| Report Type | Full |
| Peak(s) |
Grays Peak - 14,275 feet |
| Date Posted | 05/16/2017 |
| Modified | 05/17/2017 |
| Date Climbed | 05/13/2017 |
| Author | jmanner |
| Lost Rat Solo Climb and Ski |
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Total Distance: 10. 5 Miles Vertical Gain: ~4,020 Feet Vertical Skied: 3,600 feet Car to summit: 4 hours 15 minutes Summit lounging': 45 minutes Total Time: 5 hours 55 minutes I have been eyeing a ski of the Lost Rat, on Grays Peak, for some time, but for the longest time I could not get anyone to commit to a ski of it. Finally, this year I talked two friends into giving it a go in the middle of April. However, once we got up above the summer trailhead, there wasn't much interest for a Lost Rat ski when Dead Dog was sitting there overflowing with snow. So, we bailed on Lost Rat and skied the Dead Dog couloir instead. Although I was disappointed that I wasn't skiing Grays, it's hard to be sad about skiing the Dead Dog. So, this past week I thought I'd give Lost Rat another go. Unfortunately, my two primary ski partners have both injured themselves(losers, who gets hurt these days) and I couldn't talk anyone else into going; I can't blame them though, I wouldn't want to spend a day with me either. So, with some apprehension about skiing the line solo, I planned on a Saturday climb and ski. I hit the road, in Denver, around 3:45 and I was parking at the Grizzly Gulch junction by 4:45 am. It always surprises me how close Grays and Torreys are from the Denver Metro area. I had my boots and pack on and was headed up the road by 5 am. Unfortunately, the road was melted out enough that I had to hike with the skis on my shoulder for the first mile, which left both shoulders bruised and sore for the rest of the day.  From transition to uphill skiing it was a quick one and a quarter mile tour up the road to the summer trailhead.  Past the summer trailhead I toured up the creek for about a mile and then turned uphill to my right and began an ascended traverse towards the summer trail. Near the junction between the old mine road below Mount Edwards and the trail for Grays.  At the trail junction, I was surprised to see a guy hauling up the trail and we both stopped and chatted for a minute while we put on sunscreen and ate a quick bite. Funny enough, for Grays Peak, I wouldn't see another person for another 2 and half hours. From the turn off, I followed the depression below a ridge until the rock glaciers/moraine looked too steep at which point I turned left and skinned up onto the glacier, which quickly put me at the base of the Lost Rat Couloir.    I toured up as far as I could before the skins started losing grip and then popped out. I strapped on the crampons, strapped the skis to my pack and chased down some cheese that I dropped down the slope. After all this, it was 7:47 AM by the time I started making my way up the apron to the couloir proper. I was slightly worried about the timing, because the sun had been on the snow for at least an hour. However, as I climbed, I wasn't sinking very deep in with my boots and when I turned to look at the sun I realized it was hitting the snow at a pretty low angle. So, I continued on with the plan to climb through the couloir's thousand feet in an hour and hopefully skiing off the summit before 10 AM. Otherwise I'd ski the northwest face. Skinning up to the couloir I noticed that there were two tracks coming down the couloir and I had hoped there might a bootpack up the gully which would allow me to cheat a little and make up time. However, once I was climbing up it was clear I'd actually have to work from my turns.  Climbing up, I tried to stick to the right side, but it quickly became too awkward to remain on that side, due to the rock wall. So, I moved over to the climbers left side of the gully. Once I was settled in on that side, I got into a nice pattern of planting my axe, then pole, then taking two steps, one second of rest and then repeating. I don't know if it had to do with being alone or if I am finally finding a good rhythm when climbing steeper snow, but I got into a good enough cadence, that I was able to zone out and not fixate on how fast or slow I was moving. Using this âmethod,â before I knew it, I was just below the cornice and I needed to cross the snow slope again to get out. By the time I had topped out and stashed by axe and water bottle it was only 8:45.      All I needed to do was climb the final 650 feet, or so, in an hour to be on schedule, for a change. I took my time climbing up, but I was still able to move pretty quickly and I summited in about a half hour. Realizing that the snow would still be too hard to ski down immediately, I decided to wait for 45 minutes before setting off again. At around 9:55, I packed up, clicked into my skis, asked another skied to take my picture, and poled over to the east side of the summit and started to ski down.  The snow isn't super continuous from the summit, so I had to work my way through some rocks the first hundred from down from the summit. However, from about 14,100' I was able to ski the northeast ridge down to the top of the couloir, where I picked my water and axe up. The couloir entrance was fairly easy and it's possible to â Doug Coombs it, â but I am not super comfortable jumping into the couloir without feeling the snow out first.   At any rate, once I get into the Lost Rat it was clear I had hit it at the right time and I skied down it in around three and half minutes, even with two rests. Here's a little Go Bro video, it includes some super cool free YouTube music. Thanks Google!    Once back on the rock glacier it was easy to follow the drainage back to the summer trailhead and I was popping the skis off at the hiking portion, in only 20 minutes or so after leaving the summit. Luckily there were some nice follow backcountry skiers transitioning as well and who were polite enough to watch me fumble with my skis and pack and helmet and water bottle and you name it, without commenting.  They were also courteous enough to then listen to me ramble for half an hour of skiboot-hiking. Having some company certainly made the hike back to the car a lot more tolerable. After a quick hike back to the cars, I said bye to those guys and threw my stuff in the car. I was driving home by 11 am and back to the house at noon. Can't beat that! Luckily, my wife was ready to occupy my time for the rest of the day. I guess laboring under the yoke of the man, or in this case the woman, is the cost of shredding the gnar-pow. Thoughts on Lost Rat and solo skiing a D11/12: +1 would do again, maybe with a Dead Dog or Goatfinger link up. I was a little worried about skiing that alone, but once I had my skis on, I actually didn't mind the ski difficulty. However, I enjoy skiing with others and it's a bummer not being able to share a good ski day with a close friend. Thanks for reading this far. Go get it while it's still good. Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
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