Using AllTrails to find Ice, and Upper Ice, and Fuller, and Island Lakes

When we arrive to a new area, we try to find the best hike--the one that everyone raves about, and the one with the best views. The mountains around Ouray hide many beautiful hikes, but we've heard from more than one source that Ice Lakes is a very beautiful trail.

A trail that beautiful is going to be very popular, so we were up at 5 a.m. to get a parking place at that popular trail head. It was good that we had a full moon to guide us down the mountain highway this morning.

This isn't just any mountain highway. This is the "million dollar highway," that winds its way south out of Ouray on some of the steepest roads in the country. To complicate this complicated road, we also found road construction in the dark this morning with traffic limited to one lane.

We were obviously some of the first people on the road this morning, where rocks had fallen off the overhead cliffs onto the highway during the night.

The sun was rising and lighting up the mountains as we neared our trail head destination.

We had read that there are a few parking places a mile up Clear Lake road along a switchback. This will save a savvy hiker a steep half-mile hike through the woods, but we wondered if our little car would make it up that steep and bumpy road. Whew! We got one of the last parking places, and started our hike.

Instead of a walk in the forest, our hike started with crossing a waterfall that hung on the side of the mountain.

We're wearing jackets this morning, because temperatures were in the 40s when we started. The early morning light is just hitting the mountains around us, painting them in a strange glow.

Because of the popularity of the hikes we're taking this summer, we've been seeing more sun rises than usual for us. It's always fun to watch the mountain tops as they are touched by the first rays of sunshine for the day.

After more than three miles on the trail, we find ourselves in a huge meadow. Now we know we must hike up one of the mountains that surround this meadow to get to the lakes we have come to see.

We huffed and puffed our way up those switchbacks to get our first view of our first lake--Ice Lake.

We wouldn't expect to see this Caribbean blue water this far north! It's perfectly clear against the shallow rock ledge, then turns that exquisite color of blue as the water deepens.

Mark gets the honors for taking the best pictures of Ice Lake and the wildflowers that surround it.

Most people stop with that first lake, but we're taking the deluxe tour today. So we continued on the trail for a short hike uphill to get to our second lake of the day--Upper Ice Lake. For some reason, it's a totally different color.

A little further hike brought us to a ridge and two more hikers. We exchanged picture-taking with them so we could have a photo together in front of upper and lower Ice Lakes 

We're still heading uphill as the Ice Lakes are getting smaller behind us.

The paint brushes are a beautiful color of pink in this valley.      

We followed the trail until those paint brushes led us to the third lake of the day.

We've made it to Fuller Lake, nestled under the watchful eyes of Fuller Peak, Vermillion Peak, and Golden Horn. All three mountains are well over 13,000 feet in elevation, and add to the majesty of this lake.

Fuller Lake is lovely, showing off yet another color of blue, as the breeze makes ripples on the water. We stopped here to eat our lunch under its peaks.

Even though it's August, we're still finding little pockets of snow in the shade of the mountains.

This valley is just covered with wildflowers, that turn the hills to shades of blue and pink and yellow in front of us.

It was here that we found this new-to-us wildflower blooming. For all the miles we have hiked this summer, we are always amazed to find something new.

Our hike takes us back to Ice Lake, and we stopped way too many times for the views of the mountains and lake below us.

While we are showing more pictures, let's talk about how we find beautiful trails like this. We love to get recommendations from locals or fellow hikers, but we also depend on the AllTrails app. This phone app gets reviews from the users after they hike each trail.

We've hiked lots of great trails that get reviews of 4.5 and 4.6 out of the possible 5 stars. But when we found that this trail has a 4.9 rating, we knew we had to hike to Ice Lake.

AllTrails has certainly led us to another of God's wonders here at Ice Lake and its surroundings!

AllTrails also shows trails in the area that connect, and that's how we knew that there was a way to hike to a fourth lake today. We were surprised at how many people we talked to at Ice Lake that didn't know we could make a loop by hiking up and over another ridge line.

We looked back lovingly at Ice Lake as we traveled up and up along a narrow trail that hung on the side of the mountain.

That extra effort brought us to a much-less-visited Island Lake.

Found in the bowl at the foot of U.S. Grant Mountain, it certainly has an island in the middle.

By jumping over the rocks at the end, we could have continued up a long set of switchbacks up to the summit of U.S. Grant Mountain at 13,767 feet.

But we've already been hiking over six hours, and it's time to finish this loop and head back to the car. We passed by this strange lake of yellow water, surrounded by yellow and purple wildflowers.

We must have hit the peak of the wildflower bloom on these mountains above tree line!

It's a tough steep path downward from Island Lake. Instead of enjoying a gently slope downhill, it was miles of taking little steps hoping not to fall on the round stones on the path that roll under your feet. We call those little round boulders that can cause you to fall down the mountain "roll-ders." We took a break from the roll-ders to eat our last snack and enjoy the views.

We knew we were about to the car when we got to that sketchy waterfall crossing. We had hiked 7.2 miles with 1,709 feet elevation gain, and we were ready to take a seat in the car.

On the drive back to our campground in Ouray, we counted our blessings for another day of getting to wander God's wonders in these beautiful mountains. We'll rate this hike to Ice/Upper Ice/Fuller/Island Lakes as a 5 out of 5 stars in our AllTrails app!