Grays Peak

Over the past few weeks we've been trying to hike Grays and Torreys but haven't had much luck with the weather. Finally on Friday it said no rain and fairly warm so we decided to give it a shot. Needless to say, the weather was wrong.

We started out the hike in the drizzling rain but it wasn't too bad since we were layered up and the views were very pretty. The first mile or so follows a creek fairly to your left and you have mountains on all sides of you. Below is a picture from the trailhead.

As you continue to head uphill, the views stay fairly similar until you can finally see the peaks. The tops are covered in the picture below due to the clouds but it still looked pretty cool.

After your gradual uphill, which starts at 11,000 already, you then start to really head uphill. I'm not used to hiking above 12,000 a whole lot and I could definitely feel the lack of oxygen. As you start getting towards the top, it gets fairly rocky but the views of the meadow leading back to the trailhead were nice.

Unfortunately at about 13,000 our light drizzle turned into windy/snowy conditions. We both made it up to Grays but couldn't see more than 30 feet in front of us so we didn't end up going over to Torreys as well. We just hit the peak at around 14,278 and then took the saddle-back, which you can see below, then made our way down.

All-in-all we ended up going ~8 miles with a 3,600ish elevation gain. It was definitely a more tiring hike due to the altitude even though the distance wasn't very far. We'll have to head back with better weather and try to tackle both of them and actually get to enjoy the views.

Thunder Lake via Ouzel Falls

For this week's hike Ali and I headed to Rocky Mountain National Park. After going through our usual 20 minutes of, "What hike do you want to go on?" and the typical response of, "I don't care, what hike do you want to go on?" a few times, we finally settled on Ouzel Falls. Once we got there however things looked a tad on the familiar side and we suddenly remembered we did Blue Bird Lake in this area last year. Oh well, there are a few different trails around here so off we went.

To start, this is a fairly popular hike so I recommend getting there before 7:30 if you want a parking spot. Since the first part of the hike is fairly easy and takes you to the falls, it's common for a lot of families to be on the first few miles of the trail. However I wouldn't rush the first part of the hike to get away from everyone as the bulk of the trail is right beside the river and it's very pretty. There are quite a few random smaller falls until it leads up to Ouzel Falls which is where the majority of the families stop. Below are a few pictures of the river and some of the falls.

After the falls we branched right to heard toward Blue Bird, Thunder, and Lion Lake. I enjoyed this part of the trail because you are walking along the side of the valley and it has a good view of the mountains in the distance. It was also pretty shady which was nice since the weather as a tad on the warm side. You'll pass two more branch off spots for Lion and Blue Bird but we decided to head to Thunder Lake. The trail was pretty secluded the day we were there and was a nice mix of some mountain views and being in the forest. The lake itself was your typical end of the hike lake with mountains surrounding it. Below is a picture of Thunder Lake. 

Overall I would definitely recommend this hike. It's good a good mixture of rivers, water falls, mountain views, and lakes. While the falls are probably the most distinguishing factor on this hike, I have no complaints about everything else. Even though AllTrails said it was around 11.5 miles, my Fenix tracked around 14 miles with a 2,386 elevation gain. I know we did a little more walking around than just hitting the trail so that may account for another mile. 

Chair Rocks via Colorado Trail

For our 4th of July hike we decided to head down around Pine, CO. The main reason for this was that every popular campground and hiking area was swamped with people having a long weekend so we wanted to be as far away from them as possible. The drive from Denver took right around an hour and was very pretty once you went past Pine and you started to follow the North Fork South Platte River.

The hike itself was right around 10 miles with about 1,200 elevation gain if you hiked around the boulders some at the top. The first 3 miles are pretty hot and boring all-in-all. It goes through an area that is still recovering from a wildfire so there isn't much protection from the sun and after the first 15 min, the scenery is about the same.

After you get through that section, the next 3ish miles is similar rolling hills but they are going through a lightly forested area. You get a few minor views of some boulders in the distance but nothing life changing. The only thing really worth it on this hike is the last .25 miles or so when you get to the "Chair Rocks" portion of the hike. Once you start going up on some of the bigger boulders, you get a good view of the other side of the mountain.

Overall I'd say this is a fairly easy hike but I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. There are a lot better places to go.