Katie and I took a long weekend to go up to Valley View Hot Springs. On the first night, I woke up early in the morning to do some astrophotography. The moon didn't set until about 4am, so I had some foreground lighting, but that also washed out the sky a little. Right before 4 I got some photos with the Milky Way Galaxy that was rising in the East. I couldn't see it with my eyes but I noticed it on the photos in the morning.

During the day we went to do a snowshoe in Monarch Pass. We picked out Boss Lake thinking it wouldn't be too difficult, but it was. The trailhead for this hike starts at a more popular trailhead, so the first mile and a half wasn't too bad until we branched off onto the trail to Boss Lake. There was only one other person who had done this portion of the hike since the last snowfall. So luckily we could follow their tracks, but for the most part we were breaking trail the last mile of the hike.

The views at the lake were spectacular. The lighting wasn't great, but it was a peaceful lake. We would have stayed longer if it wasn't so windy.

The second night we were at Valley View Hot Springs, I got up to do some more astrophotography. Since the previous night was a little cloudy, I was hoping for better conditions. Although the sky was much clearer on the second night, it was also just a little breezy. With below-freezing temperatures, the slight breeze was a little difficult to stay out too long.

I ended up going back to the cabin before the moon fully set, which is too bad since it washed out a lot of the sky. BUt I still got some decent photos. I've definitely had better astrophotograph shoots than this one, but it was still fun.

Katie and I wanted to get up high in the mountains, but the weather was looking a little windy. So instead we opted for a low-elevation hike to search for wildflowers. I'm not sure why we picked such a difficult hike, but I'm proud that we were able to accomplish summiting Grey Rock in the shape that we're in.

The weather on this hike wasn't perfect but it wasn't too bad either. There was a strong breeze for part of the hike which sometimes was relieving when we were hot doing strenuous elevation gain, and other times, like when we were eating lunch or at the summit, that the wind was chilly. But overall it was what we were expecting and we weren't too uncomfortable.

We saw a lot more wildflowers than we were expecting to. We thought it was maybe just a little too early still to see a lot of wildflowers, but they were flourishing. The wildflowers will certainly be better in this area a month from now, but it was exciting to finally see some wildflowers after seeing dead brown stuff all winter long.

Other than wildflowers and panoramic views, we got to see some mountain sheep. They were on the mountain adjacent to us, and we would have missed them without a friendly hiker pointing them out to us. I didn't have my telephoto lens with me (this isn't an area that typically has any wildlife), but it was neat to see them anyway.

The weather was calm in the mountains this weekend so we decided to get up high for possibly the last snowshoe of the season. This hike starts around 10,000ft in elevation which means the small forest road to get to the summer parking lot would still be closed, so we parked in front of the gate and started our 6 mile hike. Since the road was still closed it meant we had to take the long route by hiking 2 miles on the forest road to get to the summer parking lot. Once we made it to the summer parking lot we had less than a mile to the lake.

It wasn't until we made it to the summer parking lot that we needed our snowshoes. The top layer of snow was still frozen from the night before, but after we made it to the summer lot we had to put our snowshoes on. It was nice to at least make it 2/3 of the way up without snowshoes since it's harder to trek with snowshoes on.

There were only a handful of people up here on this hike. Since it's so far away from any major city, only serious people hike this. We only saw three other groups which was nice to enjoy nature without any crowds that the lower elevation hikes surely had. The weather was great, just a little breezy but the wind was welcomed in the sunny 50-60 degree temperature. Those warm temperatures melted a lot of snow and left my shoes soaked though to my socks completely. That wasn't great, but since the temperatures were cooperative it was only a little uncomfortable (and not dangerous).