Blake and Claire are staying an extra day, and spending the night with us in our motor home. So we dropped off their things, and took this picture at our campground entrance.
Then we drove our car to the trailhead of the Spruce Creek Trail to Mohawk Lakes. We had this cute couple leading the way as we started our hike today. We might have the advantage of being acclimatized to these high altitudes, but they are obviously in better physical conditioning. We had a hard time keeping up with their pace.
This hike is all about the water, and we got our first look at a little pond. The hiking reviews we read also mentioned wildlife sightings, so we are hoping to see mountain goats and moose today. This little pond looked like a great moose habitat, but none today.
We're gaining altitude and seeing more water, as we pass Mayflower Lake with its surrounding mountain tops.
One of the best water features of this hike is the Spruce Creek Waterfall. We went off-trail to follow this long stretch of falling water. You can see Blake and Mark enjoying the water views from this section of this very long waterfall.
We had the falls to ourselves on this beautiful weather day!
It sure is fun to spend the day with people that enjoy a good hike as much as we do. It's also fun to have people in the pictures besides just the two of us!
It's also nice to hike with people that can take an occasional picture of us together. With these days of viruses and germs, fellow hikers don't often exchange cameras to take pictures for each other like we have done so many times before.
We scrambled up the rocks along that very steep waterfall for a very long time, taking way too many pictures!
That long climb took us up so high that we are seeing more of the mountain peaks around us.
Our next stop is Lower Mohawk Lake, where the afternoon rain clouds are beginning to gather.
This is the prime area for seeing mountain goats, but none showed up this afternoon. But as proof that they often hang out here, we see that they have been shedding their winter wool on the bushes around the lake.
Our guests wanted to see snow this summer, and our path took us right beside this little glacier near the top of the mountain.
It's hard to take one picture that gives a sweeping view of the beauty we are all enjoying. If you look closely, you can see Mark sitting on top of the snow pack, while Blake and Claire are still taking pictures from the trail far below.
With the mountains and lakes and snow, we have been blessed to wander through more of God's wonders today!
It's another climb to get to our final destination of the day--Upper Mohawk Lake.
Mark is loving having his sons around this week, so he has someone to scramble up higher and further. Mark and Blake took this picture of the turquoise water in Upper Mohawk from their top vantage point.
What a beautiful place to spend time with our children!
We've climbed over four miles and gained 1,827 feet in elevation since we left the trail head. Here at 12,128 feet in elevation, it seems like a good place to rest and eat a snack before we head back down the mountain.
On the hike down, we took more pictures of the views around us. It's about this time that Blake asked if this would be one of our best hikes of the summer.
It will definitely make our top twenty list of hikes for views, and it will be at the very top of our list for hiking companions. We enjoyed their company so much today, and are blessed that they want to share this time and place with us.
We stopped in Breckenridge for a well-deserved meal on our way back home. Even though we didn't find our moose or mountain goat on the trail, when we returned home we spotted a large mule deer on the hill beside our campground. We got this picture as he stepped into the clearing.
He posed for pictures, so we got our wildlife picture of the day after all.
As the sun was setting behind the mountains, Claire took this picture of our camp site. It sure looks good with two cars sitting in front of the motor home. We'll miss these two when they leave in the morning, but it has sure been fun sharing a favorite hike with some of our favorite hikers!
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