After leaving Ouray, we headed south to hike Ice Lakes. To get there we had to drive Million Dollar Highway. Neither of us have driven this... and just wow...
We pulled off at Hayden Trailhead where we saw beautiful Crystal Lake.
Then we continued the drive.
Make sure you have enough gas to get to Silverton before heading out. There are no gas stations or grocery stores until you get to Silverton from Ouray. We stopped at the Silverton Conoco for snacks and water. Then we back tracked and drove to Ice Lakes Trailhead. It is on a well maintained dirt road. The traverse we rented did well. We parked at the trailhead which was somewhat busy on a Friday at 12pm.
Once we got to the trailhead I quickly realized a few things. The first being that AllTrails lied saying it is 6.9 miles. Just by looking at the map at the trailhead it is 3.79 miles to the lake. The second thing I realized was this isn't just a hard hike because of the terrain, but the elevation increases over 12,000 feet by the end. Oops!
Up...and up we went! As we were hiking, a few people said they did not make it to the lakes for various reasons. I was very nervous that we wouldn't make it either, mostly because of the elevation change.
The Aspen trees and waterfalls were beautiful.
There were a few waterfalls we had to cross too! We were thankful for our waterproof shoes.
We took A LOT of breaks. At times Aaron felt lightheaded and I thought for sure he would want to head down, but he said, "I am not turning around. We are making it".
We met a nurse, Amy, who just moved to Denver, and her friend, Arianna, who is a physical therapist. Arianna's dogs, Nikko and Bronco, were adorable!
Ice Lake was worth it!
We got lucky with meeting Amy and Arianna. They took amazing pictures of us!
It was hard to decide what picture to use for this. This lake was stunning! We hiked down with Amy and Arianna awing over the views. We had no idea it looked like this behind us as we were gasping for air going up.
After the hike, we said our goodbyes to our new friends. It was really nice getting to know them and hopefully we will run into them again sometime. After packing up we headed over to Silverton to see if there was anything that caught our eye for dinner. On the way there we stopped at Columbine Roadhouse thinking they would have food and drinks.
We quickly realized that everyone seemed to know each other and were dressed up. Well... it was a private party. So we left and headed to Avalanche Brewing Company in Silverton.
Next door was Thee Pitts Again which served barbecue. When we finished our beers, we headed over to get some food in our bellies.
That night we drove down to Durango as the sun was setting. Once again, there were no hotels with vacancy in Silverton and it was slim pickings in Durango. We ended up at a Super 8 in Durango for the night and it worked perfectly since we needed to do laundry. The next day we explored Durango a little and then went to the wedding. You'll have to wait until next week for pictures and more details of it all!
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