"If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."
Khalil Gibran
This February I took another "Manventure" with my good friend Billy. You may remember that I took a trip to Mount Evans with him as well. For this trip, we decided to try and go to Brainard Lake. Once again, we were thwarted by Winter and her closed roads. Normally you would be able to drive all the way to the Brainard Lake Recreation Area. Unfortunately the road was covered in several feet of snow.
After a bit of debating on what to do, we ran to the end of the parking lot at the bottom of the road and I took the beginning timelapse of the sun rising. I wish that it was not as windy as it was because that timelapse would be one of my favorites if it weren't for all the wind. After the sun rose, we looked at a map and decided to take a risk. It was about a 2.5 mile hike from the parking lot to Brainard Lake. 2.5 miles wouldn't be too bad... Except it was freezing cold, incredibly windy, we both had heavy backpacks, and no snowshoes. But, this was our adventure. So we went with it and it was worth it.
About half a mile into the road we came across a lake next to the road called Red Rock Lake. We stopped here for a little while and debated on making this lake our last stop. We both were cold and tired of the wind already. But we decided to stick with our plan and make it to Brainard Lake. We were determined. After a few hours of hiking, we were conquered the cold and the wind and made it to Brainard Lake. As you may be able to tell from the video, the area is very open. Thus this area was extremely prone to high speed winds. Our feeling of power lasted only a few seconds when the wind began to blast us in the face again. We found a big enough rock and huddled behind it, feeling powerless to nature, but still accomplished. As the wind howled above us, we snarfed a brief snack of some trail mix before exploring around. Once we were done exploring Brainard Lake we walked all the way back to the car. During the walk back we mentioned that it would be nice if some old man in a Subaru would come and rescue us from the cold and take us down the mountain. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. But our conversations kept us busy until we reached my car at the bottom.
