A Tale of Grit and Watermelon.
You know when you see a mountain and you keep thinking about it and knowing that someday, if at all possible, you will go back and climb it? That was Grays for me.
2023
Heath and I first stumbled across it one magical summer evening. We were on our way home from California and for some reason ended up on a backroad heading deep into the Colorado Front Range mountains. I don’t remember what we were planning to do, but I do remember the creek we drove in for a while till it was no longer driveable, then reversing back down said creek and trying an actual road that wasn’t much better. A thousand bumps later we suddenly popped out above the tree line, crashed and bounced past an abandoned mine, traversed a wide meadow absolutely loaded with wildflowers and mountain sheep and eventually ended up on top of the world. Or what felt like the top of the world. It was actually Argentine Pass. And it was stunning! We stepped out into the thin 13,200 ft elevation air and started walking up. There was a path that led to a nearby summit and we followed it, admiring the phenomenal views. We had the place entirely to ourselves, unless you count the sheep. They were all over, and the ground was littered with white tufts of wool. It was clearly their home. The sky was partly cloudy and had that brilliant quality to it that comes from clear mountain air. I can feel it as I write. Pure magic.
Mt Edwards, when we finally stood on its windy top, was breathtaking. It was also at 13,800 and we both felt great. Granted, we hadn’t really been working up a sweat or anything, but obviously altitude wasn’t gonna immediately send us falling over in a dizzy faint.
And then our eyes fell upon the next peak, which appeared to be only a short traverse away. Of course, there wasn’t just a super good trail between them, lots of sheep trails, and they seemed to go over a rather knife edge pass, but for the first time in our lives a 14er was almost within reach. Yay, a stones throw. Not like we’d ever spent much time thinking about 14ers or anything, it just hadn’t really floated onto our radar, but suddenly, there it was.
Heath of course was all about dashing over there and bagging his 14er. I on the other hand said I didn’t trust the altitude wouldn’t kill me halfway over the ridge, so he should probably hoof it alone while I waited with the sheep on Mt Edwards and spent quality time eating the salt n vinegar chips in their hugely inflated bag. It was after all 5pm and the sun wasn’t gonna stay up forever. There was just a chance that he’d make it if he didn’t have me to hamper him.
Off he flew, leaping like a wounded gazelle over the rocks and down the slope to the first, second and finally the third false summit of Edwards. Then he was on the skinny pass and I lost sight of him.
I sat for what seemed like ages on that mountain top. The sheep, realizing I was harmless, hopped right around me and made me vaguely nervous. I sat till I began to feel like my six year old self, waiting on dad to come out of the grain elevator and back to the truck, wondering if I would stay in the truck forever and he wouldn’t ever come back. I might even die. But at 39 I was old enough to be reasonable and enjoy the peace. Heath had said he would turn around after 45 minutes no matter where he was, so if I added 15 minutes to that since he never can actually stop when the clock says to, and then add extra time for coming back when he was a bit more tired, I probably wouldn’t be up there all night.
Meanwhile, on the rocky slopes of Grays, Heath was realizing that summiting was a loosing battle. It’s actually a lot farther than it looks between the two, and altitude really is a bear. He piddled out when he was absolutely positive he had hit 14,000, but upon checking saw it was only 13,800. The exact same elevation as his resting, munching wife was at. And all that scrambling, panting work for nothing. Super annoying! The trip back was apparently much slower, with something like 10 steps walked then 10 seconds to breathe.
He came back with altitude grumps, yes that is a thing, and we both made a note that we were coming back when we had time and Lord willing were going to summit. The goal was there, we just had to reach it.
July 2026
Our tired eyes gazed out at the dark Laramie, WY landing strip. Dark because we had sat there so long that the one or two people who had roused to see our plane land and bring the fuel truck had long since gone home to their beds. Or so it seemed. We too wanted our beds. Badly! Our easy flight from Watertown to Denver had turned into a marathon of late starts, circling due to weather, landing in Laramie cause of weather, and then just plain staying in Laramie. For ages! I kept explaining to myself that this was a first world problem. I was extremely lucky to be on a plane at all. That this too would pass. That the collage age girls in the seat in front of me were not deserving of terrible things and it absolutely was not an option to all at once hit them. Or stand up and yell. Or ask their mom how she could look at them proudly when they were clearly such jerks. Yes. I was just that horrible. Tired, hungry and horrible. But eventually we were given the go ahead to return to Denver and off we roared in our ancient tin tube. All 13 rows of us. The bump of the Denver tarmac was music to the ears, and we silently groused that we had spent as much time in that airplane as if we had flown to London. Seriously.
Meanwhile, our friends from MB and LA had arrived and were pacing the airport waiting for us. We had had the very last minute idea to take another shot at Grays and of course called our two good friends who are always game to tackle crazy schemes with us. We sent Andrew to Fox Rental to pick up our prepaid car, only to realize we had booked it for the wrong days. Just great. That was actually not entirely Heath’s fault, as we found out later that the website pre populates weird dates when you press the Book Now button. Wiley little buggers.
We landed at ten minutes till midnight and I had to quickly try to book us hotel rooms since obviously we wouldn’t be camping on Peru Creek Rd as was our plan. We also were on a fairly tight budget, so it was the Econo Lodge for us! Not even that bad, tho the beds were hard as rocks and you almost needed a magnifying glass to see the bath towels. But it was cool, smelled ok, and was a grand place to kick up our feet. We slept good.
We rose with the sun and headed off towards Keystone and the trailhead leading to Argentine Pass. Our plan was to climb the pass, summit Mt Edwards again, cross to Grays and then decide if we continued on to Torreys (another nearby 14er) or just descended. A quick Walmart stop loaded our backpacks with edibles and we were good.
Spirits were high as we parked at the trailhead, which sits at an elevation of 11,000.
Heath and Sharon were a touch carsick from the road over, but we knew it would pass. The trail starts as a nice gravel path, crosses an unbelievably blue/white creek and then starts its ascent, winding through pines and ultimately pops out above the tree line. It was about at this point that altitude sickness reared its ugly head.
A condensed version of what I have since learned about altitude sickness.
- It’s dictated almost solely by genetics.
- It’s completely indiscriminate between fit or unfit people. In fact fit people can get it more severely as they often try to “push through”.
- Drinking plenty of fluids doesn’t prevent it, but it gives you a much larger cushion of safety when you’re puking your guts out before dehydration makes you even sicker.
Suffice it to say, altitude sickness is a very real thing and will effectively send four people straight back down a mountain and in fact, straight to a clinic. It is also highly annoying for the affected person, as there is literally nothing you can do about it. We were all disappointed, but also knew it was a very real possibility it would happen. It’s life.
The Keystone Clinic administered oxygen and anti nausea medication, comforted our worried minds, told us it was totally normal to puke and puke in an astonishing fashion, and sent us on our way with the mandate to take it really easy for a few days.
We found some supper to take back to our campsite, and proceeded to have a quiet evening in the woods, eating our not so good food and having good visits. We’d go to bed early, and then if the night went good, our patient would continue to rest while the rest of us rose at 3:00am to do an abbreviated version of the hike. This was the plan before our campsite was invaded by a large group of cheerful people. People who were so excited to be camping! And it was so much FUN! Their camp was next to the noisy creek, so to hear each other they had to really raise their voices. It was, well, funny. “Let’s play a game” we heard from their direction, which was soon followed by shouting and the crashing of limbs, and finally headlamps casting busy shadows on our tents as they dashed through our campsite in a mad race. Suffice it to say that between that and my niggling worry about leaving Sharon alone in the morning, and probably altitude also, since that can break up sleep pretty bad, I was in no state to climb a couple of mountains at 3am. Instead we waved the guys off, snuggled deeper into our sleeping bags and traded a morning of labor for a morning of reading, sitting with our feet in the creek, reading some more, visiting, and taking a leisurely walk. Quality friend time with that underlying feeling of defeat.
The guys returned shortly after lunch looking a little ragged around the edges and limp, but proclaiming they had had a grand time. We quickly packed up camp and headed back to Denver to eat at our favorite cheesy restaurant, Casa Bonita, where they serve wretched food and have funny dinner shows that include cliff divers.
If you think that went off without a hitch, think again. We got there and saw long queues of people in front. Upon speaking with the maitre de, we find out it is now reservation only and the next opening is in 3 weeks. Okay. Next? Ethiopian, we decided, and proceeded to find a highly rated one nearby. As we arrived we realized it was actually just a fast food stand in a market, not at all the typical experience of sharing you ought to get with Ethiopian. Eventually we found a really good option in a scuzzy part of town and proceeded to feed our faces with great gusto.
Andrew had an early flight out the next day, but the rest of us had the morning to kill in Denver. We just couldn’t get inspired with what to do but then Sharon said Botanical Gardens and that seemed decent. We spent the morning wandering around but it was fierce hot and honestly, didn’t look that great. A lot like home to be honest. Weeds and stuff.
And then we left and that was that.
Sept 2026
“We are not trying again” I told Heath when we got home in July. “We gave it a good stab and now it’s time to move on.” He can never rest if there is an unfinished goal so I’m quite sure it bothered him more than me that I hadn’t conquered my mountain. The sordid little tale of all our woes also piqued Zach’s interest and he suggested we check tickets for Labor Day. He’d go too and see if he fell victim to the thin air. Before I could so much as sing out, they had tickets bought. Ok. Here goes round three.
Zach didn’t go. He decided to visit a friend instead, which was fine, but Friday evening found Heath and I strapped into airplane seats again, this time giving little shrieks of delight over a video of a dog running down a hallway with booties on and one bootie went flying into the air. Yes, our seat mate was a very proud doggy mom. I’m sure he was a very good dog. I’m sure we could have watched videos of him the entire flight, but my face was starting to feel strained with so much enthusiasm. I also know that she was a very friendly lady and super easy to visit with.
We arrived in Denver 30 minutes early, and that in itself seemed like a good omen. Of course we ate up all that extra time waiting on our rental car shuttle, but one mustn’t be too picky. The same econo lodge gave us a good night’s sleep, and Walmart once again supplied us with food.
We got to the trailhead around 9:00 and proceeded to attack the mountain. We took a slightly different path from the AllTrails one, this time a shorter path straight up the side of Grays. And I mean straight up. It was a little astonishing how slow one had to go so as not to get ahead of one’s breathing, but we chugged our way up. Heath occasionally suggested that his muscles might atrophy if I made him go any slower, but I didn’t feel it was a real threat. 15 hours after taking off in Sioux Falls, we stood on the Summit of Grays, gazing miles and miles in every direction and feeling incredibly lucky and blessed. That’s when we saw it. A big juicy watermelon being divided and conquered by a large group of people. Suddenly and without warning we were very extremely hungry for watermelon!
The crowd, if you can call it that, up there was a fine group of people. A hike like that is a great leveler. It’s a rare creature that comes to the top at great speed, but instead everyone is doing the high altitude creep. Slowly but surely, taking nice lungfuls of air, they come and stand by the rock pile that marks the top. We sat and chatted, sharing stories and congratulating one another. A dad with 5 or so kids, the girls in long dresses, were resting on rocks. A young man came over and said shyly that he had never hiked this high before, never even been this high except in an airplane. “Same” I enthused. When I asked how he was feeling he replied “Great, I mean nauseous but great.”Watermelon guy came over and shared of his abundance, saying he usually carried a watermelon when he hiked. I mean, I guess I had never actually thought of that, but now I’ll always wonder if I should throw one of them in along with my trail mix, tinned ham and granola bars.
As we sat there, feeling weird from the abrupt altitude change I looked over at Torreys. I saw the 500 or so feet of elevation we’d have to descend then regain, and the imperfect route back to Mt. Edwards, which was our chosen descent route and suddenly I wasn’t very interested in Torreys. I had come to summit Grays and I had done it. It would be a pretty long hike back down via Edwards, and that seemed like enough for a day. Oddly Heath didn’t argue, but instead agreed that it wasn’t that big of a deal to nix it. We tried to pin down exactly how we were feeling in that thin air, but couldn’t. I didn’t have a headache, stomach ache, or anything. I just felt wrong. Heath had a headache. Sitting was fine, but it still felt buzzy or tingly or dizzyish.
Satiated by fresh fruit, we headed off down the faint trail and knife edge ridge that led to Edwards. No one else was going that way, and we had the trail to ourselves. It was definitely scrambly at times, and several times I had to remain totally focused on the path dead ahead of me so I didn’t freak out. I was just dizzy enough that it was a bit of a challenge. Heath kept getting mysterious waves of feeling yuck so our progress wasn’t exactly zippy. It took a long, long time till we finally crested the last rock pile and saw the long awaited summit. The wind had picked up and was really howling by that time, so we huddled on a rock with our windbreakers on and snacked and watched sheep. It was cozy and wild at the same time.
From then on it was easy street. Well, there was a mile or two of loose rocks just waiting to turn your ankle, but the trail was well marked and the end was in sight. We’d been pretty quiet while ascending and I noticed that by 13000 ft I was feeling way better. I hadn’t even realized how gross I’d felt. By 12500 I was, unfortunately, chattering up a blue streak and continued till we reached the car. All those thoughts I had held in due to lack of energy just had to come pouring out. It took ages, hiking out. Just ages. At least that’s how it felt. I felt absolutely exhilarated that I had met my goal, and absolutely tired from the nine hours of hiking.
Our home was an apartment in Keystone, but before crashing we had to get supper. A lot of places weren’t open, but we found a little Mexican place where I ordered a massive plate of food. I was just tearing into my enchilada when Heath said, “I was thinking we’d do that Holy Cross hike tomorrow.” I paused mid bite. “The what?” “Oh you know, that Holy Cross or something 14er that is apparently one of the prettiest hikes.”
NO. No no no and no. Hard pass.
“You aren’t serious,” I said. “Is it not enough to have bagged my mountain? Isn’t there some tiny hike we could rather do like to a lake or something? Flat? 10 feet max altitude gain?”
“Ok well it might be closed anyway cause of fires,” he replied. “In that case we could do the Decalibron. That’s an easy one. It’s four peaks in one loop. If we started at 5am we could be done really early in the day.”
“Four really low peaks?”
“Well, they are all over 14.”
This is when I started to do some inane giggling, that major overtired, irrational stuff. I also felt tears threatening to burst and begged him to please just hush about hiking till my food was done.
“Ok” he said cheerfully, “It’s not a big deal cause you only initially climb 2000 or so feet….”
“STOP!”
We ate. We talked about gentle easy things. We left with me determined to find an alternate hike. Something fun but gentle.
I sat on the couch and searched AllTrails, but honestly, nothing looked appealing. I slowly cleaned out my backpack, which had seemed like an insurmountable task before supper, and rinsed the yucky water bags. Finally the shower was empty and I luxuriated in the hot steamy spray and slowly life seeped back into my body. It was, after all, not yet 9:00pm, so that gave hours of resting before 5. And truly, there hadn’t been anything else that looked like fun.
“Let’s do it” I announced, stepping out of the bathroom. “Let’s go for the gold and grab 5 14ers right away. I can’t think of anything better to do. But let’s not leave till 5:30.” (Had to get a tiny win in there somewhere). I also had to promise that I wasn’t being coerced or hoodwinked into the thing, and we happily fell asleep, ready to conquer tomorrow when it came.
It was with great surprise I noticed my legs weren’t really stiff in the morning. I had also slept fantastic, but Heath claimed he hadn’t. We left the building in the darkness and headed off to the Decalibron.
The trailhead at Kite Lake was full to overflowing by the time we reached it, and we were obliged to park a half mile or so down the road. A continuous stream of vehicles was coming in after us, so things seemed like they could get crowded. This whole area is dotted with closed mines, with shafts disappearing into the mountainsides and tumble down buildings in heaps here and there. The valley is a bowl surrounded by tall peaks and it seemed like the whole area was seeping with little springs. Here and there a larger waterfall tumbled over the rocks, and thousands of little conies, aka pikas, squeaked and leapt around on the rocks. There weren’t many wildflowers, but a succulent looking plant all over had turned a vivid red with autumn. The sky was blue, but rain was forecast for afternoon so we didn’t want to linger.
AllTrails gave opposing ideas on which way to do the loop. Some said to go clockwise cause then you got your biggest climb, Mt. Democrat over with on fresh legs. Others said to go counterclockwise, cause then you climbed instead of slid down the loose shale up Mt Bross. We both knew we hated slithering around on shale, so chose to start with Bross. This is technically an off limit summit, as it is privately owned by a mining company. It also has large hiking trails leading to the summit so go figure.
We started up the shaley slope, realizing that actually our calves were rather sore. We also realized that day 2 of high altitude was 100% better than day one and our spirits were high. Heath still had a residual headache, but I could feel nothing that indicated great height. It really is almost as yuck climbing shale as descending shale, and we were grateful to near the top. We met a man with a very enthusiastic dog coming down, having finished the loop already. They had started in the middle of the night. I commented that his dog seemed a fair shot more energetic than he did and he muttered “I just want to get down. I am so over this.” Sadly he still had 2 miles of shale ahead…
The summit at Bross was nearly empty, as clearly most of the crowds chose to circle the other way, and plenty had come just to climb Mt Democrat and not do the loop. We snacked a little, enjoyed the illicit pleasure of being where we ought not, and then set off for Lincoln. The path over there is a veritable highway. You only descend to around 13,800 and the views are phenomenal on all sides.
Mt Lincoln was our favorite. It’s has a rocky little top with some places to stand and take ridiculously dangerous photos. Or that’s how it looked to our old eyes when the college kids were taking turns pretending they were mountain goats. We spent some time exploring just below the summit and found the foundations of an old mining building built right on a cliff edge. An old burn pit was there full of rusted tin cans and nearby were several caved in mine shafts.
Mt Cameron is technically not a separate mountain from Lincoln, as rules say there has to be at least 300ft of elevation drop between peaks and this one fell just short. We climbed to its bare flat top, found it a bit underwhelming and turned our attention to the large descent and subsequent climb on tired legs up to Mt Democrat. It really did look quite challenging at that point, but one foot in front of the other and you always make it. It was also getting a bit interesting from the aspect that we had more people to chat with, saw some struggling with the altitude and in general had lots of great folks to commiserate with.
The climb up Mt Democrat is mostly picking your way over medium and large rocks, some loose and wobbly, and trying to pick out the cairns marking the trail. Rock pile cairns blend in awfully well with rock covered slopes. It was past noon by this time, and starting to feel like a big day. A big day that wasn’t nearly over. But eventually even that summit came and we lounged on top, drinking in the views of distant valleys and lakes and visiting with a young asian couple who had driven in from sea level for a quick weekend of hiking. Quite a few of us out there doing that. Apparently we’re not the only gamblers around. On our way down we came across a young boy collapsed on the trail with his mom and friend cheerfully visiting beside him. I had observed them for a while, and it certainly didn’t look dangerous or anything. If you have ever hiked with a certain kind of nine year old, you know these type of collapses. I have. It seemed, and mom confirmed, that he was definitely feeling the altitude, but also had just plain decided hiking was tough. She’d coax him up, he’d walk 10 steps and then sit down. I think she swung between laughing, worry, anger and just chilling pretty regular. We walked with them a fair ways and managed to distract him with other stories for surprisingly long, but eventually that wasn’t enough and his flopbot kicked in again. We left them to it.
We spent some time listening to Sydney talk about her recent four year stint in India studying the teachings of ancient philosophers. It sounded rather boring to me, but not to her. Each to his own. She was waiting on her parents, who we met further down. When I asked if they belonged to Sydney, her dad wondered if she’d been up there meditating or doing yoga.
What is it about the last few miles of a hike. Why do they stretch forever onward. I had a flashback of the guy we met earlier who was “so over this” and chuckled. I was too. Heath was going so slow I told him my muscles were threatening to atrophy. He didn’t seem any more concerned than I had been yesterday when he told me that. He did have an old ankle sprain that was giving him small fits. I spent quite a while talking about and suggesting we climb Beirstadt the next day, but Heath informed me his ankle couldn’t do it. Deep down I knew I was too weary to do it anyway, but I needed to act like it was a good option.
We got back to Keystone before the Crepe Shack ran out of crepes, which was our intent. They were as scrumptious as we hoped, but we were tired. A deep, bone weary tired that made us grumpy and unreasonable. I announced I was gonna have a very long shower, possibly 25 minutes. When I stepped out ages later, Heath announced “4 minutes and 27 seconds”. Don’t be afraid to have me over if you have a water shortage. We both could hardly stay awake and it was only 6:30, but eventually 9:00 rolled around and we could call it day.
And now that is done. Two days, six summits. Terrific much work, but even better fun. We stopped to play a quick round of mini golf and eat at Texas Roadhouse in Denver on our way out the next day. Once again the flight was early, and so ended my favorite weekend of the summer.
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