In other news, D and I did two 14ers, Grays (14,270 ft) and Torreys (14,267 ft), last weekend. They are the 12th and 14th tallest peaks, respectively in the continental U.S. Among other reasons, we wanted to get out of the 100 degree heat in Denver! It was nice and comfortable in the mountains, and at 14,000 feet, it was actually kinda cold at times.
Along with Mt. Sherman that I did last year, these were the 2nd and 3rd 14ers for me and D's 1st and 2nd. Of course, I did Mt. Sherman in May, so it was more like snowshoeing than hiking. That was pretty miserable. These were a lot more straightforward. In fact, we opted to do Torreys first even though it's easier doing Grays first. I think it took us about two hours to summit Torreys. We hung out and took pictures for about 15 minutes before we headed to Grays. It took about 40 minutes to get to Grays, and we spent about 45 minutes up there before we headed down. We were concerned about some clouds that were gathering.
It cleared up during our descent, so we took our time stopping for a lot of pictures along the way. Towards the base of the mountains, there were a lot of very pretty wildflowers that we took pictures of. I've never seen so many wildflowers in Colorado! All total, I think it took about 5.5 hours from when we left the car.
I'm currently listening to "All Good Things" by Nelly Furtado. I think I've listened to it 10+ times today. Man, what a good song. Apparently, it was originally supposed to be a duet with Chris Martin from Coldplay, but his label didn't like that, so she performs it solo on the album. I found the duet version online, and it's pretty good too. The whole album is pretty good, actually.
