{"id":3977,"date":"2018-12-16T01:07:58","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T08:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grunschev.com\/wordpress\/?p=3977"},"modified":"2018-12-16T01:08:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T08:08:00","slug":"mills-lake-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grunschev.com\/wordpress\/2018\/12\/mills-lake-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Mills Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Saturday, December 15<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chad and I hiked to Mills Lake. He drove. He didn’t want to make the trip on my summer tires in spite of my assurance that it would only be the last mile that’s dicey. We got to the Glacier Gorge parking lot around 8:30. It was about half full. In the summer, it takes me almost exactly an hour to get to the lake from the parking lot, but today it took an hour and a half. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We took the fire trail. When I came down it after visiting Ed’s igloo the tracks followed the summer trail but now it’s switched to it’s snowy winter route, up the gully. An outcropping of rock was covered with large icicles fifteen or twenty feet high. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was a good crowd at the lake. It was pretty windy, but we stood in the lee of a small stand of pine. Even though it was out of the wind, I had a pretty nice view up the gorge. The sun is about as low in the sky as it will get as we’re just a few days from the solstice.
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The view of the gorge as you near the lake is one of the most impressive views in the park. Today when we arrived there, clouds hung in giant curls from eastern flank of Thatchtop. Longs Peak\u00a0 plowed the wind, leaving a wake of condensation. The wind whipped through at high speed, kicking up clouds of snow up throughout the gorge. The low sun backlit the blowing snow, showing the wind’s form; its flows and eddies.
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We were there for nearly an hour. I thought we’d be doing good if we to stayed much over half an hour, but our spot was comfortably out of the wind and I managed to blather on about something or other until I sufficiently bored Chad and he suggested we make our way back to the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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