Simply put, this was one of the most memorable hikes I have ever done, for a variety of reasons. Quite possibly one of the most event-filled and unique hikes of my lifetime. Starting off, we leave from the same trailhead that took us to Ptarmigan Falls earlier.

This hike gains about 1700 in elevation overall, but most of the gain is in the first 1.5 miles. As we hauled ourselves up the mountain with our trusty bear spray, water filters, and trail mix, we were greeted by expanses of mountain forest, as we climbed out of the basin.

It was a good thing that we started early…our good friends, the bugs, came out to play. More on that later. The climb turned out to be quite exposed, and hot, so we made sure to take breaks along the way, and enjoy the view.

During the last stretch before the descent to the lake I crested a ridge, and saw a lady in the distance shouting “Stop the trail! Stop the trail!" Then, the biggest animal I have ever seen in my life walked across, about 50 feet from me. I have never seen a bull moose, so I have no frame of reference; it was bigger than I ever thought it would be. Definitely a first in my life. On the other side of the trail, the moose settled onto a snow patch, and began eating snow to cool down. Smart moose.

After taking those pictures at a safe distance, we proceeded to leave, as calmly but efficiently as possible. Thank God it was a chill moose.

As we came down into the lake, it was like nothing we ever saw before. I was expecting that the name might have been a figure of speech, or maybe the lake had a couple broken pieces of melt floating around…nope, these were legit icebergs floating around in this lake. I don’t know what kind of geology or meteorology causes this…that’s for smarter people than me to figure out; I just sat there stunned.

After about an hour at the lake, the bugs got a bit more than we could bear, so we left. The hike back was a little easier slope-wise, since we were going downhill, but the heat and bugs began to take their toll. Bugs were in our eyes, our noses, our mouths, and after a fly flew directly into my ear, I was over this trail. I had to pick the bug out with my finger which was an experience in itself.

As we were getting closer to the trailhead, we turned a corner, and we saw a big crowd of people with giant cameras looking off the side of the trail. I said “Hey Brookie, there’s your bear.” I was correct; a grizzly bear was hanging out in the meadow just chilling, getting it’s picture taken. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of it, because it did what bears do, and ambled away from the large group of people. Much like myself, they are not social creatures. Today on the trail, Brook conquered her fear of bears!

What an amazing day. I will always remember this hike.