July 3, 2014 Zimmerman Lake, Colorado

Zimmerman Lake is east of Cameron Pass, at about 10,000 feet. We started at 10,000 feet and hiked up about 500 feet in 1.2 miles.  Hiked around the lake and hiked 3.4 miles total. Beautiful sunny day, high 70’s in the sun. A very flowery hike. This is another cross country ski trail in the winter.

There were fields of these glacier lilies.  Lots of snow still and lots of little streams of snowmelt.  Here is a snow natural bridge, with snow melt running underneath.

Fields of globe flowers. Colorado 14 to the left and Zimmerman lake to the right.

The glacier lilies are one of the first flowers to bloom as the snow melts off, here they are just at the edge of a melting snow bank. Fields of buttercups.

Zimmerman Lake. John talked to a fish and wildlife guy and he said  they have removed all the fish from this lake. They had native rainbow trout in it, since much of the other bodies of water here are over run with non native brook trout. They discovered that the rainbows were not the species native to this area, but native to the western slope , so they removed them and found another species in a tributary of the Arkansas river of  green rainbow trout, their DNA matches the  DNA from the Smithsonian of the trout native to this area. They are going to put them in this lake and use them a brood trout to raise fish to stock the other lakes and rivers. You get some idea how deep the snow gets here in the winter by seeing how high on the trees the blue trail markers are.

John hiking over snow on the trail by the lake. Lunch at the edge of the lake. We couldn’t stay long the biting flies and mosquitos were bad.

The view from lunch of Montgomery pass over the lake. Marsh marigolds growing in the snow melt water.

Just because I love these lilies so much, here is another photo.  An elk  track  by my boot. They are about 4.5 inches long, moose live here too and have a similar print, but it is 6 inches long. A couple of mushrooms- silver and brown and not sure what kind of  track.

Current flower, glacier lily before it fully opens up, tiny yellow flowers, curvy mushrooms, mosquito and some other bug larvae, bog laurel, buds of bog laurel,  moss and lichen.

John at the dinner table in our lovely campsite. We could not stay out for the whole meal, too many mosquitoes. Here they are clustered on the screen trying to get in. Way too many.

Immature Douglas fir cones, mature Douglas fir cones, cool design on the side of an aspen, it is where the branches come out as seen in the last photo.