Ice Lakes - Island Lake - Grant-Swamp Pass. ~7.6 miles, 3075 feet elevation gain

The Ice Lakes trailhead is located on Forest Road 585 across from the South Mineral Campground in the San Juan National Forest (closest town is Silverton). The campground is First Come First Served and with a late arrival on a Friday night, we assumed there wouldn't be any spots and instead found a dispersed campsite along FR 585. The parking lot fills up quickly in the mornings and our campsite was conveniently a short walk to the trailhead and we didn't need to worry about parking. It was a rainy morning, so we had a delayed start and the parking lot and trail were pretty busy. We cut Steve loose because he was climbing several peaks and we would see him later in the day. Norah and I started our climb out of South Mineral Valley to Ice Lakes. The trailhead is at 9845 feet and we were hiking to 12,274 feet at upper Ice Lake across 3-3.5 miles. Norah was pretty tired and at one point I wasn't even sure we would make it. Thankfully, she perked up when we reached lower Ice Lake (around 2.5 miles) and we made decent time to upper Ice Lake. Gorgeous spot! We took a break here to eat lunch and decided we would also check out Island Lake. This was a small climb of under 200 feet and half a mile with great views back to Ice Lake and the valley below. We took another short break and I could see Norah eyeing the trail that went up to Grant-Swamp Pass. I was surprised she was game, but we decided to give it a go. I'm glad we did because the views from the pass were amazing. The trail getting there has a lot of loose rock, which makes it a pain coming down. And we came down it quickly. We took our time at the pass to enjoy the views, but when we heard some thunder rumbling we decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat. We just about made it to treeline when it started raining. Norah might have been dragging on the way up but I couldn't keep up with her on the way down. We were wet, but made it in one piece. Awesome hike to kick off our trip!

Steve had finished just before us and we were all eager to get a meal in Silverton. After eating at Thee Pitts Again we made the drive up to Yankee Boy Basin to camp for the night. We arrived close to sunset and enjoyed the views. Steve would be up early next morning to hike Mt. Sneffels.