The weatherman called for sunny clear skies today so Tim & Angela Bouchard, Mary Peil and myself decide to tackle the high altitude route from Porphyry Basin to Columbine Lake. We parked at roads end and headed up to the picturesque Bullion King Lake where the continued route follows the steep scree up to the saddle on the south shore of the lake. From the saddle we could look into Silver Cloud Mine Basin as we traversed through the beautiful wildflowers long the route. From this point, there were many game trails to follow and cairns luring us to follow all of them. We stayed high and practiced our route finding skills which at times could have been better. Our final destination, Columbine Lake, was visible as we contoured along the high ridge past the rock promontory. Our sunny skies had darkened and a fine mist fell. We put on our rain gear and contemplated our plan to continue. We saw blue skies behind the dark clouds so we continued on and once again the sun was shinning. At the lake, Angela and Mary enjoyed lunch and the views form the overlook while Tim and I took some photos closer to the lake. We noticed again the skies turning grey and cloudy so the decision was made to head back toward the trailhead. Today in comparison to the Highland Mary Lakes hike, I didn't even get a break and had to eat my 1/2 of Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich while hiking....do you see a pattern here? We could see the storm clouds and rain in the distance but they didn't head our direction. We enjoyed the wildflowers and sunshine as we arrived back at the jeep and were all happy that today we had beat mother nature and her storms.