The Plan
The plan was to climb the Kelso Ridge of Torreys Peak on Saturday, February 23rd. Based on previous successful February climbs on this route, I expected 13 - 14 hours car-to-car depending on where we parked and other factors. Mark, Nate D, and Aaron drove up Friday to hike in and camp at the summer parking lot in Stevens Gulch. Nate H and I would "sleep" at home and drive in early to meet them in the morning. Saturday morning Nate H and I woke up at 1am after about 2.5 hours of sleep, boiled our water, jumped in the car and left boulder by 1:30.

3:30 - Stevens Gulch Road
We were skinning up the Stevens Gulch Road towards the summer parking lot. I started trying to raise Mark by radio after 4am with no success. Finally at about 5:15am I got a call on the radio and they were awake. I had been hoping to pick them up at camp and be moving again between 5:00 and 5:30, but it was pretty clear we were going to be behind that.

6:30 - to the Saddle
We left the camp at the summer trail head and made our way up the Grays Peak Trail. Weather conditions were still good but began to slowly degenerate into light snow. We traversed left of the trail to avoid a notorious slide path off the side of Kelso Mountain. We passed the Grays Peak National Recreation Trail sign and made our way up to the small basin adjacent to the Torreys-Kelso saddle. We stashed our skis at 12220 feet right next to the trail and made for the saddle.

8:30 - Kelso Ridge
The saddle behind us, we had started our ascent of Kelso Ridge. There was a bit of warm up scrambling before we encountered our first obstacle at the crux of the lower portion of the ridge. This is where I understand that the summer route skirts a gendarme to the left of the ridge and climbs a short steep rock and dirt gully to regain the ridge. I have skirted this obstacle far to the right and also self belayed the crux on a fixed line. We pulled out the rope and I set a belay anchor to lead the short exposed crux. I was pretty gripped by the exposure, the non-positive rock, the lack of decent protection, and the horrible quality of the rotten snow under a thin powder layer, but I made it through and found an excellent rock horn to serve for the top anchor. I threw some slings over it, tied off the rope, and was taken off belay. I waited at the top of the crux until Mark made his way to the top, and then had him wait for the next as I took off on the next leg of the route.

10:30 - Climbing
The last of our group had completed the first crux and we were a bit spread out making our way into the middle section of the ridge. The difficulties of the middle section in their condition at the top were just below my comfort threshold for un-roped scrambling, but I could tell some of the others were less comfortable. After a particularly insecure and exposed scramble across the top of and out of a sketchy couloir, I threw in an anchor, grabbed the rope from Aaron, tied off a length, and tossed it down for the three remaining climbers to self-belay on. I knew this was taking too long, but it was a necessary precaution for the good of the group.

12:30 - The Decision
We had moved slowly through several slow and exposed sections and were all now feeling the effect of the sustained strenuous exertion. I picked a wind sheltered spot and we stopped for some food, a drink, and a quick discussion on our progress. We were now at approximately 13000 feet, only about one third of the elevation gain from the saddle to the summit, with at least one more roped section at the White Tower near 14000 feet. Everyone was tired and moving slowly and the weather had deteriorated to a sustained 10mph wind with sustained moderate snow. A quick estimate indicated that if we kept going at the same pace, we wouldn't be on the summit for another eight hours. Furthermore, we probably wouldn't even get to the White Tower before dark. I started to think seriously about bail options and the only reasonable choice seemed to lie in the unknown mysteries of the North Ridge. I had previously climbed four completely distinct routes on Torreys Peak, but the North Ridge was not one of them. I had climbed Eroica the spring before and caught glimpses of the North Ridge, but knew very little about it other than the presumption that it was probably class two. One of our group was clearly suffering from some AMS and another had a problem foot that was going or had gone numb. We were all very tired already. I mentioned the North Ridge bail option, and we discussed it for about 20 seconds before we all agreed that it was the right thing to do, despite putting us in Grizzly Gulch, away from our skis and the camp below. We would gain the ridge, which was still 400 - 600 feet above us and descend an unknown route to tree line, and then post hole until we could find a trail.

1:00 - to the North Ridge
For the last time, we dropped off the right side of Kelso Ridge to traverse what appeared to be a stiff 3rd - 4th class gendarme and made for the easiest line up to the North Ridge. We had observed the aspect and condition of the top of the Eroica couloir and unanimously decided it was a severe avalanche hazard and a terrain trap to boot. So, we would perform an ascending traverse along the side of Kelso Ridge until we could climb a rocky rib to the North Ridge. This ended with a disturbing short section of steep snow which shed a few inches of wind loaded powder as I climbed to the ridge crest. I waited for a few others to join me before I had to continue moving to stay warm. On Kelso Ridge we had had some degree of success finding wind sheltered spots, but the North Ridge was much less forgiving. The going was easier with fewer gendarmes to deal with, but was completely sideswiped by the now 10-20 mph sustained winds and continuing snow. I spotted a large rock some ways down the ridge with a lee snow pattern beside it and made for what I guessed would be a small sheltered spot where we could regroup. I crawled into the wind shadow by the rock and waited for the others.

2:00 - The North Ridge
We regrouped and distributed food and water for the rest of the descent. The one of our group who had been suffering some AMS was extremely nauseous and dispirited so we dug up some clif shot bloks that he was able to stomach and chase with some gatorade. The one with a cold foot now had a completely numb foot. Unfortunately this was not the place to tend to it, and we had only about three hours of useful light left. So, we eventually picked up and headed back out. We made another stop at a significantly rocky part of the ridge with good shelter, choked down more calories, and kept trudging away. The North Ridge does not possess the technical difficulties of Kelso Ridge, but was loaded with steep loose scree and talus that was now partially covered with older hard wind slab and completely dusted with slick new powder. The descent became perilously treacherous as the slope angle increased, and we all slipped and slid as we stumbled downward.

4:00 - to Grizzly Gulch
We made a stand of trees on a bench above Grizzle Gulch and took another short break. I could see some difficulties remained as we had to navigate between some steep cliffy slopes and avoid a few more avalanche prone looking slopes to get to the lower denser trees. Running short on time, I kept the break short and plunge stepped through the now mid-thigh deep soft snow looking for a safe route off the bench and down into the trees. We descended some snowfields that were heavily perforated with talus indicating shallower snow, easier passage, and less avalanche hazard. A few short glissades on the safest slopes and we were entering the forest. From here I knew we would post hole almost all the way to the bottom of the gulch, but if we kept going downhill it would be easier and we would find the creek, the road, and some kind of trail eventually. We post holed, slid, crawled, and rolled any way we could to descend the final forested slopes to the open glades below.

5:00 - Grizzly Gulch
We had descended the final slope and I spotted an old solo snowshoe track which I followed parallel to the creek and just inside the trees, trying not to break through the fragile track. This met with partial success, but did lead us eventually to a junction with more trails which could finally bear most of our weight. Traveling in the back country in the winter without flotation devices is quite a strain on the mind and body, but we just kept pushing on. We wanted to get as far as we could before we lost all light.

6:00 - to Bakerville
Finding a bit of shelter between a few trees, I stopped and waited for the others. They slowly showed up looking weary and disheartened, but pushing on nonetheless. Mark's cold foot was in bad shape, so he took off his boot and I warmed his toes on my belly. Ouch. That, and a fresh chemical heat pack in the boot got him moving again, but his pack was slowing him down too much. We pulled out some gear and redistributed it among a few volunteers. As the twilight was fading we switched from goggles back to headlamps and continued on. We shortly encountered a heavily traveled trail which kept us off of our knees and we pushed on as quickly as we could. We had two cars down at the Bakerville exit on I-70, which was about three miles away, but the keys to one of the vehicles were in the camp at the summer parking lot in the next gulch over behind Kelso Mountain. We decided to push for the other vehicle, call for spare keys from Denver, warm up, and head down to Georgetown for some much needed proper food and rest.

8:00 - Georgetown
Dave the roommate drove up to Georgetown with a spare key as we waited for dinner in the Rathskeller on Main. Then Mark's fiancee showed up to take him home. Four of us drove back up to Bakerville to drop two off at the second vehicle. I then wearily drove myself and Nate H back to Boulder. I finally hit the sack at 10:30 and was asleep at 10:28. Nate H and I had hiked 16 hours car-to-car following about 2.5 hours of sleep Friday night. We still had to figure out how to recover our tent and skis on Sunday, but that would be another story for another day. Looking back on it all now, I'd classify this as excellent experience with non-ideal conditions (both weather and physical) that could have easily turned out fully epic. As it was, I'll call it a nearly semi-epic bail and a major gear epic. Given the difficult situation, we demonstrated good safe group decision making and made it out with no major injuries and all the fingers and toes we started with. Torreys would not have us that Saturday, but we took it in stride and found another way to return home safely. Many lessons were learned or reinforced, but none so important as knowing your limits and your options, no matter how unappealing.