Lake Isabelle

Author's Comments

There is a moment in early July, just after first light, when Lake Isabelle does the thing it is famous for. The water goes glass. Shoshoni and Apache stand inverted in the surface, the glacier still in shadow at the base of the peaks, and for maybe twenty minutes the whole basin holds its breath before the wind comes up and the reflection breaks. I have hiked in for that twenty minutes more times than I can justify. The trail from Long Lake is two miles of gradual climb, and in mid-July it walks you through some of the best wildflower meadows in the Front Range. Paintbrush, columbine, marsh marigolds in the wet sections. I have stopped so many times on the way up that what should be an hour takes me two, and I have never once regretted it. You need the reservation. You need to be at the trailhead by six. The parking system at Brainard is not negotiable in summer, and the lake itself rewards the early arrival in ways the late arrival simply cannot access. By ten the wind is up, by noon the light is flat, and by afternoon the basin has become a different and lesser version of itself. A wide lens for the reflection. Something longer for the glacier and the texture of the snowfields hanging off Apache. And time. This is a place that gives you exactly as much as you are willing to sit still for.

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