Big Lake

Author's Comments

There are mornings up here when the lake does not look like water at all. It looks like a second forest laid flat against the first, the spruce and fir doubled and inverted, the sky pressed down between them. That is the photograph worth driving for, and it requires almost nothing of you except being there before the wind arrives. Big Lake sits at nine thousand feet, which means the air is thin and the nights are cold even in July. I have stood on the eastern shore in early August watching steam lift off the surface at five in the morning while the treeline on the far side held perfectly still in the reflection. By seven the breeze comes up off the meadows and the mirror breaks. You have an hour, maybe ninety minutes, and then the photograph is gone until tomorrow. The road in does not open until the snow lets it, which in some years means late May and in others means most of June. I tend to come in September. The aspens on the drive up through the White Mountains are beginning to turn, the summer fishing crowds have thinned, and the mornings are sharp enough that you want gloves at the tripod. A wide lens is the right call here. The lake is large and the surrounding forest is low and even, so the composition wants horizon and symmetry rather than drama. This is not a postcard place. It is quieter than that, and the reward is proportional to how early you are willing to stand in the cold.

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