Summer Snowbanks
Monday, June 15, 2021
“Life is like walking through snow: every step shows.”
Summer arrives next week, but snow still blankets much of the high country. The winter gate is open at Brainard, and the reservation system is in force, so I decided to try it out. Last night I logged onto recreation.gov and procured a timed-entry ticket for Brainard, for the somewhat exorbitant price of $12; fortunately the National Parks Pass provides a $10 discount, so the fee was only $2. I printed the resulting ticket (with bar code), and was ready to go.
I arrived at the gate just before 11am and presented my ticket. There was no line! The parking lot was about 25% full. Well it is Monday, not a weekend, so it was likely to be uncrowded in any case, but this was still a pleasant surprise.
Blue sky, slight breeze. Tourist-types with big smiles and cameras at the ready. I walked to the west side of Brainard and headed uphill through the forest to Long Lake. Patches of relatively firm snow here and there along the trail, at least until I got to Long Lake, at which point the snow increased and I decided to turn around.
On the way back down to the Long Lake parking lot, I managed to lose the trail in the snow, but followed the footsteps in the general direction, keeping an eye out for the blue diamond trail ski-trail markers on the trees. Oddly enough, I never spotted any. Fortunately I spotted the Long Lake parking lot instead, and exited the trail.
Walked down to Brainard and had lunch, then back to the Peak-to-Peak to Nederland, and back to Boulder.
