Show Low Lake County Park

Author's Comments

Show Low Lake is not the most dramatic body of water in Arizona, and I think that is part of what I like about it. At sixty-five hundred feet, surrounded by ponderosas, it feels less like the desert and more like somewhere quieter and further north. The pines come right down to the shore in places, and the lake holds the sky cleanly on a still evening. I come for the ospreys. Late spring through summer they work the lake in long, patient circles, and if you are willing to sit on the west shore with a long lens and wait, you will eventually see one fold its wings and drop. Most of the dives end with nothing. A few do not. Either way, the watching is the point. The west-facing shoreline is the obvious place at golden hour, and obvious is correct here. The light comes across the water low and warm, the pines on the far shore turn copper, and the reflection holds if the wind has dropped, which it usually does in the last half hour before sunset. Bring something long for the birds and something wider for the light on the water. They are different photographs and both are worth making. This is a park that does not ask much of you and does not give back something earth-shattering in return. What it gives is a quiet evening at altitude, pine smell in the air, the chance of a good silhouette against an orange lake. Some places earn their keep that way.

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