Lake San Cristobal

Author's Comments

The first time I drove down from Lake City to see San Cristobal, I arrived too late in the morning and the wind had already started working the surface. I came back the next day at five thirty and understood. This lake wants to be photographed at first light, before anything else has woken up, when the water has gone completely still and the mountains behind it double themselves on the surface with a precision that does not feel quite real. Late September is when I would tell you to come. The aspens on the slopes above the lake turn in waves, and because the lake is held in a basin of dense forest and high peaks, the color comes at you from every direction at once. Reflected, it doubles. The Slumgullion that dammed this water seven hundred years ago left a shoreline that is irregular and interesting, with coves and inlets that give a long lens something to find. From the eastern side near the road, the composition is wide and classic - water, color, peaks, sky in clean horizontal bands. From a kayak on the water itself, the photograph changes entirely. The shoreline becomes the subject and the reflections wrap around you. The crowds here are nothing like Maroon Bells or Hanging Lake. That is part of what makes it. You can have a morning to yourself and the only sound will be the occasional loon and your own shutter. Bring layers. The basin holds cold air well into the summer, and at golden hour in October you will want gloves you can shoot in.

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