Hike #33 2021

June 20th, 2021

Early morning starts have become routine, especially on the weekends. Scott and I love to start our day outdoors watching the sunrise over the mountains. Since the snow is almost gone on a majority of trails in this area, we’ve now began our list of high elevation hikes that we would like to complete before summer ends.

With us on this adventure were Amanda and Lucky. Amanda and I were roommates throughout college and have been best friends for many years. Lucky is still with us but is heading home this afternoon.

We woke up bright and early this morning to start our hike at 6am. We didn’t really have a destination for this hike but we wanted to see the lake and, of course, wildflowers. Unfortunately it was very windy for most of our hike, though we didn’t let that stop us from enjoying ourselves.

If you look closely at the picture above, you will see some yellow flowers. These are commonly known as glacier lilies and are some of the first flowers to pop up after spring snowmelt.

Fun fact: bears love eating the bulbs of these flowers. Elk and Deer also enjoy eating them.

The flowers in the images above and below are known as American globeflowers. They are in the buttercup family and found in high-mountain bogs. Similar to the glacier lily, they are one of the first flowers to pop up after spring snowmelt.

We hiked a total of 7.50 miles with 1304 ft elevation gain.