A few days ago, 7/26/22, Mason and I did Grays Peak – he did Grays and I did Grays & Grays. Not to be same same and do Grays & Torreys, I invented my own double. Here’s what happened…

First, if you are driving to the trailhead, heed the words about taking an appropriate vehicle. We drove my tricked out Jeep and were so happy to have done so! The road is a tire popper for sure!

This is hands down my favorite hike of the Summer. The bowl is truly beautiful, but it is also shockingly quiet and filled with more wildflowers than I’ve ever seen, and more wildlife than I’ve ever seen on a 14er trail. We made up our own names for some of the wildflowers because we had never seen several of them before. We also made friends with several different mountain goat families, including their kids. It was interesting to see the lower land goats without their winter coats and higher land ones still half molting.

Our adventure…

Mason and I began this hike like most others. Good pace, happy morning moods, etc. But about an hour in he was really struggling, mostly mentally. He decided he was completely done at 2.25 miles in and there was no more pushing that I could possibly do to get him to continue. So, I left him to work out his whatever while I carried on. These hikes are not simply “let’s go the the amusement park and spend time together” but rather much deeper. They push us as a duo but also force each of us (everyone, not just the two of us) to face our demons, whatever they may be that day. I have my own and he has his, and on that day we each needed our own space to work through our own.

So, I hiked on and looked back every now and then to see if he was still there, until I no longer had view of where I left him.

I submitted by myself. It was cool but mostly sad. Yay, me. But mostly sadness that we had not done it together. So I sat and ate my lunch all alone (there was absolutely no one else up at the top except for an annoying fly) and then started to go back down. On my way down I ran into a couple that had been really struggling to get up, mostly “blue shirt guy”. I stopped to talk with him for a few minutes, encouraging him to keep going, explaining that I had left my son waaaaayyyyy down there. He said “is that him?” Pointing to a person sitting not too far down the way.

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It was Mason! He has been climbing all by himself all that time! He rallied, overcame his shizz, and found his own fortitude and grit and WAS DOING IT!! I couldn’t believe it! I told blue shirt guy that I’d be right back. I was going down to meet him and then come back up to summit with everyone, blue shirt guy included!

And so I did. I walked down, found Mason, contained my proud mama tears, and up we went together! The second summit was the BEST SUMMIT!

We stayed together the whole way down and had a lot of fun along the way. Punchy laughter, cursing at attack rocks, chatting with marmots and goats, you name it.

And there you have it, my Grays & Grays trip!