Chasm Lake

The destination... all frozen over!

The crew!

I had the most magnificent hike on Sunday. At 8:30am, some of my fellow co-workers and I set out on one of my favorite hikes in the park to Chasm Lake. It sits at the base of the tallest peak in the park which I still aspire to summit by the end of the summer. What makes this hike and other hikes, so special you ask? It's a combination of things that cannot survive alone.. the comraderie and bonding that takes place on the trail amongst you and your "team", the challenges, both physical and mental, that you force your body to push beyond, the destination which rarely disappoints when it comes to being a "Kodak moment", the planning of future hikes (in our case Mount Meeker which is a measely 13,900 feet), the fresh air, the smells of the flora and fauna, and the list goes on and on. This hike was no exception although it required me to step beyond my normal boundaries that I create for myself... I was hiking with people that were not my family and that I was not all that familiar with. It was definitely a challenge that I do not know if my body was ready for but I survived. The physical and mental exhaustion overwhelmed me later in the day but only in the same way that a good run does... it is a natural high. The hike was through snow the entire way, which slows us down.

That's Long's Peak in the backgroundThe scary snow area.. yay Dawn for overcoming the fear of falling!

The way up, which is 4.2 miles and 2-3,000 ft gain, the snow is icy and on the way down it has transformed into slushy like consistency. There is a point on the trail where we are hiking on a ledge covered in snow, with only rocks to break our fall about 100 ft down. A little nerve wracking to say the least! When we pass this dangerous passage, we have to climb straight up, in snow, to get to the lake which was fun to slide down at the end.