Blue Lakes and Snowball Fights

6-26-16

DAY 8

We had to rise and shine (and pack up camp) early today so that we could reserve a spot at the Telluride Town Park and then hit the trail for a big hike. We rolled into Telluride and ended up getting site #37 which was the best site in the campground. Hooray! There was space to put up our hammocks and tents and play in the mountain stream.

Next, we drove to the trail head for Blue Lakes. We were told that it was an 8.6 mile hike, but it ended up being 11 miles. Things were looking bleak in the beginning - Maya was out of steam from the beginning, but she was able to rally. Since we knew it was going to be a big hike, I thought we should all wear the super hero shirts that my mom made us for when we would need to summon super hero strength. We counted the number of comments we got about them and James and I won the guessing game - we got 10. Watching James and Papa have snowball fights in the summer was definitely a highlight.

The hike was tough - lots of elevation gain, frigid stream crossings (Papa was really funny when we was crossing the streams - he doesn't like cold water), and snow field crossings. However, the reward of getting to see the turquoise blue lakes in the high peaks of the Rockies was so worth it! We weren't sure if we were going to go to the 2nd and 3rd lakes because Maya and James were out of gas, but they decided to go for it. It was a steep climb to the next lakes, but Mama had brought some emergency Gu for just an occasion like this. We made it to the 3rd lake at about 12,000 ft, took some self-timer super hero photos, then turned around and headed back down, chatting with lots of nice folks along the way. I loved this hike! It was so beautiful (from the mountains to the trees to the wildflowers) - I took about a bazillion pictures.