July 9, 2003

After knocking the snot out of my toes on the 7th, I decided (and Matt agreed) to a rest day before we tackled the Dead Dog couloir on Torrey's. We spent the 6th down in Dillon, where we did a little shopping and attempted to patch my sleeping pad. We ended up down at the Dillon reservoir (or lake?) submerging the pad in a futile attempt to find the leak. Oh well, guess I'll just have to put up with the rocks. We headed back up to Steven's Gulch and decided to hike in closer to the climb, since we had plenty of time left. This also would allow us to sleep a little later in the a.m., which is always appreciated. There wasn't a cloud to be seen, so we were feeling pretty good about the likelyhood of avoiding the afternoon thunderstorms and decided against hauling the tent along. We opted for a couple of bivy sacks instead. The walk up the trail was quite delightful, and we just sauntered along enjoying the scenery and the weather. We passed a number of hikers coming back down the trail, many of whom warned us about heading up as late in the day as we were. We appreciated the advice and let all know that we were just hiking up a short ways to be in position for an early start on the route. When the shoulder of Kelso finally cleared and we had a full blown view of the east face of Torrey's we took a moment to review our planned route. From what we could see, it looked like we would have snow to climb on the entire route, and if we chose to do so, we could traverse left near the top of the route and climb snow right to the very summit! We also saw a nice, flat spot to bivy down at the start of the route.It appeared to be a small island of land surrounded be snow, just what we were looking for. We dropped down off the trail and headed towards our site. On the way to it, we had to do a little zigging and zagging to avoid the stream but this was of minor consequence. Our site leant us a nice view of the Kelso ridge which starts up Torrey's from the Kelso, Torrey's saddle. We wondered how the pair of hikers we saw on Sunday, faired on this route on the day before. The only question we had about our route was whether or not to take the snow slope that ran under the route, or opt for the slope just north of the route, which we could get on quicker, but we would be left with a traverse across a scree slope at the start of the route. We decided on the former.

We found a nice rock which served as our dinner table, then it was time to go to bed. Matt looked askance at my bivy sack. It's kind of minimalistic compared to some of the sacks with hoops and netting and stakes. Matt said he wouldn't sleep in anything that had a "beware of suffocating" warning on it. As it was, the wind picked up and the constant flapping made for a long night, but we survived.

We slept in until 5:00, which was kind of nice. We had our normal breakfast of Quaker's instant, then started up the slope. There appeared to be an area of scree we would have to climb, but we were mistaken. Instead we found some dirty, frozen snow which was much more pleasant. Matt pretty much lead the whole route. The snow was quite firm and the crampons were really appreciated. The slope itself, though only about 40 degrees, undulated alot from relatively flat sections to more steep sections up to maybe 70 degrees. In most cases, these steep sections only lasted a few feet and the going was straight forward. About half way up, there was a large runnel that ran down the slope for a couple of hundred yards. This runnel or "ditch" was about 6 feet deep and it was a little bit of a pain crossing it, when we had to. The snow never softened enough during our climb to kick any steps, but closer to the top, Matt came across some old steps that gave us some relief. At the spot where the couloir split, Matt chose to stay to the right rather than break left and climb directly up to the summit. Looking at the cornice that overhung our original planned route, I agreed with his decision. Though the cornice looked very stable, I didn't relish the idea of trying to dig through it, and I'm not sure that we could have. Plus, we didn't have any rope or protection if we decided to climb over it. I'm a whimp. We climbed off the snow onto the "rock" on the ridge. Why is it I always find this the least pleasant part of the climb? From my limited experience, melted out couloirs are choss piles and not a lot of fun to climb in. Maybe we should have headed left? Anyway, we gingerly climbed up the scree, being careful with our footing and looking for handholds wherever possible regardless of how steep the slope wasn't. We got to the top and were greeted with a strong breeze out of the west that made things a little chilly. Fortunately there is a sheltering wall at the top we could sit behind out of the wind. After a few snacks and about 30 minutes, Matt and I decided to head back down, so we dropped down on the ridge connecting Gray and Torrey's. As we hiked down, I noticed the cornice that was built up over the leeward side of the ridge had about a 2 foot crack where it was pulling away from the slope, not something I would want to climb under. As soon as we could, we got on a snow slope coming up the saddle between Gray's and Torrey's and started down it plunge stepping. I wasn't keeping up and I had never glissaded so I figured what the heck? I might as well give it a try. I shouted to Matt as I slid past him on my butt (I have no pride) and he jumped into the act also, though he decided to glissade on his feet rather than his bottom. We had a hoot and we got back down to our camp site alot quicker than hiking.