Lee Valley Lake
Greer, AZ
Lee Valley Lake is a small 9-acre impoundment at 7,500 feet elevation along the West Fork of the Little Colorado River north of Greer. The lake is stocked with trout and surrounded by aspen groves and mixed conifer forest. In autumn, the aspens turn vivid gold and are reflected in the lake's still waters.
Photography Guide
- Best Time
- morning
- Crowds
- Quiet
- Shot Types
- reflectionlandscapedetail
- Best Seasons
- summerfall
Author's Comments
Nine acres is not much lake. You can walk the whole shoreline in less time than it takes to set up properly, and that is part of why I keep this one in my back pocket rather than my front. Lee Valley does not announce itself. It sits at seventy-five hundred feet just off the road between Greer and the highway, and most people drive past it on their way to somewhere they have already heard of. Come the last week of September or the first week of October. Come at sunrise, and come on a morning when the forecast says calm. The aspens that ring the lake go fully gold against the darker conifers behind them, and on a still morning the reflection is close to perfect - not the broad, dramatic mirror of a larger lake, but something more contained and more painterly. The whole composition is right there in front of you. You do not have to hunt for it. I shoot wide for the full reflection and then work closer for the details - a single trunk against the water, a cluster of leaves on the surface where a fish has just risen. The trout activity adds something I did not expect the first time I came here. The rings spread slowly across the gold and the image becomes about time as much as color. The window is short. A hard wind or an early cold snap will strip the trees in a day, and then you wait a year. But on the right morning, this small lake gives you more than its size suggests it should.
Gallery
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