Grey Rock is a popular summer hike amongst locals of the Northern Colorado region. It is 5.6 miles round trip on the summit trail with an elevation gain of 2800 feet. David and I have disputed the actual milage every time we hike it because it usually feels much longer than it is, but his phone proved that the map at the beginning of the trail is, in fact, accurate. I did a terrible job on the hike this go-around, as the altitude prevented me from breathing at all. I think, with liberal breaks for eating and picture taking, it took us 6 hours round trip.
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| Some damage from the High Park Fire, 2012 |
True fact: David proposed to me on top of Grey Rock. He did not plan on proposing that day and did not have a plan or a ring, but I said "yes!" anyway.
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| View of the lake near the top. |
Another story related to Grey Rock:
When we were young, dumb, and newly engaged, we decided to summit Grey Rock again. I had been rock climbing a few times with David previously, but was by no means a pro at it. He asked, as we were leaving the parking lot if I wanted to bring our climbing gear out of the car with us so we could climb the face of the rock. Thinking for less than a half second I said, "No, I don't want to climb that hard after hiking that much!" and so we left the gear behind. We opted for the longer meadow trail which seems like it should be easier, but I'm pretty sure it is not. Somehow, we got off trail and ended up on the back side of Grey Rock. Thank God for carins (stacks of small rocks used to mark the trail). We kept going up and up until we happened upon a couple sizable boulders. When a large boulder is right in front of your face, and you see a few in the near distance, its easy to be deceived into thinking the top of this giant rock face is closer and more attainable than previously imagined. This was my thinking, and so we went up. And up. The more boulders we climbed, the less possible it was to down climb them to turn around. After struggling to climb to the top of a few boulders I believed was the top of the rock, I was saddened to see that we were maybe less than 1/10th of the way up the whole thing. I in Merrell shoes and David in Chaco sandles (both with Vibram soles), eventually saw the end in sight, but not without much sweat, some tears and a firm belief at numerous occasions that we would have to be rescued off this damn rock. (OK, David was much calmer than I and he did not cry.) As we approached the top, I noticed rain clouds heading our way, which created a problem as my super grippy shoes would soon be rendered useless. At last, when the rain started, we had a fire under our butts to get up fast. By the time we reached the top, my heart was racing at nearly 50 respirations a minute, the rain was turning to hail, the lighting and thunder started and our aluminum-lightening-conducting trekking poles were sticking straight up out of our packs. Exaggeration much? No, this is exactly as I remembered it happening. Then we were met with a lake. An f-ing lake. What to do now? The rocks surrounding the lake were wet, so that grippy part of my shoe did not work. We decided to trudge through the lake, took a couple of strides through, heard thunder and promptly got out and figured we would make the rocks work after all.
I swear to you, the minute we got off the top of the rock, and worked our way down to a little less elevation, the clouds parted, the rain stopped, the lightening dissipated, the sun came out and the birds started chirpping.
The End.
In reality, in climbing terms, this was probably no more than a class 4, or as David claims, it "was like scrambling". In my mind, it was a 5.10 and I am an amazing rockstar of an athlete for the accomplishment, without ropes or climbing shoes.
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| David in the distance |
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