Trekking West Maroon Trail

Saturday was a big hike with a group from Aspen to Crested Butte on the West Maroon Trail.  This was my first time to do the hike.  Most of the group has done it before.   It's 12.5 miles with the extra 1.5 (possibly 2) you have to hike because of an avalanche near Emerald Lake that is still keeping the road closed. We start at Maroon Lake at 7:30am and by 8:11am we'd arrived at Crater Lake, which is about 1.5 miles.  We crossed two streams and had to walk through two snow areas in the first 6+ miles to the lunch stop on the saddle at 12,500 feet.  We headed down from the Saddle at 11:25am. Wildflowers were everywhere on the second half of the hike.   We got to the trailhead at 1:08pm but then had to walk the road including uphill a ways on the road to Emerald Lake. The road was closed because of an avalanche that we walked over. We were to the bus at 1:50pm and definitely ready for some R&R.  The weather was perfect and the hike was awesome!