Post 02585
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Although filled with the purest and clearest water, from a distant height they often appear to contain a brilliant heavy liquid. Under different lights and from different points of view they are emerald, opal, inky black, violet, indigo-blue, and sea-green. I have approached one from a high distant point, and as I descended and waveringly advanced, the lake took on a number of deep colors, each melting like a passing shadow from one into the other. Occasionally, too, it almost vanished in dull gray or flashed up in molten silver. The colors shown were as vivid as if made of the brilliant fire of the northern lights. All these changing colors played on the lake, while the surrounding peaks towered in cold and silent desolation, changeless except when occasionally swept with the filmy bluish shadows of the clouds.
Below the timber-line these lakes are more appealing, and many in the midst of groves and meadows help to form delightful wild parks. Others are hidden away in black forests; tall, crowding firs and spruces rise from their edges and hide them completely, even when one is only a yard or two from their shores. I camped for a week within a stone’s throw of one of these forest-embowered gems without suspecting its presence. Returning to camp one evening from an encircling ramble, I was startled by stepping into a lake-edge. For a moment I was puzzled. Instinctively I felt that my camp was about the width of the lake ahead of me. Although I felt certain of my bearings, my mental processes were such that I was unwilling to trust this strange lake. Instead of walking around its poetic shore, I lashed two water-soaked logs together with willows and on this rude raft made my way directly across. My camp was within fifty feet of the place where I landed.
Elements of peculiar attractiveness are combined in the lakes that are situated along the timber-line. Some have a treeless mountain or a rugged snow-piled peak rising boldly behind, and an acre or so of meadow between one shore and the forest. A segment of wind-distorted trees, a few enormous rock domes, a fine pile of boulders, and a strip of willow with clumps of spruces and firs combine to give a charming border.