I finally got out last week for my very first hike of 2012. It’s about time!
My destination for this snowshoe hike was Brainard Lake in the Brainard Lake Recreation Area north of Nederland, CO. I hike in that general area quite a bit in the summer, but this was my first winter visit. It was a great day…. snowing just a wee bit (I love love LOVE participating in winter activities when it’s actively snowing), but not windy like it often is in that area and not too terribly cold.
I have to admit that I committed an egregious photography faux pas on this hike. I had charged up a couple extra batteries for my camera, knowing that cold weather wreaks havoc on batteries. Smart, yes? I put a fully-charged battery in the camera and put the spares in my camera bag – the camera bag I had no intention of taking with me on the hike. I then promptly forgot to transfer the charged batteries from the camera bag to my backpack. DOH!! I managed to get a mere TEN photos out of the battery in the camera before it completely died. Drat! And I was too far into an uphill hike to go back to the car for the spare batteries. Double drat!! Fortunately, I had my new iPhone with me and its battery was fully charged. Also, the iPhone produces fairly decent pictures with its little 8 megapixel camera, so all was not lost. Whew!
So…. back to the hike.
There are a number of winter trails in the Brainard Lake Recreation Area - some are snowshoe-only trails, some are cross country ski-only trails, others are multi-use trails. For most of the way to the lake, I stuck to the multi-use main road, given that it is the easiest route and I didn’t want to overdo it on my first hike of the season. About a mile from Brainard Lake, I impulsively switched over to the “snowshoe only” route where it crosses to the north side of the road and was very glad that I did. The route was a little steeper than the road, but it was just a narrow path through the very snowy trees and it was so very delightful, not to mention QUIET, as I did not encounter a single other person on that trail. I was, however, kept company for a little while by a gregarious gray jay that flitted from tree to tree to keep up with me.
After an inordinate amount of huffing and puffing (ok, I’m really out of shape), I finally broke through the trees and reached the lake. The overcast conditions prevented me from seeing the Indian Peaks panorama that is normally visible on less cloudy days, but it was all good.
(Click HERE for a view from roughly the same spot in the summer. Wow, totally different, huh)?
So… the 2012 hiking season has (finally) begun. I have since purchased a new pair of MSR Evo snowshoes and I am very eager to try them out on something other that the local golf course, so look for a new trip report soon!
