After seeing me go on a few more adventures hikes, Brittany expressed interest in coming along for one. I looked through the map and found a great hike to Emerald Lake that passed by Dream lake that was only a little over 3 miles and around 600 feet of elevation. Brittany had a decent amount of gear from other adventures and didn't require much to get her ready for the trip ahead. I also had been slowly getting better gear as well learning from every time I went out. 

The hike was pretty uneventful, which was nice. We got there rather early, so we nearly had the trail to ourselves. We slowly made our way through the forest to our destination. Once we got to Emerald Lake, we had to go up this little hill before we could head down to the lake. What we did not realize is that the slope was deflecting all the wind up and over us and that wind was brutal. 

Brittany had a little thermometer with a wind chill calculator keychain on her backpack, the temperature was 13 degrees, and we guessed the wind was around 20mph, that put the wind chill down to about -5 degrees. That's the coldest weather either of us had experienced. Brittany stayed back, and I went down to take some pictures, I lasted about 10 minutes. 

We warmed up in the direct sunlight on the hike out. Across the valley, a massive cloud system rolled in making for some epic scenery. Once we got back to the trailhead, there was quite the commotion. It turns out that there were two hockey teams heading up to Emerald Lake for a game. That would have been pretty epic to photograph.

Photography Date: 12-4-16
Writing Date: 3-6-18