Exploring Brainard Lake

Cold sunset in Brainard Lake, Colorado. Many come to this accesible spot for the amazing photos. 

Recreation area of Roosevelt National Forest west of Ward. Big forests of aspens crisscrossed by trails and abundant in high elevation lakes. Red Rock and Brainard lake (10,500 feet elevation) are accessible by road, the others by trails. We visited both, also Mitchell Lake and the alpine Blue Lake (a storm got us over the treeline). Four moose and a male elk near the trail. The setting of Blue Lake is impressive. It’s a glacier bowl surrounded by towering mountains: Mt. Audubon (13,202 ft) and Palute Peak (13,058 ft) to the North, to the West, Mt. Toll (12,966 ft), and Pawnee Peak (12,943 ft) and Little Pawnee Peak (12,313 ft) in the South. Total distance walked: 12.4 miles. This area gets crowded on weekends.