Trail stats:
distance: 7 miles roundtrip
starting elevation: 5558'
summit elevation: 7613'
The trail went parallel to the Poudre River, before splitting to the Summit trail, and Meadow trail. We planned to take the Summit trail up, and the come back on the Meadow trail.
The trial followed the side of a mountain. Pretty normal looking trail...
We came upon a group of big builders, and climbed around.
The trail opened into a big rocky area.
Eventually the trail led to a grassy field, and Greyrock summit stood out in front.
We were the Fellowship of the MMDC (Massachusetts Microprocessor Design Center).
Lots of grey rock on this part of the trail
We kind of lost the trial, but knew we had to go up, so we did some scaling and found a way up the rock face
Eventually we reached a flat area with a pond, and a summit to the left, and right.
We choose to climb the east summit, which wasn't the official peak.
Bill, Deepti, and Wendy at the top of the east summit.
While I was over here taking some pics of them (looks scarier than it was, mom).
If Wendy went a little further toward the edge, she would go "Wee..." all the way down.
Deepti and Bill left to go towards the real summit, while Wendy and I stayed behind to work on scary looking pictures.
There is the true summit in the background.
Eventually we headed towards the summit, though Deepti and Bill head retreated down to the pond below for lunch, out of the wind. On the summit, and proud of it!
Wendy was also proud of it.
I looked down below to see the meadow we would pass on the return hike.
Wendy's obviously not scared of heights anymore.
We ate lunch and rested at the top, while Bill and Deepti ate at the pond below.
We walked down to the pond which was higher than usual, a passing forest ranger said, due to all the recent precipitation.
On the way back down, I stopped to pose on an animal shaped rock (to my eye).
This time we took the Meadow trail on our return, and passed through a burned out forest.
Soon the trail hit the open meadow, with Greyrock protruding in the distance.
It felt like the Riders of Rohan might come into view across this meadow at any minute.
The trail then went uphill a bit, and I found a good lookout of the the meadow.
The trail wound back down an open hill, back to the trailhead.
We stopped by the Poudre River with the parking lot in view, and watched some rafts and kayaks go by.
Very sweet hike for just 25 miles away.