Echo Lake - Snow in May!

We loved Echo Lake from the moment we set foot on that campground. It was off-season so there wasn't a camping fee which is always a plus. We set up our tent and noticed that we weren't the only campers there so we headed on over to the Echo Lodge to see what the story was. The lodge is so neat, they sell all sorts of touristy things and have some great food as well. We learned the other campers were a group of boys who'd just caught a good sized rainbow trout down at the lake. Echo Lake is very interesting. It's not too big and isn't actually very deep. In fact, it has to be restocked every spring because it freezes completely solid every winter. After learning a few things, we headed back to camp and met the other campers over there. It wasn't long before it began to snow, and what a surprise that was! We were up at about 10,000 feet so it probably shouldn't have come as quite a shock, but we were still in shorts and t-shirts! I'd missed the snow since I'd been living the past year on the coast in the southeast and I know Chuck was excited about it as well.

We changed into warmer clothes and made some dinner while the boys in the site next to us cooked their trout. We eventually made our way over there to see if they had any weed, and we smoked it up with them as we stood around the campfire. The snow came down quitely around us while we lauged and told stories as the sky turned dark. We all eventually turned in for the night, but Chuck and I were awoken sometime in the middle of the night to some sort of commotion. He went out to see what was going on and quickly returned to tell me that the snow was too much for their tent and it had begun to leak pretty badly. He grabbed the headlamps and went out to help them pack up. By morning, we were all alone with a blanket of white surrounding us.