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Torreys Kelso Night Climb + Summit Camp & Grays Finisher
One of my climbing partners, Matt, and I have been talking about doing a winter ascent on Kelso ridge for quite a few months now. With both of itching to get out and get that zen, we finally planned a trip for MLK weekend. Our plan was to leave Colorado Springs on mid-day Saturday and get up to the trail head to camp and climb Kelso ridge to Torrey's peak and then head over to Grays and back down to the car on Sunday.
After stopping for some lunch at Chipotle in Castle Rock (not keeping in mind that we would be sharing a tent that night) I threw out an idea that we should try and summit Torreys on that night and camp. We had both always talked of how we wanted to winter camp on a 14er summit and this was our chance. Matt said he was game.
We arrived at the Summer trailhead in His Jeep Cherokee at around 2:30 PM with ease. I would have been pretty comfortable attempting this in my Honda CR-V or a Subaru outback to be honest. There was one spot where Ice covers the road and after that, it was all packed snow as long as you don't pull over for folks coming down. Sorry, no pics of the road for beta but if you were skiing up and/or down, you could ski probably 90% of the road. . Link to Full TR Here
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Man, you guys sure made that climb interesting! Kelso Ridge at night + camping on the summit + calendar winter = a pretty atypical outing indeed. Nice job.
Your analysis of why Dead Dog slid in the morning is spot on; sounds like wind-loading throughout the night was the probable culprit, especially given the climbing party's report of cornicing and deep snow guarding the finish. It likely just needed a tad more stress up top for a release, which means their decision to turn back when they did may have literally been a life saver, scary stuff! Anyway thanks for the TR, good luck on Ellingwood Ridge.
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