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| Torreys via Kelso Ridge |
Other than the wind the conditions were excellent. It hadn't snowed in something like 8 days and the sun was out with clear skies. The forecast was for a high of 25. I wore only paper-thin glove liners all the way to the ridge. Note that, for us anyway, the entire second half of the ridge was in the shade as the sun was right behind the summit.
We left the winter TH at about 8:45. I put snowshoes on about a mile before the bridge at the summer TH and left them on until we gained the ridge.
I don't doubt the ridge is class 3 in the summer but it was a little sketchy in the winter. Maybe I just really hate climbing on rock with crampons. Some pretty scary exposure as well. I've done all the class 4 14ers in the winter and I was more scared on this one. I'm pretty sure we were on the easiest route as there wasn't any other option we noticed.
If I could do it again, I wouldn't! I'd just do the standard route.
There was a lot of ski and snowshoe traffic on the road up to the summer TH but my partner and I only saw one other person after that and he turned around half way up the standard route on Greys. I think he was wearing sweatpants.
As we were hiking back in the dark we thought about how it would have been a great idea to take a snowmobile all the way to the base of the mountain. I'm not sure about the legality of that but it sure would have made for a much shorter day!
I think we got back to the car right before 8 but we were moving pretty slow mainly because I'm getting over a cold and got about 5 hours sleep as I left Grand Junction at 5AM.
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