Owyhigh Lakes — Thursday, Jun. 27, 2019

What a day! We started our hike at a little after 1:30pm. There was only one other car in the parking area. Shortly after we started, it began to rain, so we pulled out the rain gear. Good thing because then it started to hail. The trail is in excellent condition even when it was raining heavily. We had no problems maintaining our footing on the ascent. The climb is steady but not overly taxing. On the way up we encountered the only two people on the trail that day. Eventually the rain let up. We did encounter the snow fields previously reported near the camp site. The one over the creek has thawed enough to access the crossing stones, which we carefully used by stepping down on them then back up on the snow, which was compacted. Along the way we saw a frog just “chilling” on the snow. :-) There were a few larger snow fields just before the lake, but they are easy to navigate as you can see the trail on the other side. Do be careful when near the edges as melting can occur under and you can unexpectedly fall through (we did this once). When we arrived at the lake, the sun came out and we were in awe of the natural beauty. Wildflowers are starting to come up and it will be an amazing site when in full bloom. We then followed the trail around the lake in the hopes of finding that perfect spot to have lunch, since we had the lakes to ourselves (or so we thought!). Just as we entered what we thought was the last grove of trees before you could access trails down to the lakes, we encountered a bear. It was about 30ft from us, on its hind legs, with his back to us sniffing the air. We started to slowly back away, it saw us, then seemed to begrudgingly shuffle away. We think we disturbed its nap time. :-) Once safely away we snapped the picture. We decided it was best to eat our lunch elsewhere, so we headed back to Tamanos Creek Campground and ate. The weather cleared and the hike down went quickly. We arrived back at our car at close to 6pm. In all the hike was amazing and we will definitely be back. Hopefully with no uninvited lunch guests!