See Erich's photos from our hike HERE
Yes, Hike and Ski! Yes, again! Yes in August!
We got our turns in for August today at St. Mary's Glacier (we skied here in July as well: July Blog Post). 11 consecutive months of skiing now.
St. Mary's Glacier stays around all summer and is only about an hour drive from Denver. We found out that it's not really a Glacier, because Glaciers move. This is just an area of snow in a valley that happens to stick around all year. So it's a "Glacier", not a Glacier.
This time Erich (Melissa's brother), Eric (my roommate from Breck) and Steph (Eric's fiance) all joined us for our hike/ski. Once you get to the trail head, there is a short 3/4 mile hike up to the lake. On the far side of the lake, the bottom edge of the Glacier can be seen stretching up the hillside. We made our way around the lake and started up the snow towards the top.
The weather was beautiful with blue skies (again). It didn't take us all long to make it to the top of the Glacier where we threw off our packs and clicked on our skis and boards. There was a little less snow than in July, bit we started at almost the same spot. The glacier was just a little narrower up top. The snow was still very variable with mogul like conditions to negotiate. We all enjoyed our turns in the dirty snow that was soft in areas and crusty in others. We finished with about 600 vertical feet under our belts for the month of August.
As we headed down the trail back to the car, with our skis strapped to our packs, we got quite a few inquisitive looks and comments from tourists taking a short day hike to the lake with their kids and dogs. We finished up the morning with a great lunch and a few pints at Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs.
Not sure where September will bring us for some turns, we'll have to see what mother nature brings between now and then.
Colorado Rules!
See PHOTOS from our adventure HERE
See Erich's photos from our hike HERE
