Greyrock Mountain - 7,613 ft

Date: 5-6-06

Climbers: George Barnes, Nate Stutzke, Aaron Reid

Route:  South Face, Class 4+

RT distance:  7.0 miles

Elevation gain:  2,100 feet

USGS Quadrangle:  Poudre Park

Trip Report:

The weather forecast in the mountains looked mediocre for the weekend, so Aaron, Nate and I nixed our plans for the Sangre de Cristos and headed to Fort Collins for Greyrock.  Our intent was to ascend the steep south face of the peak, and then come down the class 2 trail.  Thanks to MarkDB and Greg D. for the beta on this ascent route.

After getting a 9:30AM alpine start from the trailhead we made our way up the gentle trail and we were soon greeted by an imposing view of Greyrock's south face.  Our route, in green below, cruised up some easy ledges on the face, and mixed in a few steeper climbing sections.  Once again I enjoyed my FiveTen Guide Tennies, and had no problem walking up the slabs.

After some interesting class 3 scrambling we reached the route's crux, a lovely off-width crack in a left facing dihedral.  We had schlepped a rope and pro up to this point, mainly to get in shape for summer.  The route looked a little spicy, so we opted to rope up.  In hindsight, I'd argue that this is pretty stiff class 4, and I know I made at least a few low fifth class moves.  The crack was wide enough that protecting it was pretty amusing/challenging.  I got a few pieces in, but they were all rather dubious.  To quote Jeff Lowe, "You know, all this gear is mostly for show anyhow. Real security comes from not falling off."  Works for me.  For anyone looking to do this route, the rope was probably unnecessary (but comforting), and we did enjoy the security of sticky rock shoes.

After the crux pitch the summit was just a short distance away.  The remaining climbing to the summit has a couple short stretches of class 3-4, but nothing as difficult as the crux off-width.

On the summit we were surprised to find a small pond (not to mention trees!).  After a few pictures and handfuls of corn nuts and gummie bears, we headed down.

On the hike out we opted for the meadow trail variation.  This added about a mile to our round trip, and a few extra vertical feet due to the rolling nature of the trail.