Jason and I hiked up to Trapper’s Lake, one of Colorado’s better known wilderness lakes only to find it completely frozen (in horrible light, strong wind and rain). Photos of this small, thawing pond a few miles from Trapper’s Lake turned out much better. The light was perfect, there was no wind, and there was no rain.
The trees in the background were burned during a 17,000 acre fire in 2002. Roughly 10% of the wilderness area (Colorado’s second largest) was burned, but the number of wildlife tracks in the snow seem to indicate something of a rebound today. In the same afternoon we came close to a coyote (with a rabbit in its mouth) and a black bear.