Trying to get one more adventure in before the end of the year, Jesse and I decided to head back up to Mills lake to see what it looks like in the winter. We visited this lake once before in the summer and were very inexperienced, but this time we had a better idea of what we were doing. On our way to the trailhead, we had to stop at Moraine Park to take in the morning light. To our surprise, right behind us ended up being a heard of Elk.
We made it to the trailhead and began our hike. It's always tricky for me to plan for the clothes I should wear on the hike, the weather is so cold, but the energy you exert to hike gets you so warm. It seems that layers are always the key. We made our way to the lake and to say the least it was quite surreal. At this point, I had seen frozen lakes, but those were lakes I had only ever seen frozen. This was the first lake that I had seen as water and now ice.
We explored the area a bit and decided to push on to Jewel Lake right behind Mills and then try to get back to Black Lake. The advantage of winter hiking is that you can travel right across the lake and save the time hiking around. The trek was pretty easy to Jewel, but getting back to Black lake would be more difficult. The snow packed trail quickly began to run out and we started to post hole deeper and deeper. At one point I jumped of the trail and nearly made it up to my waist in snow. We needed snowshoes to get any farther so we decided to turn around.
On our way back, we ran into an old man wearing nothing more than running pants and a long sleeve jersey unzipped halfway down his chest. He looked to be in his mid 60's and was just out from some trail running. I was impressed. He informed us of a winter shortcut back to the trailhead that has you descend the mountain over a frozen creek. This shortcut was only open during the winter as the snow and ice protected the ground from high foot traffic. The old man continued on his jog further into the park, and we parted ways back towards the truck. By the time we made it back to the trailhead, we had crossed paths with the old man again, but he had covered quite a bit more ground than we did. Makes you think about how you treat your body and how I would like to be that healthy when I'm older.
Photography Date: 12-30-16
Writing Date: 3-6-18
