Trip Report
Gray's and Torrey's Peaks
1st 14ers and 1st trip report. Pretty good conditions overall. Road to TH is rough, snow in connecting trail.
Samuel Larson
- Sat, Jun 21, 2025
- Grays Peak
- Hiking & Mountaineering
- Successful
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- Road recommended for high clearance only
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The connecting trail under the saddle of grays and torreys has a good bit of packed snow but decent traction when the sun is out and no postholing. Near the trailhead hiking back down became a little wet when the sun came out but the water was always completely avoidable and my feet stayed dry. The summit of Grays was very windy, so naturally so was the hike up Torreys. Gusts made people lose their footing a few times.
I arrived at 4:45am on a Saturday and there wasn't parking left in the official lot, but there was plenty of space beyond the bathrooms near the campsites. Though if I didn't have AWD I doubt I would've made it past the bathrooms in my SUV. On my drive back down I saw cars parked on the side of the road for about a half mile or more, making it a one lane road. None of them had tickets when I was leaving around 12:30pm but I believe that area is private property given the signage.
I went to Grays first because there was a lot of traffic on the connecting route at the time. It was a pretty easy but slow crawl up with lots of switchbacks. Once I got to the summit I was blasted by wind and brought out my jacket and gloves. Though the north side of grays was pretty protected. After maybe 10min and some photos I hiked down to the saddle between the peaks. The hike up to Torreys was more difficult to me, as it had few switchbacks and felt more steep in general.
After I headed back down to the saddle and got to the connecting trail, I decided to jog it to get the snow portion over with, landing on my heals to avoid slipping.
Rest of the hike down was straight forward although it felt longer than coming up because I think I was less excited to get to my car than I was to get to the peaks.
I grew up in the Cascades of WA where I hiked a ton, but moved here a couple years ago for work and this was my 1st 14er. Overall it was a great introduction to what you guys have to offer :)
New member excited to bring back old hobbies in a new environment.
Total distance: 8.85mi
Total time: 6h 46m
Moving time: 3h 2m
Avg HR: 165
Total ascent: 4,610