Night hiking in Stevens' Gulch

Cinco de Mayo - a holiday much loved for its spirit of revelry and camaraderie. This year's celebrations fell on the night of the supermoon - the biggest and brightest full moon of the year.

Nathaniel and I decided that it behooved us to travel west to yon mountainside and enjoy a hike to the highest point along the continental divide - Grays Peak. Normally, when we hike it happens on about four hours notice and with about three hours' sleep. This time, we had the foresight to plan ahead by a couple of days, but apparently hadn't thought through the itinerary very much. We began packing for the evening's excursion at approximately 9:30 PM.

The girls were only somewhat credulous that we were about to go hiking.

By the time we got to the Grays Peak trailhead and were headed up the mountainside, the clock had struck midnight (literally) on the Cinderella story that was our adventure. We started our hike at 12:01AM.

The aperture on my camera is too small to get quality night photos. The hike up the valley was crystal clear, though, and in spite of the large amounts of light coming off the moon there were vast amounts of stars twinkling in the sky above us. We only had to use headlamps for about five minutes during the whole evening. We took a leisurely pace up the slope all night, and enjoyed the night air.

Even through the clouds, the sky was brilliantly lit. This was a sweet hike.

 As we hiked higher, a cloud bank rolled in behind us and obscured the valley. We stopped on the side of the trail around 2:30 AM and enjoyed a delicious cup of hot chocolate around 12,800'. We were immersed in a bank of clouds so thick that even the light from the supermoon was obscured. My one regret from the trip is that I wasn't able to capture a picture of the scene. Imagine you are watching a movie about pirates - think of the scene where the protagonist is trapped in a seemingly insurmountable situation - and picture the ominous fog that the ghost ship of the story's antagonist rolls out of (seemingly from nowhere and everywhere all at once!). The fog that surrounded us was much like that. I half-expected sasquatch to walk out of the mist towards us and announce that he's been tracking us for years, waiting for this perfect moment in isolation to murder us and grind our skulls to make his bread. The squeaking pikas seemed to agree with this feeling. I've never seen anything like it!

Although we had only about three quarters of a mile to go to the summit, we were starting to get tired. We had both been awake since early the previous morning, and had at least an hour and a half hike and hour drive home before we could rest. We made an executive decision that it would be preferable to stick to the flat terrain of the valley headed homeward, rather than risk poor decision-making and motor skills at any higher altitude. We finished up our hot chocolate and headed towards the car - pleased with the night's excursion.

I've heard a lot of tripe about the relative challenge of the class-1 hiking up Stevens' Gulch through 14ers forums or anecdotally with friends, but after this evening's hike I disagree with badmouthing the peaks. If anything, I thought that the ease of accessibility made the rocky crags more visibly appealing.  In the crisp moonlight, I was moved by the dramatic steeps of Dead Dog Couloir and the rest of Torreys' east face. If the goal is to be in the mountains, this was a fine place to achieve that goal. Even though we didn't summit either peak, this has been my favorite hike of the year so far based on the ambience of the evening. This was a special place - I will definitely be returning again with fresher legs knowing what a good time I had.

Alpine picnic, anyone?