It's a Loch Like Snowshoeing

I would have to say that Colorado is a very proud state. Spending the last two weeks back home (technical term) in the midwest, wifey and I were lucky enough to have brought back two siblings in the car with us to the front range. While home, we managed to see the sun twice (!) through the pea-soup haze that constitutes a skyline there, and were more than excited to get back to the land of vitamin D. Every time we come back home (actual term) to CO we are reminded of how much our spirits are tethered to being able to wake with sun on our faces and be able to watch snow actually melt in the afternoons even though it is still January.

Considering all of these nice bullet points from the Colorado tourist board pamphlet, we are also quite fond of getting lost in the mountains. And in particular we made a point to take our visiting siblings down to Rocky Mountain with some snowshoes in hand (foot?) to enjoy the views. We arose earlyish, made some sammiches and within two hours were standing at the Glacier Gorge Trailhead fumbling with rubber latches and bootheels, smiling back at the sunshine warm on our foreheads, excited to earn our lunches.

Our siblings being flatlanders (part of being proud of your state means holding onto derisive terms for the citizens of other states) we chose a moderate hike for day up the Loch Vale lake. The whole hike rounded out at roughly six miles and about 1000 feet in elevation gain which seemed the perfect balance of challenge and reward, considering the fantastic spectacle of the Loch Vale awaiting us.

What was especially interesting was that we had spent some time this past July on this very trail when all of the extended family (including our now visiting siblings) were out to see us and we hoofed up to Alberta Falls. It was neat to hear our second-time visitors comment on how different and calmer the hiked seemed this time around, with it slowly falling snow and lack of 1000 tourists on the trail in front of us. This may be the best endorsement of all for getting out on a pair of snowshoes: landscape that was crowded, huffy and loud just months prior feels starkly different in the cold, almost like you've just stepped through the wardrobe and into Narnia.

We managed to get up the falls again without too much problem, and drank while considering the above paragraph. Turning uphill to continue, the bane of snowshoeing reared its head: untrustworthy trails. While I've been out in the snow dozens of times over the last few years, the trick of reading man-made snow trails (or lack thereof amongst the drifts) is still a challenge to me. Subsequently, we took a handful of U-turns in order to find our way from the Falls up the large trail junction that eventually pointed us to the Loch. Trudging up this last portion (which in the winter mainly meant walking directly up Icy Brook) we eventually discovered a whole new weather system sitting upon the lake. With the winds blowing hard in our reddened faces and squinted eyes, a few pictures were snapped and we then retreated to the cover of the trees to have lunch.

Traipsing down the hills in large bounds with our large footprints, we eventually found our way down to the car again without incident with a trip time ranging on four hours. We toasted the event with warm drinks back in Estes before rolling down the Big Thompson Canyon, everyone slouched with sleep except the driver (harumph).
 

It felt good to be really home, and even better to have some snow in my boots. Does it really get any better than those two things?