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Gray Rock

The hiking gods were against us today. Well at least me. As soon as I left the car, I turned on my GPS on my watch and the screen went blank. It's done this before and usually takes me plugging it in to get it to turn back on. I didn't have the charger with me so I was out of luck. The thing was at full battery so I was pretty disappointed that it decided to not work for this hike. As such, I don't have accurate geotagging for any of the photos, along with accurate mileage or elevation. Oh well.

the second thing that went wrong was after I took the first photo. I realized that there was a pretty fuzzy section in the corner of the photo. Turns out my UV filter was completely shattered. Easy enough fix, I just took the filter off. But it was still pretty baffling to find a shattered UV filter considering that takes a pretty hefty drop to break one of those and I think I would remember dropping my camera like that.

This was the hardest hike we attempted. With over 1,000 feet more elevation gain of any other hike we've done, this hike comes in at half a mile of elevation gain in 4 horizontal miles of hiking (round trip just over 8 miles). Considering it took us four and a half hours, I'm just glad we survived. We got lost a few times including one time when we were full-on mountaineering down some very steep rocks trying to find the trail. The hike itself had some spectacular views at the summit. It was pretty hazy, so I'm sure the photos don't do it justice, but other than the panoramic views there were some blooming wildflowers and a gorgeous green meadow. On the other side of the loop trail, we hiked through a burn area (from the Hewlett's Gulch Fire in 2012) that was starting to recover.

Trailhead Location
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8.5 mi 4.5 hrs 7,616 ft 2,421 ft
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Crossing the Poudre
Up High
Taking a Break
Wild Flowers
Gray Rock Meadow
Summit Lake
Southern Panorama
Trail Split
Summit Lake Panorama
Half Way Done
Little Scavenger
High
Wrong Way Down
Tent Caterpillar
Hundreds
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