Ice Lake Basin (San Juan National Forest) Guide

Above Silverton, a brutal 7-mile round-trip climb of roughly 2,400 feet delivers you to a hanging basin where the lakes are a shade of turquoise so unreal that first-timers assume the photos are faked. They aren’t — glacial rock flour suspended in the meltwater turns Ice Lake and Island Lake an electric milky blue-green under a ring of 13,000-foot peaks. It’s one of the hardest-earned, most-photographed hikes in the San Juans, and there’s still no permit system as of 2026, which means the parking lot at the trailhead empties out by 7 a.m. on summer weekends and cars line the road for a mile. The lower basin will already have you reaching for the camera; the upper basin, where the color goes nuclear, is the reason you climbed.