Brooke had a 10 day break from teaching and she wanted to spend as much of it as possible in the mountains.
Our weather forecast was cold and heavy rain to start the trip. Jim took us east of the mountains had me book a hotel and then found a lovely day hike full of golden larches.
The alpine golden larch is found at higher elevations so we started with a stiff uphill climb. The climb was worth it when hit the high meadows.
After winding through the hillside, we crested a ridge and started to drop down to Copper Glance lake. How beautiful!
What a magically place. It was surprising to hear that Jim just looked at the map and picked the spot because it wasn’t supposed to snow here until noon.
We took a break at the lake shore and took a bunch of pictures.
After our break, we decided to hike around the lake.
When we reached the other side of the lake, it started to snow. Very cool because we had a hotel to go back to. It was far too cold out to sleep in a tent.
As we were hiking around the lake, other hikers started to show up. I was so glad we got up early and arrived at the lake early enough to enjoy some blue sky prior to the snow flurries.
Tomorrow, the weather was going to turn to sunshine. We were all excited to head back to the hotel and pack up for our first of two backpacking trips that Jim had planned for the next 9 days.