mountains and mushrooms

On Sunday, Britt and I climbed 12,504' Grayrock Peak:



Huh, I wonder why it's called that? :-) It's actually a semi-detached point at the southeast end of a long, flat lump of rock called Graysill Mountain, connected by a skinny ridge. (In this photo, I'm standing at the end of Graysill looking at the ridge and the Grayrock summit.) We had actually tried to climb it from the east last year; we'd gotten lost and ended up wandering around a cliffy steep face that was no fun at all before picking our way down again. This time we drove around to the southwest and hiked up an old, closed logging road that eventually petered out into a trail, which eventually disappeared entirely, but by that time we were above treeline and just aimed for the high point.

( More pictures )

The slopes of Graysill from where we parked around 10,200 to a bit above treeline were thick with mushrooms. This has been a banner year in Colorado for wild mushrooms. Last Sunday we went on a dayhike specifically to look for and collect them, and we came back with something more than 20 pounds of mostly Hawk's Wings and King Boletes (as well as a few random samples of other things to try or investigate); on our way down from the peak, we collected Saffron Milkcaps (Lactarius deliciosus) and King Boletes (Boletus edulis). Our dehydrator has been running nonstop, and we've been eating mushrooms with nearly every meal, yum!

( Mushroom pictures )

The weather was pretty marginal all day, but it didn't start actually raining until we got back to the vehicle. (And then it hailed!)