13.3 miles of hiking • 2750' elevation gain •
Great day in the monument. We started at the south Coldwater Ridge trail. Mostly snow free except for a few patches. One of them was too slippery, with a very steep run out, to navigate without a brief detour up and around. At the trail junction that heads down to the lake we kept going on the Ridge trail, for almost a mile east to check out the snow situation. It was sporadic back in there but the patches that were there, were postholey, or were on steeply angled slopes. It's melting fast though. Not impassable just a bit of work, given that we still wanted to do the lake on the north side. The creeks on the north side of the lake were all flowing well. The main waterfall crossing was easy but not entirely dry footed. Still a bit of snow on all the nearby peaks.
