This trail defines a challenge. We had to really dig deep for perseverance! We had perfect weather, the right gear and plenty of food and water! We where so excited to get started on this beast! We had the trail to ourselves most of the day. We said hello to two groups of people coming down and we where more than halfway there. The initial steep climb didn't scare us and than just the beautiful meadows and the stream with the waterfall was beautiful. We where told we where making great time for being more than halfway there!! Than the last three miles almost made us stop and turn around. We kept saying why didn't we read this the warning about how grueling this was-strenuous-now we know what strenuous really means!! It took us a LONG time to get to the summit. The last miles where painful!!! We made it past our deadline but we couldn't not summit there was no way we would ever be on this old Greyback-not this season-maybe not ever!! so we did what we said we wouldn't do and that's summit past 2p.m. but in the end it was worth it! The feeling of conquering our exhaustion is empowering that no money can buy!! And so we headed down the trail fast but careful. We came across some deer and after that we moved. We where equipped with headlamps we knew we would be in darkness the last two miles. We made it back home exhausted and asking ourselves WHY do we do this to ourselves? The answer is simple BECAUSE WE CAN!!!!