Pretty Little Lake and a Magnificent Moose in the Colorado State Forest: Lake Agnes

It's not as pretty as it could be on a sunny day but it's still a nice lake and luckily I've seen it a couple times on a beautiful day.  I've got great memories to go with it.  The first is hiking around it with my parents dog Lunk (part Lhasa, part Poodle) in my backpack since his little legs were too short to do the bouldering.  The other is hiking around it with my two dogs when one of them (the one you would have expected to do this) fell off a cliff above us into the water.   We didn't think it was going to end well but thankfully he wasn't hurt but I'm pretty sure his pride was.  And lastly, this was the first stop on a girls weekend to Steamboat which unfortunately has been too long in recreating.

The hike is short but steep getting up to the lake.  If you want to hike around it you should be prepared for a lot of bouldering.

The good news with the bouldering is that you have a high chance of spotting some marmot if you take the time to pick your head up.  Be careful that you stop walking or you are going to trip!  The picture below is a little like a Where's Waldo book....except Where's the Marmot?

We crossed a pretty stream and had a view of a nice waterfall across the way.  That's where C is pointing.

Tall Chiming Bells:

Mountain Laurel:

Spot another marmot:

Columbine with Nohku Crags in the background:

I just had to take a selfie by my selfie since my family took one without me.  I 'might' have been taking too long taking those awful flower pictures as they call them.

Indian Paintbrush:

Early Larkspur:

The icing on the cake for me was spotting this moose heading back to our campsite on the road that takes you up to Lake Agnes.  Typically if you head up to the Colorado State Forest you get to see a moose but it's never a guarantee!  I love looking at these ungainly creatures!!

Hike: Lake Agnes
Trails Used:  Lake Agnes in the Colorado State Forest

Distance: 2.87 miles
Difficulty: Easy but steep
Overall average: 1.6 mph
Overall Time: 1 hr, 49 min
Total Ascent: 633 ft.

The contradictions of nature (snow vs. the mothy moths!)

We started off with hail on Friday.  That's always a welcome weather occurrence once I have my garden in the ground (do you sense the sarcasm?).  Luckily, nothing was too advanced to have sustained much damage.  My little girl had fun running around and collecting the hail!

 It's amazing that we had a pretty nice day on Saturday until the afternoon when the rain started during their late soccer games.  Unfortunately, the weather forecasters were right and we woke up on Mother's Day with a couple of inches of snow!  I sent the kids off this morning in their boots and winter coats.

 The garden is now covered in hopes that whatever is planted will survive the deep freeze expected tonight!  (24 degrees)!!

 I will remember you fondly my sweet little columbine!

Funny that I observed this guy hanging out in my house this morning!  Maybe the deep freeze will do something good and kill these suckers off for the year and I won't have to deal with them for the next month!

Pack Trail

 Took the kids for a hike up in Rist Canyon this weekend.  On the GPS map it is called the Pack Trail but I'm not sure if that is correct or not.  We didn't really have a destination in mind...just someplace relatively close and somewhere I could find some good landscaping rocks.  We found both!  It's a good thing it was close since we went up a supposedly easy jeep trail (in my Dodge truck) and ended up turning around so we didn't get stuck out there.  That definitely added some time to our trip!

Our hike started late (11:45) so we decided to break for lunch before we even took a step.  This large rock was the perfect spot.

We saw some beautiful wildflowers.

I don't know what these flowers were going to look like but I like their bursting sack.

I liked this thistle's geometry and color.  Very cool.  I wish I could have gotten my camera to give me crisp focus on that last photo but it was not meant to be!

The bugs were amazing!  I can't believe my camera wouldn't focus on the picture above but gave me this fantastic one of the ant below.

This paper wasp next was just sitting in the middle of the trail.  Good thing we didn't step on it!

No hike would be fit for kids unless we had water to walk through, caves and rocks to climb on.

Hike: Pack Trail

Trails Used:  

Distance: 3 miles

Difficulty: Difficult
Overall average: 1.5 mph
Overall Time: 1 hr, 57 min
Total Ascent: 634 ft.