Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Medicine Bow National Forest: Lake Marie and Lake Marie Falls

This morning we awoke in Saratoga, ate breakfast, packed up camp, and hit the road headed into the Snowy Range. I had spend a little bit of time in the Snowy Range previously, having summited Medicine Bow Peak back in 2009. I was excited to bring Noelle and Sierra back to this very beautiful area. 

It was cool and crisp as we made our way into the higher elevations. We stopped at a pullout and walked around a bit in the beautiful scenery. 


There may even have been a few snowballs thrown.

After a short time, we moved on higher up into the mountains to Lake Marie for our hike. Immediately, the scenery a jaw-droppingly beautiful!


We made our way around the south shore of Lake Marie, stopping frequently to admire the scenery.

We found a snow patch and walked over to it to see how Rosie would react to snow. She had never before seen snow in her young life and she seemed to really enjoy digging in it.

Eventually we moved on, following the paved trail higher along the shore of the lake.


Soon we reached the road that leads to Mirror Lake. We decided to walk the road back to the start of our hike. 


There were lots of great views of Mirror Lake!

There were lots of wildflowers to look at as we walked. Asters, 


columbine, 


and a flower that grew in the wet areas where snow was melting.


As we neared the parking area where we had started our hike, I noticed that there appeared to be a trail on the other side of the road. Sure enough there is a short loop trail there that leads to views of Lake Marie Falls. 


We walked the short loop and then headed down out of the mountains and into Laramie for lunch before making our way home.

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