Great Lakes

 

We drove 1,762 miles, hiked 15,594 vertical feet (sometimes in the dark!), and spent 14 days on the road seeking out Colorado’s most magnificent alpine lakes. Here are seven stunners that will leave you breathless—and not just because of the altitude.

 

Dream Lake

Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park is home to 156 high-altitude lakes, but the one you really don’t want to miss is Dream Lake. Dream has earned its name, but not for the reasons one might think. The water isn’t fantastically blue. The surrounding peaks aren’t particularly lofty. The mostly dirt pathway to reach water’s edge isn’t strenuous enough to provoke dehydration-induced hallucinations. Yet, the setting is remarkably, well, dreamy.

I’m no expert in geology—or geography, for that matter—but it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that it’s the natural composition of the lake and the surrounding peaks that creates an aesthetic appeal. Lines, shapes, swaths of color, negative spaces, the way the light sneaks through rocky cliffs—every element at Dream Lake is so impeccably designed that, as the saying goes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As I sit along the banks watching hikers stroll along the north side of the water, I soak in the scene and whisper a quiet thank you to Mother Nature.