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Greyrock Mountain (7,625′) | Roosevelt National Forest

Laporte, CO | 03/24/19 | 6.64 miles | 1,966′ gain

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Some friends and I decided to hike up Greyrock Mountain yesterday. We got a little bit of a late start but even so, had no trouble finding a parking spot in the main lot across the road from the trail.

We climbed down the stairs to the road, and crossed over to the beginning of the Greyrock Trail. The trail starts by crossing over the Cache la Poudre River on a great bridge, and then immediately cuts left and heads up out of the canyon. The start of the trail is mostly forested, but does eventually go through a burn area which can get pretty hot if you don’t have a cloudy day like we did. Trail junctions are very well marked.

Less than a mile in, there is a trail junction with the option to take the Greyrock Trail or the Greyrock Meadow Trail. The latest review on AllTrails stated that there was deep snow in the meadow so we opted to take the Greyrock Trail. You can make a loop out of this section and do both trails if you’d like. The Greyrock Trail is slightly shorter.

The Greyrock Trail heads up a side canyon and eventually through a burn area that affords amazing views.

After we climb out of the canyon, we can start to see Greyrock Mountain through the trees. But we don’t get the best view until we pop out into the meadow. The trail cuts right around the mountain and climbs up the back side, which is a more gradual route than what you can see in the picture below.

The trail to the summit is very rocky and can be hard to follow in places, especially since there’s still some snow on the ground. We did the best we could with route finding and eventually found our way to the top. We were rewarded with views nearly the entire climb.

The climb is mostly hiking with an occasional area of light scrambling. I didn’t find anything to be too difficult or exposed. The summit area is very broad, and offers views in all directions as well as a combination of shaded and open areas to sit for lunch.

Rain clouds were slowly rolling in as we ate our lunch, so we descended as quickly as possible. It started to sprinkle with about a mile left to go and we did get rained on for a short while, but no harm done! We all still had a great day.

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Chelsea

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