Black Bear Pass Hike

For the Fourth of July this year I went to see nature's fireworks.  I went for a hike up a jeep road called Black Bear Pass.  The road itself wasn't terribly steep or difficult to hike, though the elevation did make it a challenge.  The hike starts at about 11,000 feet and the area I hiked to was at about 12,500 feet.  It really is harder to do anything strenuous when the air is that thin, but it gave me plenty of excuses to take breaks to catch my breath and take pictures.  The views were awesome almost everywhere I looked. 

 

There were also fields of wildflowers in bloom in nearly every mountain meadow.

 

Near the begining of the hike you could see a couple of waterfalls across the way.

 

This pond was my turn around point for the hike.

 

The low end of the pond drained into the stream that the trail follows down the mountain.  There weren't too many things growing anywhere but along the banks of the pond and streams at this elevation.

 

These are some nice closeups of some of the different flowers I saw in my travels.

 

It is days like today that make me glad that I live where I do.