Lesson Learned!

 I made a mistake...

On an amazing bluebird spring morning, I left the Brainard Lake parking lot with Sue, bound for Lake Isabelle - 4 miles away. My face was slathered in sunscreen, I wore long sleeves and pants. 

The road part dry, part black ice and in big part, heaping snow drifts. We fell down, then put on spikes!

The snow got progressivlely deeper but was slushy in places where the hot sun beat down and threatened it with full-on summer. It was also BRIGHT white and I realized too late, that I had left my sunglasses in the car. Onward, I thought. I hike without sunglasses a lot, so how bad could it be?!

BAD. 

But it was also amazingly beautiful and few people went further than Brainard itself so the trail was clean and wonderful - if at times, not even the real trail but simply footsteps in the snow through the evergreens.

At Long Lake, where the defrosting lake met the shoreline ambiguously and the snow drifts were deep - or not deep enough - over water, we stopped at the only boulder protruding and began the picnic stage of the day. It would have been irresponsible to try and navigate a trail around Long Lake and continue on to Lake Isabelle.

Back at the car my face felt a bit warm. Too much glare off the snow?

At the house, my hot shower stung my neck, just a little. Not enough to worry me.  But my eyes were hot and tired.

Fast forward to Sunday and my deeply bloodshot eyes, now continuously watering, were more than a little uncomfortable. Looking through the viewfinder of my camera, I felt handicapped - unable to focus.

Side note: My Canon 6D Mark II did a spectacular job of making up for my vision deficiencies! This was taken at Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. 

No computer work, reading or even driving was on the cards for me today. Eye drops and Ibuprofen to the rescue... a little "come to Jesus" talk with myself about taking better care of the eyes that I value so much and two days later, gratitude for the remarkable self-healing qualities of my body.

I learned something so valuable and made it so memorable too! At this point I don't believe I will go on any sunny or snowy hike EVER AGAIN without sunglasses. I hope too that this gratitude for working eyes, is long lived.

*I'm taking a spare pair of sunnies to Kili in October!