Cathy dropped us off at the Alpine Ridge Trail trailhead and headed to the Milner Pass trailhead to pick us up. Little did I know, when I took this shot of the small herd of elk trailside I also captured Cathy starting down to Milner Pass in the truck (at the top upper left corner of this photo).Jason is ready to start the run. We were running from one pass to another, about four miles of varying terrain between 10,759 feet and about 11,800 feet.We quickly discovered that our “run” was going to take a little longer than planned. There was still a good amount of snow on the trail.Other than the snow, the terrain was simply gorgeous. The wildflowers were in full bloom.There were several small alpine lakes trailside. We crossed paths with three backpackers here. The view up the canyon beyond the lake was beautiful, but the clouds were ominous.Here is one of the passes we crossed in route to Milner Pass.And another small alpine lake that we encountered trailside.This is the a small lake in the final stages of becoming a meadow.With the snow melt (it was about 40 degrees here) the paths became small streams. Of course we ended up with wet feet, you simply cannot avoid the water.The snow sometimes completely covered the trail, occasionally for good distances making it hard to follow.In avoiding one of the larger snowfields we found ourselves on an elk trail (background). When we figured out that we were heading into a canyon, we backtracked and climbed up this incline back up to rejoin the trail.Yes, we are back on the trail here, the trail is just kinda covered with snow.We looked back to see this sign directing us down the hill. This sign could easily be missed and we would have wound up miles away.I am glad we did not make it to Mt. Ida ,where we were headed prior to spotting the sign behind us (in the previous photo).The Milner Pass Trail was in pretty good shape once we started descending to the trailhead.Jason had one last chance to stumble in the snow!We came across several of these formations as we rounded a corner descending to the trailhead.Once we reached lake level, we had to go around the western end to find where Cathy parked the truck.Mission complete!
Travelling with the Schinglers 