Brainard Lake Winter Engagement Session

Kimberly and Kevin’s Brainard Lake Winter Engagement Session

Kimberly and I had been following each other on Instagram for a few months, before suddenly one day she messaged me to say that Kevin had proposed to her over the weekend. We excitedly started planning their engagement session, and they knew right away that they wanted to do a hike in the Boulder area. While we had lots of trails to choose from, we settled on a Brainard Lake winter engagement session to make sure that we’d have snow in the photos.

And snow we got! We met up at the Brainard Lake winter access gate on Saturday afternoon, and while we were still in the parking lot we heard a car alarm go off purely from the strong wind gusts hitting the car! At this point I was a little worried that they would want to reschedule the session, but luckily they were down for an adventure and we went on with our hike. We snuck into the trees for some winter wonderland photos, and as soon as I stepped off the trail to get a better ankle, I sunk down in knee-deep snow!

The Brainard Lake Recreation Area is one of my favorite hiking areas close to Boulder. I took my parents here on their first Colorado hike, have hiked to all the lakes in the area with my husband and friends, and I love bringing couples here for engagement sessions as it’s such a gorgeous nature setting without going too far from Boulder.

We kept exploring the area, and found the perfect frozen lake for them to play around on. The wind was so strong that we kept fighting against it going one direction, and were pushed forward going the other way, but we could not stop laughing about the absurdity of the Colorado weather. While we were hiking around in 19 degrees with 30+ mph wind gusts for their Brainard Lake winter engagement session, it was 45 degrees and sunny in Boulder, a 45 minute drive away.

Towards the end of their session, Kimberly and Kevin showed me the entrance to Left Hand Reservoir, where they will be eloping this summer! I can’t wait to photograph them in the same area, but hopefully with drastically different weather next time 😉

If you want to book a Brainard Lake winter engagement session of your own, get in touch and let’s make it happen!