Bear Lake

Author's Comments

Bear Lake is photographed so often that I almost talked myself out of going. I am glad I did not. The lake sits at ninety four hundred fifty feet with Hallett Peak rising directly behind it, and on a still morning the reflection is as clean as anything I have seen in the Rockies. The trick is the wind. By eight in the morning in summer the surface is already starting to break up, and by nine the reflection is gone entirely. Five thirty is not too early. Five is better. I have come to think of Bear Lake as a place that asks you to commit to a single photograph rather than wander. The shoreline loop is short and the compositions are mostly already worked out by everyone who has stood there before you. What changes is the light and the water, and those are the variables worth chasing. In late September the aspens on the far shore turn, and the reflection doubles the gold against the gray of the peaks. In February the lake freezes and the photograph becomes something else entirely - cleaner, harder, more graphic. The crowds are real and they arrive early now. You will need a timed entry reservation in summer, or the shuttle from the park and ride, and even then the lot fills before sunrise. Come anyway. Stand at the southwest corner of the lake where the Continental Divide stacks up behind Hallett. Wait for the first light to hit the summit while the lake is still in shadow. That ten minute window is what you came for.

Gallery