6/11/2001 - The Grays Peak Trail, Grays is on the left, Torreys Peak is on the right

After climbing Flattop Mountain, a 12 hour round-trip, we returned to Colorado Mountain School at 7 PM.  I had two choices at this point.  We had just climbed all day and I could certainly take it easy for a day until my flight Monday at 7:05 PM.  My other choice (and how could I really pass it up) was to grab a Subway sandwich, drive 2 hours through mountain passes to a pitch black, steep mountain dirt road that leads to the Grays/Torreys Peak trail head.  The choice was almost obvious.  I was in Colorado, I was there to climb, off I drove.

A word of advice: never take a passenger car on a pitch black, steep mountain dirt road filled with huge rocks and pot holes.

After negotiating a ridiculously difficult road in the dark, I arrived at the trail head parking lot at 10:30PM at 11,230 feet.  I had read that there was a camping area near the parking lot.  The lot was rather large and empty except for one other vehicle.  After looking at the map of the trail head area, there were no clues whatsoever as to where to camp, I finally got the courage up to find a spot in the darkness to set up my tent.  I drove to the back of the lot where the truck was and put on my headlamp.

The wind was blowing through the trees as I walked off the relative safety of the pavement to find a clearing in the trees.  Down a small slope from the car, I found a fire ring made of large rocks so I deduced others had camped here.  I found a close to level surface with enough room for my tent.  Perfect!  Setting up a tent by headlamp in complete darkness with a constant sound of wind and stream and no visual concept of the area around you is an eerie, scary experience.  I set up my tent, reviewed my intended route in the guide book, and went to sleep.  I woke a couple times in the night when the wind howled, and I was thankful that I secured several points of the tent with large rocks from the fire ring. Rolling large rocks at night in the dark? the fun continues....

I awoke around 5 AM, had breakfast, took down my tent and readied my gear and food.  It was a little slow going from the previous 24 hours, I finally hit the trail at 7 AM.