Katie and I ventured into Roosevelt National Forest for our hike this weekend to Lower Crater Lakes. We've done this hike before in 2023 and made it to the upper lake, but we were in no shape to make it to the upper lake this time, so we didn't even plan on it.

The weather was supposed to be mild for this hike, but the parking lot was so gusty that we got all our gear on and then sat in the car for 5 minutes to warm up before starting the hike. Luckily, the wind didn't last long. It was mostly windy just in the parking lot with a few small breezes during the hike. Surprisingly, it was very calm at the lake itself, although the tall peaks creating the bowl for the lake had poor visibility from blowing snow up that high.

About a half-mile to the summit of the lake, Katie's stomach started feeling bad, so she turned around early. Since we were close to the lake at that point, I powered on to the first of the lower Crater Lakes to take a few photos. I didn't spend much time at the lake before turning around and quickly hiking back where I met back up with Katie for the last 10 minutes of the hike. Usually it's faster to get down than it does to ascend, but it took 2.5 hours to make it to the lake and it took just under an hour for me to make it all the way back (I was going quite fast to try to meet back up with Katie).