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| | | Ice Lake Island Lake V2, CO | | | |
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Ice Lake Island Lake V2, CO
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| no partners | | Saturday morning, after breakfast, we put our day packs on and hiked up to Ice Lake. It was the bluest alpine lake I’d seen. Just so pretty with all the peaks in the background. There were a few tents from Friday night and day hikers had started arriving also. When the breeze would stop for a moment, the lake turned glassy with reflections of GH and Pilot’s Knob.
We hung out at the lake for quite a while before starting to make our way toward Island Lake. The hike from Ice Lake to Island Lake was beautiful. Even though peak time for wild flowers had passed, the mountainsides were still adorned with lots of flowers. The views of the lower basin as well as looking back at Ice Lake and Fuller, Vermillion, GH, Pilot’s Knob were fantastic. Ice Lake became more blue as you got up higher and looked at it from above.
As the trail crested the little hill toward the looming Grant, Island Lake popped into view all of a sudden. I’d seen many pictures of this lake with quite some different colors and hues at different times of the year and lighting condition. Today was sunny and bright and the lake was a deep emerald green color. Nestled right against Grant and with V4 in the background, it was gorgeous. We walked around the lake for a while and picked up the trail that traversed to the saddle between Grant and V2 on its right. V2 is only 13,309 and is not even ranked. But from all the pictures I’d seen, it provided the best views of all the lakes and peaks in the area. Maybe next time I’m in the area I’ll do Vermillion/Fuller and GH, but for this trip V2 provided the best bang for the buck.
When we got on the saddle, I continued on the ridge to V2 summit while Alli and Wiski waited at the saddle, soaking in the views on both sides. Island Lake really looked like a big fish eye now It was about ½ mile screed ridge to the summit. Some spots were quite exposed. As promised, the views of all the peaks and lakes behind you did not disappoint: Fuller, Vermillion, GH, Pilot’s Knob, V4, Grant, Fuller Lake, Upper Ice Lake, Ice Lake, and Island Lake. You could see all of them. On the other side, the gorgeous turquoise Clear Lake (11,984) in the cirque below came into view also. The view of it from the summit of V2 was fantastic.
We got down from V2 and went back to Ice Lake and spent some time by Upper Ice Lake also. It was pretty in its own way with Fuller, Vermillion and GH as background. But because of the crazy blue Ice Lake next to it, it barely gets any attention from hikers and campers. I still wanted to head over to Fuller Lake and get to the saddle between Fuller and Vermillion, but dark clouds had started to roll in fast. We abandoned that plan and hiked back down to the lower basin camp site in a hurry. Thunderstorm finally came half an hour after we got back to camp. A ton of people were still going up early evening, either day hiking up or camping up there. We were amazed at the number of people that camped at Ice Lake and Island Lake, all exposed. We thought about them as we were in our tent, listening to the cracking and rumbling thunders right above us and watching the awesome lightning strikes. Other areas in the lower basin became sort of crowded too this evening with campers, but not where we were. |
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