McPhee Reservoir

Author's Comments

The thing about McPhee that surprised me on my first visit is how much it does not look like Colorado. Not the Colorado of postcards, anyway. The shoreline is pinon and juniper and red dirt, the mesas roll away in low waves, and the water itself reads more like something you would find in northern Arizona than in a state better known for alpine lakes. Then you turn east at the right hour and the San Juans appear above the far ridge, and the geography rearranges itself. I prefer this place in late spring, before the water level starts its summer retreat. By August the shoreline has pulled back considerably and what was lake becomes mudflat, which has its own austere appeal but is not what most people come here for. May and early June give you reflections. Still mornings, the kind that happen at desert lakes before the wind picks up, and the San Juans double themselves on the surface with their snow still holding. House Creek is where I usually end up. The access is straightforward, the shoreline angles work for a wide lens, and the foreground has enough texture - juniper, scattered stone, the occasional bleached branch - to anchor a composition that might otherwise float. Golden hour here is genuinely golden. The mesa rock warms, the water goes from blue to bronze, and the mountains hold their cool light a little longer than the land around them. That contrast is the photograph. Crowds are not a problem. I have spent entire evenings on this shoreline and seen two trucks and a fisherman. That is part of what the place offers. Quiet, space, and a version of Colorado that most photographers drive past on their way to somewhere more famous.

Gallery