Grays Peak elev. 14,270ft. 7/21/2007
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Grays Peak via Horseshoe Basin trail
Elevation at Trail Head: 12,289 ft.
Elevation at Peak: 14,270 ft.
N 39 37.800'
W 105 47.957
Weather: After raining all night I woke to a beautiful sunrise with temps in the 40's. Clouds were all around but as you will see in the fotos not thunder clouds.
Destination: Grays Peak 14,270 ft.
Depart: 7/21/2007 7:30am
Distance: approx. 1.55 mi.
Elevation gain: 1,982 ft.
Peaked: 10:30am
On Peak: 1 hour for fotos and lunch
Departed Peak: 11:30am
Back at TH: 1:30pm
Looking West up trail at Grays Peak. The trail is faint and comes and goes. If you lose the trail look for the trail markers. They are piles of rocks that those who've gone before us graciously place. The trail is coming from the bottom right of this foto and heads up to the rocky saddle in the middle of the foto. You will turn left (SW) toward the top of the saddle and traverse the hill on the left. The Upper Lake will be on your immediate right.
Top of the saddle at Trail marker and small lake. The shoulder in the left side of the foto is where you're headed. Keeping the Lake to your right head to the shoulder where the Lake drains. Cross the water at the shoulder and look for a thin trail and trail markers. You will turn to the right (NW) and start the steep climb up the shoulder.
These guys hiked up from one of the mines lower down Horseshe Basin. They hit the Trailhead about 30 minutes before I left. I saw them again at the top of Grays Peak. They had already been over to Torrey's Peak and back! This is looking down the ridgeline immediately starting the descent back down to Horseshoe Basin. Mr. Mountain Goat is coming up the trail in the middle right side of the foto.
Mr. Mountain Goat. We encountered one another right as I started my descent off Grays Peak. He was coming up the trail and my first thought was "How lucky am I to have my camera at a rare wild moment like this?!" As he came closer and closer to me on his way up the trail I kept clicking off fotos. I believed at any minute he was going to see / hear me, spook, then bound off in the rocks and I would get some action shots of a real wild animal. As he got closer I just kept my eye in my camera and pulling back the zoom. Then I couldn't pull the zoom any further back and I finally took the camera from my eye as Mr. Mountain Goat was more or less staring me in the face. I calmly gave up the trail; because of course he was headed up and I down, ettiquite dictates this. Snapping him was very rewarding since I had just had a brief encounter with the wild! Then I became a little deflated in my efforts as I watched him follow the same trail to the Peak and wander through the crowd atop Grays as if to say "WOW, big crowd today! How you doin'? I'm a wild Mtn. Goat; wanna take a picture of me?" I mean it was almost like a petting zoo up there. Oh well:)
