary elevation gain before I realized that I could go no further. Briant and and his boys were good sports about turning around, just as they were great company all throughout our time together on that and other hikes. Their kind encouragment and enjoyment of the hike even sans summit were models for me.

Fast forward three weeks to August 8th. I had decided that I wanted to try again to climb a 14er. Colorado has 54 ‘official’ 14ers, with another four points above 14,000 feet in altitude that are otherwise disqualified from the official list. After some research, primarily using the amazingly valuable website 14ers.com (various friends had pointed me towards it; it is now also available as an app), I settled on Grays Peak for my first solo attempt. Why Grays and not one of the 53 others? Its proximity to home, an accessible trailhead, a very well-developed trail with manageable elevation gain and distance, made it (along with Quandary Peak), among the ‘easiest’ 14ers to summit on foot. (One can get to the tops of Pikes Peak and Mt. Blue Sky by vehicle on paved roads, but I do not count my car trips to their tops as summitting.) ‘Easy,’ however, is a relative term: by the well-researched standards of 14ers.com, the standard route from the Stevens Gulch Trailhead to Grays Peak’s summit is 7.5 miles in length roundtrip with a total elevation gain of 3,000 feet. That, for me, is no walk in the park.

Shade #1

On that August morning, I had no confidence that I would reach the top, but I was committed to the attempt. In order to set my own pace and change it when needed, I did not invite hiking companions. I knew that in high summer, there would be plenty of other hikers on the trail to call 911 if I had any mishaps. At home I had left a copy of my route and (my time after which to call the sheriff’s office), took my own copy of the route and map, snacks, etc., and got started on the trail just about an hour after sunrise. A long ridge on the east side of the gulch let me hike in the shade for a time. I made adequate progress, stopping as needed and wondering at the much faster paces maintained by the hikers who passed me. That day I had little choice but to be the tortoise among hares, but I embraced the choice.

Persistence and patience with myself paid off: I made it to the top! My first fourteener summitted! I was absolutely delighted to be on top, but I was also exhausted. I didn’t interact much with the other successful hikers. (Even with the pair of numbnuts who arrived just after me and began hitting golf balls into the wilderness below. Thank goodness others discouraged them from continuing.) Instead I rested, and I took stock of myself, the time, and my remaining water. It would have been easily possible for a fitter, faster hiker to add another summit (of nearby Torreys Peak, 14272 ft.) to this outing. But I had nothing left in my tank, so I didn’t attempt it. It was the wiser choice, as I’m fairly sure that my descent from Grays was longer and more painful than the climb!

Pro tip! You can click on a photo to enlarge it and view it without the obtrusive captions.

I didn’t try to climb any 14ers again until 2014, when a dear friend and I made it to the summit of Mt. Democrat (14, 154 ft.). Jesse and I had a great time until the gathering clouds decided that we had had enough fun. Graupel, rain, and alarming lightning and thunder set in just as we reached the summit and necessitated a fast descent. It was a close call with one of the most dangerous elements of summertime hikes in the high country. I’d read about the importance of responding quickly to signs of an impending storm, but I had never experienced the speed at which clouds reach you when you are trespassing in their domain. Scary moments aside, but with thanks to Jesse’s encouragement and patience, I had made my second successful summit in three attempts.

Shade #2

Within the week of my hike with Jesse, I was ready to try for another summit. This time I persuaded my son to join me for his first attempt to climb a 14er. He was 18 at the time. We had enjoyed other hikes at lower altitudes before, and he was willing to accompany me, even if he was not thrilled with the early wake-up time. (Shades of our crack-of-dawn wake-up time and our long commute together during his high-school years— not acceptable in the height of summer!)

Because I knew the trail and trailhead for Grays Peak (close, familiar, doable!), and because I had a nagging desire to go back and get up nearby Torreys Peak in one fell swoop, we headed there. The day had a promising start. The sun lifted over the ridge and was reflected in the brilliance of the wildflowers and snowfields that spotted the gulch. But before long the monsoonal flow of moist air that had contributed to the close call on Mt. Democrat darkened the skies all around. The menace above meant that safety would only be certain if we turned around. We had reached nearly as high as 13,500 feet when we chose to do so. No summit for us on Grays, no summit on Torreys. Still, there was much beauty to enjoy, and the greatest value in our hike was our time together as son and father. We would share other 14er attempts in subsequent years.

Pro tip! You can click on a photo to enlarge it and view it without the obtrusive captions.

Shade #3

Fast forward eleven years to the summer of 2023. I’ve made 13 distinct attempts to get to the summit of a 14er. I’ve succeeded 8 times. I’ve not yet managed to pull off a combo summit, which is getting to the top of 2 or more peaks on the same hike. But I think that I might be ready: I am quite a bit lighter than I was when I started hiking, and regular training at the gym and on our local trail have me faster and stronger. I am more experienced, have better awareness and tools for preserving my safety, and I have greater appreciation for the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of being on the trail. This is, in a way, sustaining, for I am not so narrowly focused on the “success” of being on the summit. The experiences on the climb have become sustaining, not draining!

With these factors motivating me, I decided that I would try for the Grays-Torrey combo on August 17. Been there, not quite done that. At the risk of being a tease, I’ll limit my discussion of that trip here by saying only that I also decided to make this my first true sunrise summit. That, in other words, I’d set my boots on the trail at 2:00 a.m. Yep, I’d attempt to move from trailhead to summit in total shade! If you want to know how it turns out, you’ll need to delay gratification until my next post.

Sorry to leave you in the dark ’til then!

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