New Desktop Background

This was also taken up at Loch Lomond on a hike yesterday.

Some flowers from Loch Lomond

These were all taken up around Loch Lomond today.

Loch Lomond, Colorado

Loch Lomond, Colorado, originally uploaded by nathanabels.

We went up to Loch Lomond - on the other side of St. Mary's Glacier near Alice, Colorado on Saturday. We've been up there numerous times, so we can say with confidence that this is a really good time of year to go. The road to the lake isn't open yet so there were very few people. It's a moderate hike up to the first lake (about 45 minutes to an hour) and a little longer up to the second lake where I took this photo.

Hiking weekend

We had a busy weekend of hiking:

Loch Lomond near Alice, Colorado
Our hike to Bison Peak - photo by Lorna Cochrane
more on the trail to Bison Peak
nearing the summit of Bison Peak
Bison Peak

Bison Peak

To top it all off we saw a black bear from the highway on the way home!

Masters of Disguise

We hiked to Loch Lomond yesterday. While we were admiring the neon green lichen and golden grasses above 12,000 ft. several small birds darted out in front of us and scared us enough that my friend dropped his camera. We had no idea they were even there - they were so well matched to their surroundings, but when we looked around for a little bit we could see them all around us. They were white-tailed ptarmigans and their camouflage was very impressive. If they weren't shedding their brown and grey feathers for the white winter ones they would have been even harder to find. It is even pretty hard to spot them in the photos:

here's some lichen:

Time for a Change

Isn't it time you change your desktop background? I took this photo of mountain moss and wildflowers on the shore of Loch Lomond above 11,000 ft this afternoon, and it looks great on my background...