The road to the Maroon Bells closed for the winter on Friday morning. Before the route shut down for the season, a few intrepid visitors made their way up to the iconic spot to enjoy a frosty day on the lake.
“It’s literally like skating in a cathedral,” said Blake Greiner, who was passing a hockey puck with a friend. “It’s pretty wild. It’s a temple out here.”
Only a few people were at Maroon Lake shortly after sunrise on Wednesday, Nov. 13. A pair of photographers and a small handful of skaters were a far cry from the throngs that visit the site during leaf-peeping season.
Broad swaths of the lake were covered with about three or four inches of ice, and temperatures stayed below freezing in the early-morning shade. A certain stillness hung in the air, broken only by the sounds of the skaters below.
“The echoing of the puck and the stick and the skates,” Greiner said. “It’s just something that resonates through you, that you won’t forget."
