It’s not like the mountain lakes closer to home, with trampled alpine flowers, paths muddy up to the water line, stray orange peels, and other human debris. It’s clear and quiet and calm, the wind barely marking the surface. The diminutive yellow and white and red flowers spread like a carpet to the shore. I can remember some of their names: Indian paintbrush, maybe that’s a columbine, that one looks like an alpine rose. My legs ache as we sit to eat lunch under the branches of a tree that in the winter bears the weight of a thousand pounds of snow. The hike was advertised as 5 miles, but it is really closer to 7 and a half. We are only halfway done.