AM - Hiked to Ice Lakes Basin. I've never seen a shade of blue like Ice Lake. [~6.5 miles, 2500']
PM - 8 miles. Molas Lake to Molas Pass (10,900') and back via the Colorado Trail w/ James, Allie, and Amiee. Then the Smores and I added on a few more laps around the lake and back to the hut via Hwy 550.
According to 5280 magazine, the reason for the color:
Upper Ice Lake is a glacial tarn—a lake carved and fed by glaciers—that gets its near-fluorescent blue color from rock flour. When a glacier moves, it grinds the bedrock below, creating a crushed-rock powder that suspends in the water and absorbs the sun’s light spectrum in a way that creates a beautiful cerulean appearance. There are only a handful of similarly colored glacial lakes in the state.
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