So with Eddy unsure of what they were or were not hiking on Sat. i went ahead and joined Danielle and her 2 girlfriends Sat morning to summit two 14ers. Grays- 14,270ft and Torreys- 14,267ft. we got to the grays peak trailhead around 5am with a lot of other hikers, then 3 large vans showed up with about 80 people from a company in Nebraska! oh i know it was gonna be a hike like no other. so we stood in line to go potty, i said F' it and used the mens port a potty, its all the same in my book. got back to the car to gear up and as the story of my life goes something always happens when we are gearing up! i left the dogs in the car till i was ready because of the traffic on the small dirt road, got my hiking belt on, hooked the dogs to the line and as the same time Danielle was getting gunny out of her car as well as her friends small black dog out. the next thing i knew was i no longer had 2 dogs to my line they were running up to the group of people in line at the bathrooms, we got them secured up there, the material the lines are made out of just snapped! i could not believe it and so i tied it back together and crossed my fingers it would hold through the hike. we weaved our way through the crowd at the trailhead and started up with the moon still looking at us around 5:30-5:45am. i think i was with them maybe 5-10 min before i realize they were just too slow and i wanted to get both summits so i left them. with all the traffic on the trail i knew if something did happen there were plenty of people around to help. i spent the lower part of the trail that has a steady incline asking people to move over so i could pass, none of them seem to understand trail etiquette to move over if your slower and on a small trail....











a nice water stop for the dogs




the trail was this dirt and lose rocks all most the whole way, sucked on the way down


getting close to the summit of Grays


looking over to torreys


i think this is the class 3 rout over to torreys




so close to the summit, even though the side was rock there was a clear cut path to follow up in dirt. they have done a good job keeping up this trail, with all the use it gets.

Gray's Summit shots









looking at the trail over to Torrey's


Jack summit


Sierra summit


all the people in the back were blocking the "real" summit that i hit on our way over to torrey's


family summit pic! and wild hair from the wind. we did not stay on the summit to long as the crowd of people kept the dogs from really resting, just long enough to eat some food.




stop blocking the trail and get out of our way were off to peak #2!


looking back up to Gray's as we were hitting the saddle over to Torrey's this was the "hardest" part of the hike as we were going down boulders and not so much a trail.


trail to Torrey's




still a deep snow cornice on the saddle


gray's is even farther away, i had seen Danielle and the girls heading up the summit as i was heading over so i kept looking for them to see if they were gonna do Torrey's


saw a mountain goat, guess we just missed them on the summit


summit marker for Torrey's

Summit of Torrey's!



yeah snow!!!








family summit picture!


got jack right as he was getting up, he finally laid down.








after a nice break on Torrey's we headed down before more crowds showed up. the girls never made it up and i was hoping to run into them on the way down.


had a snow feild to cross on the saddle so we did not have to summit gray's again to get down, waited in line to cross and ran into Danielle!


Danielle and gunny in front

i again lost the girls after this snow field as they were taking to long! i could not get over the people heading up to these peaks at 10:30am and later! i also spent some of the trail jogging down as it was just easier on the lose rock, it did get hot and i could see it in the dogs but it was so hard to pull off and get them to rest with all the people around they were just to worked up. i made this hike a personal push to see what we could do on our own.


nice cold water


looking back to the peaks as we were all most down


oh it was getting hot




camping at the trail head


look at all the cars!





on the way down we did encounter more dogs leashed and not and for the most part all was good till we were on the path of a small wiener dog. i was asking the man to pick up the dog to pass but he was not hearing me, some non English speaking guy... a lady behind me got ahead and petted the dog so i could pull in S&J, the guy walked up the trail higher and said to me can't you control your dogs! i said yes i can i was just trying to avoid a accident. he was such a jerk, ( remember the lines broke and i had them tied together!) i let it go and headed down. ran into an Alaskan malamute as well, that poor hot dog. we got to the car around 11:30ish and waited a little bit to see if the girls showed up but they did not so i wrote them a not and headed down the dirt road around noon.


sierra was happy to be on the road


then rested on the drive home.

so the numbers for the day were
9.36 miles RT
6 hours and 6 mins to complete.
4,124ft in elevation gained
my max elevation was 14,247 guess i did not stand on the "highest" part

hope you enjoyed our hike

HA! Now you understand why I won't even look at that trailhead from other summits! Quandary and Bierstadt are nearly identical. Trying to enjoy a hike with nearly hundreds of other people and about 20% of them hate dogs makes for an interesting day. Now you've got me settled on a camp/hike where we won't run into that shit.

Great work on those, really. We might have to adjust our plans to keep up with YOU. I have yet to get both of those mountains in a single trip. Mostly because I refuse to exit at Bakerville even with a gun to my head.

Thanks Eddy i was really proud of my self and the time i did it in

i had a guy stop me on the saddle to thank me for having leashes on my dogs, i though he must have had some really bad run-ins with lose dogs! i also got stopped a few times so people could take picture of and with S&J! it was quite the circus.
not the mental relaxation im used to on hikes. but if i want to get the front range 14er's done im gonna have to deal with it!
oh and both hands went numb this time on the summit of grays and were better by the time i hit torreys, its an odd and scarey thing to have happen.

Amazing photos! Really!!!

What a great trip! Love the photos.
Yes to alpine starts when it's hot!
I did these peaks with my brother 20 years, no 30 years ago.
We didn't have any crowd like that.

About hand numbness- try hiking poles. I don't use them all the time, but find that they help.
Of course, then you can't hold onto the leash.
This requires wearing a skijor belt, which is neoprene and hot, to attach dogs.

Beautiful scenary! Looks like lots of fun!

Sorry the cord broke. Is it nylon cord or Perlon ?
Perlon usually is multi-colored and woven.
If you go to a climbing store, you could get some 6mm perlon, used in prussiks.
It looks like this:

I replaced the nylon cord on Bodhi's harness with this stuff, then tied a double fisherman's knot.
It's not gonna break, now matter how hard he pulls.

I find that altitude does make my hands swell and numb.
Remembering to squeeze my ski poles or ice axe helps.

Love the pix of Sierra on the road.
A tired and happy dog.

i think it is nylon cord and i have been in talks with adanack sleds on getting a better line but they are slow on the move.

Eddy: can you fix it for me?....

After reading about your cords breaking, Jennifer, I looked at the connection to Bodhi's harness.
The cord showed some wear from the biner, and I've only had it six months.
I am super paranoid about him busting loose.
So I went to REI and got some new 6mm perlon- three feet for 72 cents.
I don't think this will break-

Michael,
thanks for the heads up, and glad you checked your connection. i just stuck a carabiner on the end of the X-back to connect to the lead. no cords because i was afraid of the wear. you can see on sierras summit pic the attachment.
waiting for the samples to come!!!

I have the same harness as Bodhi, but since I had to custom order mine, the tail end of the harness reaches his tail, so I won't have to use the 'cord' it came with and do what Jenn does and attach one of my biners I used for ice climbing way back when.

I LOVE hiking! Jealous, wish my furballs and I coulda come with y'all! Stunning pics

Claudia, I hope the new harness worked out for you. Does Storm wear it OK ?

hehehehhe he's just a big ole bear, isn't he, Claudia?

You just made me fall in love with him! Especially with the soft woo! 112 lbs... ppor baby! Jeez! I hate when ppl think food is love for their dogs. Health is love! I'm really glad you and your vet are working to get him to a health weight for his tall self

ummmmmmm I don't know what I hit, but somehow I got a screen that said my vote had been cast ... interesting...

You probably hit the + symbol to the side of Claudia's post. You'll find next to everyone's post there is a + and - symbol in the upper right side of their post. That is our "treat" system which you can use similar to the "thank" system on other forums. When you click the + it gives that person a "treat" as shown in under your avatar, and if the click the - it takes a treat away from said person. Similar to a thanks and no thanks type thing you find on other forums.