A beautiful day beckoned me to Capitol Lake. This trailhead is a 40 minute drive from where I live near Basalt. Maybe an hour from Aspen. I was a bit surprised to find the last three miles or so in much worse condition than last year. All the storms have made rather large ruts and exposed some big rocks. My Jeep Liberty Sport made it and I was very glad that I own this car!!! The way down was even scarier but in 4-Lo I got  down safely! The hike was spectacular. I went out and back via the Ditch Trail as I was saving energy for a Crested Butte hike on Sunday. The hike itself took about 6 hours total as I took lots of pictures on the way to the lake. A storm was coming in so returning to the trailhead only took me 2.5 hours – a whole hour faster than the trip out 🙂 Capitol Peak is on my blog header and is one of my most favourite mountains in this area. I think the sheer rock face from peak to lake is about 2600 vertical feet. Very impressive.