July 16th (Day 9) - Grays Peak - The Set-up

Today is the day we will be climbing Grays Peak. Our day started early, with a 45 minute drive from Fraser to the exit on Route 70 (Exit #221 - Bakerville) where we will meet up with Bob & Ginny. Dave & Nitsa are planning their hike nearby at Henderson Gulch, and will meet up with us this afternoon on our way out from the trailhead.



The drive in to the trailhead is billed as a very rough 2WD road. Good clearance required and 4WD may be necessary if large ruts have formed.

We considered this a large rut !
At this point, Bob & Ginny parked their car. We couldn't fit everyone in the Edge, so Pete & Bob volunteered to start hiking up the road while Ruth, Cindy, Barb, Ginny, Jim & Karl started to drive. Karl & Jim would return to pickup Pete & Bob once the girls were dropped off at the trailhead. Another young couple had to leave their car as well, so they joined up with Pete and Bob to start hiking.


On the rougher sections, everyone except Karl would get out and direct. This gave us a little more ground clearance. We were cautious and did not have any problems.



Here's Jim, keeping an eye on our progress. We passed several other groups of hikers on their way to the trailhead. It seemed that no one was stopping to pick anyone up. We did pick up one more solitary hiker, Joe (from Tampa, FL), and gave him a lift. Somehow we squeezed him in up front with Jim and Karl.

We arrived at the trailhead parking lot at 7:20 am, dropped off the girls, and started back down the road. The girls plan to start hiking and we will all meet up along the trail.

We only had to go back down the road about 1 mile before we found Pete, Bob and their 2 new friends. Everyone loaded in and we returned to the trailhead, arriving around 7:45 am, ready to start hiking at 7:50.

The weather is beautiful, sunny, windy. It's going to be a great day for a hike.....

July 2010 Postscript: The road has been improved since we were there, making it easy for a 2-WD car to drive all the way to the trailhead. Too bad, as I think our experience was made all the more memorable by the trek in...