Isabelle Lake

We spent a few days hanging and hiking around a bit with Brian and Sophia, first in the Breckenridge/Frisco area, then in Boulder. We then headed up into the Rockies for some hiking. Our first stop was the Brainard Lake area, where we hiked the Isabelle Glacier Trail. This area is set up against the Continental Divide, and therefore has views of nice peaks as well as a certain shortage of oxygen (our hike started at about 10300').

The hike was lovely, though the Aspen season was apparently over here. We heard some elk or moose (we guessed) bugling across the valley, though no sighting. As we were nearing the end of the relatively stiff climb up to Isabelle Lake, a fellow hiker coming down told us that there were some bull moose up near the lake fighting over a harem ... and blocking the trail! Details were a bit sketchy, but it sounded like a bunch of hikers were up watching, and at some point the dominant male chased them up into the woods, then circled above them and chased them back down! Undeterred, we wanted to see some of the action. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, there were no moose to be seen, leaving us a tad disappointed. But, on the bright side, almost all the earlier hikers had turned around, leaving the remainder of our hike up sparsely populated.

After reaching a tarn at about 11,500', we rested for lunch. Tom was starting to notice some decline in his mental acuity and balance (which we attributed to the altitude), so we opted to forgo the final stretch to the base of the glacier and head (carefully) down. All went well, and the symptoms seemed to ease a bit. As we were walking the final stretch of road to the parking lot, we came upon a female moose and her large calf chomping on the undergrowth not far off the road! So, we got our moose sighting after all!

With Tom's altitude issues nixing another high-elevation hike (which we had nominally planned), we packed it in and headed for home. Overall, a great trip. Wonderful to see the kids and check out a wide array of new territory. The driving-to-exploring quotient was probably a bit higher than we'd prefer, but it still all worked out well.