Powder Lake to Huffers Hill and back
(8.8 miles, +1,200/-1,200 feet).

Today was one of my favorite day hikes of all time and the family loved it too!

The Ute Trail is a nice flat trail surrounded by vast mountain snow fields that gently crosses alpine tundra.  I can really see why people fall in love with the Rockies.

The trail does have a bit of a climb at first, going through forest.

Pretty soon we started coming to snow fields, which are particularly fascinating to my San Diego raised sons.

Slowly the forest started thinning, giving way to awesome surrounding views.

There were alpine flowers everywhere.

We eventually got above trees line completely and passed large snow fields next to the trail

Soon we reached the end of the trail at the Visitors Center where we climbed Huffers Hill at nearly 12,000 feet.

We then had some lunch and hiked the Ute Trail back to the car.