Lily Pad Lake

Author's Comments

The trail does not ask much of you. Three miles, almost flat, through lodgepole and aspen on the kind of soft duff that absorbs sound and makes a forest feel older than it is. I came in late July, early enough that the light was still slanting low through the trees and the mosquitoes had not yet found me. The lake when it appears is small and unassuming. That is part of its argument. What it offers is foreground. The lily pads scatter the surface in a way that gives a reflection something to hold onto, which matters because the mountain behind is not the dramatic kind, just a soft wooded ridge. Without the pads I am not sure there is a photograph here. With them, in the right light, there is something quiet and worth sitting with. I would bring a macro lens. The wildflowers along the last quarter mile are the real surprise - paintbrush and columbine and a dozen things I cannot name, all of it concentrated in the wet ground near the lake. And if you come early enough and stay still, the wetlands at the far end are moose country. I have not seen one here, but I have seen the prints, and that is its own kind of presence. This is not a destination lake. It is a morning. A slow walk in, an hour by the water, a slow walk out. Treat it that way and it gives you what it has.

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