Friday, June 27, 2014

The weather looked a bit ominous as we headed for Lake Moraine.  I slipped on the muddy path yesterday on Parker Ridge, so my knee was a bit stiff.  I thought it would be best to start off with something easy.  At the downstream end of the lake is something dubbed the "Rockpile".  It wasn't even listed on hiking maps since it was so short.  It did include quite a few steps, but my knee managed nicely.  The view was beautiful.  

A view of Lake Moraine from atop the "Rockpile".

Golden-mantled ground squirrel (looks like a chipmunk to me).

The colors in the rocks were amazing!

Even rocks that looked plain at first glance...

... came alive upon closer inspection.

The color of the water is so different it is difficult to believe the pictures accurately recorded it.  After each picture I previewed the results while I was still looking at the scene to compare and make sure the color was recorded properly.  The thing is, the changing light and our angle to the lake changed the color a lot, so from shot to shot the color varied.

We took the lake shore hike.  It was 3 km (just under 2 miles) round trip with no elevation gain.  Now that's my idea of a leisurely hike!

There were so many creeks feeding the lake, but this one stood out.

The weather looked a bit iffy high on the mountain.

When we reached the far end of the lake, it started to rain on us a bit - just a light sprinkle.  It cleared up rapidly as the clouds moved to the north end of the lake, so we did not miss a bit of the trail.  I think the light rain just reduced the number of people on the trail.  I had no complaints.

At the far end of the lake, many creeks came together to form this massive amount of water entering the lake.