Colorado snow!

Dave is a huge snowboarder. And by "huge", I mean good. Really good. When we first started dating, I thought, "I'll be a snowboarder, too!" But... it didn't turn out so well. Kind of ironic since I am FROM Colorado (I really think every parent should put skis on their kids so they get used to the feeling), but I am just not into the uncontrollable speed (me and everyone else rushing down the slope from behind me).

So, I always THINK I will drive up to the Mountains with Dave and snowshoe, but there's usually 1,000 different reasons I don't--too early, too much to do here, no one to go with, etc., etc. So today I went with Karen and Renee. We had to drive about an hour to Georgetown and then UP Guanella Pass a few 1,000 feet before we saw any substantial snow.

(See Chicago Creek on the map??)

We stopped off at Clear Lake first. It was frozen over and was so... clear! The picture doesn't do it justice, but you could look down into an infinite number of bubbles frozen in the ice rising up from the dark underneath. You could also measure how deep the ice was by how far the frosty ribbon-like cracks in the ice went down. Karen and I ventured maybe 10 ft from the shoreline onto the ice when there was this *CRACK!* and shudder underneath. Only a slight shudder, but the crack echoed in the valley. It was crazy! (Needless to say, Karen and I were all Flintstones on the ice trying to make it back to dry land.) We had passed a lake in Georgetown on the way and there were probably 20 cars all parked near each other in the middle of the lake! Apparently they were ice fishing, but it looked like the makings of a great story about how you lost your car when it fell through the ice in the middle of a half-frozen lake.

The snowshowing was hard at first since the trail seemed to go straight up and, if you haven't been in the mountains, there's no air up there! But we made it to the top which overlooked the lake (which I guess was Naylor Lake, but we were aiming for the Silver Dollar Lake), Square Top Mtn and a huge valley. It was great! A workout with views!

P&D -- it reminded me of that hike we did when we ALMOST made it to Chicago Lakes and I am wondering if we were in the same vicinity?

Anyways, I do hope to go up snowshoeing again before winter is over and all the snow is gone. It's colder today, but we were close to 70 all week! While great, it's too early for spring!