American Lakes hike from trailhead - August 15, 2009  (click pictures to enlarge)

About 2.5 miles into the hike, we were stopped on the trail by a couple of moose.

The day started out beautiful, everyone was having fun!

More moose.

The clouds were on and off, 5 minutes of clouds and 5 minutes of blue skies, repeat.

The trail splits, cross the rocks and head to Thunder pass, RMNP.

The outlet of American lakes with Snow like up in the rocky saddle.

Brian Bate and I snowmobiled this area 10 years ago and attempted to climb this ridge, Brian made it, I got stuck.  Go over the ridge and you are in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP)

Flowers - yea, I might have gone overboard with pictures

American lakes looking down from Snow lake, weather is changing this time. Check out the video (large) or (small) of the clouds moving in on us.

Snow lake panoramic. Video (large) or (small) of the lake.  Check out the video (large) or (small) of the clouds filling the lake.

The weather did turn bad, so we high-tailed it back below tree line.

Cool mushrooms at one of the stream crossing close to the trailhead.

By the time we completed the 11 mile round trip hike, the temperature had dropped to 38°F and mountains had a decent amount of hail.

Other panoramic photos from the trip.