Snowshoeing at Andrew's Lake

Today I went snowshoeing at Andrew's Lake with a few friends and four dogs. It was a gorgeous day - classic Colorado, blue-sky day! We hiked for about 4 hours and had a great time. Here are some highlights.

Crossing the bridge over Andrew's Lake

View of Engineer Mountain

My favorite of the day!

Windblown snow on the side of a ridge

Around mid-day we came upon this snowcave/igloo (which I later learned is actually called a quinzhee) and realized it was built by the Adventure Education Mountaineering class. They were out for the weekend. Inside was their sleeping bags and to the left (not pictured) was a bench they built out of snow including shelves to store their pots & pans. Quite fancy! Most of our group decided that as cool as the quinzhee was, we'll stick to the summer camping.

Quinzhee built by Adv Ed Mountaineering class

On Monday at work I told Tim that we saw his class's quinzhee. He said it was so strong that five guys were all standing on top of it jumping and it didn't fall through. Impressive!

Crystal & Mark running through the thick snow

On the way back it was mostly downhill and running through the thick untracked snow is a lot of fun. Crystal particularly loved it!