Love Lake - Creede, Colorado

 Talk about pretty!  Breath taking views.  Snow still quite deep on the 14ers and 13ers (mountains that are labeled by the height in thousands of feet) that surround us.  The visitor's center lady suggested we drive up to Love Lake - she said it was quite lovely. She was right! We had to drive up a gravel dirt road, through aspen groves.  All the time looking for bears or moose which we did not see.  Once we got to the cut off, Middle Creek Road, which was about 5 miles from our cabin, we crossed the Rio Grande, saw camping along the river, saw many homes and ranches.  Stunning.

The drive up took us past some ranches where there were cabins for rent.  Very serene, beautiful.

But temperature when we got to Love Lake was a balmy 60 degrees but the wind, holy cow!  We were frozen! Wind chill factor we think made it about 40 degrees.  The wind was kicking up the dust from the road so it made it difficult to even see. The lake had white caps from the wind!

Love Lake is an alpine lake, sitting at 10,018 feet.  We started out from our cabin at 8,957 feet so the climb up to 10,018 was no big deal.  We were thinking of sitting and having our lunch there, but we could not be out in the brutal wind for more than 5 minutes.  Were told that you could hike around the lake, and that there were picnic tables and a pit toilet for use.  We wanted to hike the trail and I had packed up lunches, but after experiencing the brutalness, we looked, took pictures, then headed back down.  This lake I am sure would be popular in the summer.  Just so peaceful.

 We saw on a YouTube video of the area that marmots were abundant.  Nope, didn't see them either.  But saw big fat squirrels.  A lone RV camped on one side of the lake, no other cars or ATVs.  We could not travel further (there was another lake further up) because the road was labeled for ATVs or Jeeps.  Too rugged.  Oh well.  Beautiful. When we left, we had to watch for cattle, it is a free roam area.  Saw a boat with 4 people, and we thought, nope, did that once and will not do it again.  Memories of being capsized 2 times during one float is something we will never forget.