Highline Lake State Park

Author's Comments

The first time I drove out to Highline I was not expecting much. A reservoir in the high desert north of Fruita, ringed by scrub and cottonwoods, sounds like the kind of place you stop at because it happens to be on the way somewhere else. But I arrived just before sunrise in late April, and the water was holding the Book Cliffs upside down in a single unbroken sheet of glass, and I stayed for three hours. The lake is at its best in the first hour of light, before any wind has touched it. The Book Cliffs run along the northern horizon in long horizontal bands, and on a still morning the reflection doubles them so cleanly that the seam where water meets shore almost disappears. The south shore is where you want to be. From there the cliffs sit behind the water at the right distance, and on the clearest mornings you can see the La Sal Mountains floating pale and blue beyond Mack Mesa, a hundred miles away and looking like a rumor. By ten the wind picks up and the mirror is gone. That is part of the rhythm of the place. You come early or you come for something else. It is not a dramatic park. There are no waterfalls, no alpine basins, no famous trail. What it offers is quieter and harder to name. Wide horizon, still water, the particular light the high desert gives in spring and fall when the air has been washed clean overnight. Bring a wide lens. Bring coffee. Sit on the south shore and wait for the cliffs to turn pink, and then stay a little longer.

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