Hiking a Mountain
As advertised, the REU program includes several trips for sight seeing, hiking and camping. This includes camping in Yellowstone National Park, visiting local coalmines (one of Wyoming’s primary exports), and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. All of those trips will be scattered through out the month of July.
On Saturday (June 5th), the group drove to Greyrock Mountain about 20 miles outside of Fort Collins, Colorado. Greyrock stands out from all of the other surrounding mountains because of its height and the summit is all … grey rocks.
The mountain starts out at about 5,000 feet above sea level, and reaches over 7,400 feet (slightly higher than Laramie). At the bottom of the mountain is the Cache La Poudre River where many professional kayaker and rafters travel down the rapids (it looked to be about a 3 on the 1-5 scale). There are two trails, varied in walking distance, that meet just before the steep climb to the very top. Both trails are considered a “moderate” challenge.
Cache La Poudre River
Because the trails started out at a lower elevation, the temperature was fairly high (around 90 °F), unfortunately some of the other students thought long pants and wool socks would be appropriate. The heat at the beginning of the trail was tough. I think on a cooler day I would’ve considered the trail to be very manageable otherwise.
The whole trail was beautiful, very scenic, and as the elevation increased the view became breathtaking (it was either the view or weather, hard to tell). Some of us did not anticipate how long the trail and how hot it would be, some students did not bring enough water with them. Fortunately, the park rangers walking the trail carry extra bottles of water for hikers.
Once both trails met up again just before the summit climb, it became difficult to determine where the path actually was. In these cases where the trail isn’t obvious, it is marked with small stacks of rocks.
"Up" is a trail.
It took about three hours to get to the top, and we spent a good hour at the summit before hiking back down the mountain. At the top, there are several scenic ponds and the view included snow cap mountains, nearby mountains, hills and cities (Fort Collins was visible). There was also cell phone reception!
The hike back down was relaxing, but a little rough on the ankles and it took about 3 hours. In total we hiked from around 11 AM to 6 PM. Afterward we went to a local professor’s house for a barbeque and a game of bocce ball (seriously, what is up with chemists and bocce ball?). I’m sad to say that my team (full of mostly central/east coast people) lost miserably.
At the end of the bbq, the host pointed out the mountain we climbed off in the distance. The whole day felt rewarding and even though it might not have been the most challenging hike, I was still proud of myself for dedicating the whole day to climbing a mountain.
The bump to the left of the garage roof is Greyrock Mountain
