Billions of Wildflowers @ Square Top Lakes

The air quality has been horrible for the past week. We can typically see the mountains from our bedroom and I have a few windows at work where I can see them. But not this week. The wildfire smoke from Canada has made its way into Colorado and blinded the mountains. With the air quality so bad, we weren't sure if we would get a chance to hike, but luckily for us, the smoke started clearing up on Friday and was clear enough to hike without risking our health.

Our original plan was to grab a Rocky pass and head up to the Bear Lake Corridor to do Lake Haiyaha. I've wanted to do that hike in the summer since the 2022 landslide that turned the lake a turquoise color. But that hike isn't challenging so it's never been on our list in the summertime. But with Katie's ankle recovery, that hike is now in the difficulty we're looking for so it seemed perfect for this weekend's hike.

Rocky Mountain National Park reservations are released on the first day of the month and the evening prior at 7 pm. I've never had a problem getting a timed entry permit the night before, as long as you log in within a few minutes of them being released. So on Friday, I jumped on the computer right at 7, selected my ticket, and got an error message that there were none available. The tickets sold out almost immediately...

Honestly, if the tickets went that fast we probably didn't want to go into Rocky anyway. That's too busy for us... So I think we'll just have to wait until mid-August when school starts and some of the tourism starts to die down before trying to go into the park again. So instead, we chose to drive up I-70 again and hike in the Georgetown area.

We picked out a hike sentimental to us this time of year. The trail to Square Top Lakes is on the other side of the mountain where we got married almost exactly a year ago. The hike also boasts great views of Mount Beirdstat, the first and only 14er that Katie and I have completed together. We figured the wildflowers were great on our wedding so this area must have good wildflowers this time of year. And we weren't disappointed.

I don't know if we're just getting better at knowing where the wildflowers will be or if the wildflowers are better this year, but we've gotten lucky with our selections now for the past month. It's almost the end of wildflower season here in Colorado.

In a few weeks, we won't be finding any new blooms but withering and dying flowers instead. We still have at least another month of hot summer weather before things start to cool off and we can go hunting for fall colors. But the dying wildflowers are the hint of the changing of the seasons, and hopefully means that we're at least halfway through the hot summer.

Unlike our last hike, there was no traffic on I-70 going up or down. It helps that we left early, leaving our house at 6 am and arriving just before 8. Despite getting there so early, the parking lot was packed full of people hiking Mount Bierstadt. But there was plenty of parking alongside the road for us. Getting a parking spot wasn't the reason for the early hike; we woke up early because we wanted to beat the heat. And although it was a bit warm on the ascent, it was windy and chilly at the lake prompting us to wear our jackets while we rested and for part of the descent. The weather was almost perfect for hiking, although we were both a little bit over-exhausted from getting up so early. It's a tradeoff.