Grays and Torreys With Homie – photos – Winter Training for Grand Traverse Ski Race

Saturday, January 31^st, 2009

Homie has been taken with a new challenge: The Grid. The Grid is a matrix with months on one dimension and Colorado 14ers on the other dimension. The idea is to climb all Colorado 14ers in every month of the year. That makes my 2008 project look like the minor leagues. Homie’s already done 40+ of Colorado’s 55 14ers in winter so I expect him to eventually finish it, though it should take a decade or two to finish. I joined him to fill in two squares in the grid: Grays-January and Torreys-January.

Homie picked me up a little past 5 a.m. and, after getting stopped for a rescue of a lost hunter, we met Eric Coppock at Bakerville, just off I-70. In the summer you can drive three more miles up the road to the trailhead, but we’d skied up the road today. Homie and I are entered in the Grand Traverse ski race, a 40-mile backcountry race from Crested Butte to Aspen, Colorado, so we wanted to get some time on the skis, but not miss out on climbing mountains.

It took us about an hour to skin up the road to the trailhead, where Eric and I stopped to use the privy. Homie continued on up the trail, but at a relaxed pace and I was able to catch up to him. We stopped at 12,250 feet after 4.5 miles and ditched the skis. From here on up the terrain is too steep and too rocky. Above here we hiked our own pace, though separated by only a few minutes. Homie and I both had Kahtoola Microspikes on our feet and I had an i360 iPod headband cranking tunes directly into my ears. The Microspikes were nearly required gear for making the summit and Eric didn’t have them. He was slipping badly in his tele-boots while Homie and I were strolling up the easy grade with perfect grip. I’ve never felt so strong and moved so fast over 14,000 feet and it wasn’t because of my fitness. It was because the grade of the trail was so gentle and my traction so perfect.

I used another trick here that I’m quite excited about. I learned this from Stefan when we did Longs last April. Once we ditched the skis, I didn’t have anything left in my back besides a water bladder, down jacket, extra food, and a water bottle. I was saving the remaining water in the bottle for when I got back to the skis. I didn’t need the down jacket as long as I kept moving. I didn’t need the extra food at all (not much anyway). The only thing I needed was the bladder and the tube had frozen up on me almost immediately since I forgot to clear it of water for the first hour. The trick I used was to hook the lip of the bladder over the top of my bibs and put the bladder inside my bibs. This kept the bladder and tube warm and I didn’t need to carry my pack above the ski-drop-off point. For maybe the first time ever in winter, I was able to continuously drink clear up to 14,000 feet. If you never had trouble with your bladder tube freezing then this isn’t news, but for me it was an epiphany. I normally eat and drink very little on a winter ascent because I get cold easily and can’t afford to stop for very long, even a minute. Hence I frequently get dehydrated and am bonking by the time I summit. Today I felt strong the entire time. Lots contributed to that feeling, including the gentle angle of ascent, great traction, and good weather, but I believe the hydration and lack of weight on my back (no pack) were the key factors.

Homie and I were on the summit of Grays for ten minutes before we started down the ridge toward Torreys. A few minutes down from the top we found Eric, clad now in a black down jacket and looking pretty haggard, probably from the freezing wind and the fatigue of slipping so often. He said to me, “I don’t need to make the top. I need to get back home.” Eric had previously told us that he had to be home early that afternoon, but he was now five minutes from the summit. But Eric wasn’t out to climb mountains; he was out to train for an upcoming winter Xterra. So he kept that in mind and also his promise to his wife to return as close to noon as possible, and he turned around.

Homie and I were on top of Torreys about 30 minutes after leaving Grays and it was only 3h49m into our adventure. Previously I had said we could do both in six hours if conditions were good and today we had perfect snow conditions and nearly perfect weather. It was one of the most pleasant days I’ve had on a 14ers in winter. I knew we’d break six hours now.

We zipped down to the saddle an then up Grays just enough to make the traverse back over to the trail. Here we met Jeff Valliere and his group. They had arrived at the trailhead just as we were heading up. Jeff is super fast, but his group wasn’t and he was staying with them. Homie gave up his Microspikes to Jeff’s wife Allison and we continued down.

Once at our skis we elected to ski down the gully, which comes the frozen streambed that leads directly to the bridge at the trailhead. We found perfect hardpacked snow, almost as good as resort skiing. Even marginal skiers like ourselves made it down okay, though we kept our skins on until the bridge. Here we stripped off the skins, downed the last of the water and 17 minutes later, I was at the car for a 5h44m roundtrip. I was warm the entire time, which is very rare for me. Of course, I had my secret weapons: chemical heaters in my gloves and in my boots, and my two essential pieces of clothing: bibs and a light, but sturdy shell. Bibs are the key, in my mind. I won’t do anything in winter without them. They provide great warmth, a chest pocket inside the shell to keep your food and camera warm, no air gap at the waist, and, now, a convenient place to hook the water bladder.