A Day Camped Beside a Mountain Lake

5:40 a.m.

The tent door is stuck shut with frost. I breathe on the zipper pull until the metal warms, then tug. The fabric shudders and tiny flakes fall onto the sleeve of my jacket. Outside, the lake lies flat and gray, and the inlet stream is the only sound. The air smells of pine needles and cold rock. My breath hangs in front of my face and then disappears. I sit up in my sleeping bag and watch the far shore come out of the dark by degrees. There is no wind, no bird, nothing moving except the stream. The frost has beaded along the zipper's teeth.

6:15 a.m.

The stove hisses on the flat rock outside the tent door. I fill the pot from the stream, set it over the blue flame, and squat with my jacket half on. The coffee grounds go in when the water's barely shaking. I use a bandana to hold the stove handle. The sun is still below the ridge, but the slanted light has reached the tops of the pines on the far side. Steam rises off the pot and hangs in the cold air. I sit on the rock and wrap both hands around a tin cup. The grounds settle as the water calms. The stove's fuel can sits on its side with one dent on the bottom seam.

7:20 a.m.

The sun has cleared the ridge and the lake is bright. I pull off my boots and walk down the flat granite shelf to the edge. The water is so clear I can see the stones on the bottom, each one sitting in its own ripple of lighter sand. I step in, then go all the way under. The cold stops my chest. I count ten seconds, maybe fewer, then get out. My skin is red at the shoulders and the valley between my shoulder blades. I stand in the sun and the goose bumps go down slowly. A breeze starts at the shoreline and dies before it reaches me. The towel on the rock beside me has a wet imprint shaped like a torso.

9:40 a.m.

The wind has not come yet. The lake is a sheet of white glare, and the stones around the shore are already warm enough to sit on. I hang the wet towel over a branch, prop the sleeping bag against a rock, and eat a piece of bread with peanut butter. A chipmunk works the edge of the fire ring, picking through last night's ashes. I rinse the peanut butter knife in the lake and lay it on a flat stone to dry. The sun burns through the tent fabric, and the frost is long gone. I shake out the sleeping bag before I hang it, and a few pine needles fall onto the granite. The sleeping bag hangs over the branch at a diagonal, its zipper open.

Noon

By noon the sky has gone the pale, high blue of summer in the mountains. A breeze starts at the water, then dies, then starts again from a different quarter. I move the map into the shade of my pack and eat lunch with my back against a warm boulder. The waves are short and choppy, and the sun on them is a hard white texture. I drink the last of the stove-heated water from my cup. The breeze has picked up the corner of the map and folded it over. I press it flat with my hand, but the crease holds. The page shows a contour line running under the crease.

3:15 p.m.

The wind is steady now, coming over the ridge in gusts that sweep the lake into lines of dark water. The tent walls snap and the rain fly pulls at its stakes. I walk the shore and throw a spoon lure into the waves, more to have something to do than to catch anything. The line out-bows and I let it drift. After a while I reel in and lay the rod on the rock. The wind has flattened the grass against the slope above the cove. I sit on a boulder with my back to the wind and watch the whitecaps cross the middle of the lake. The rod leans against the boulder with its reel handle up, the line trailing loose to the water.

7:00 p.m.

The wind drops with the sun. The lake goes back to flat, and the surface picks up the yellow of the sky. I cook dinner on the stove — rice, some beans, salt — and eat sitting on the same rock. The light leaves the ridge by the minute. The mosquitoes come out of the trees and I pull on a long sleeve shirt. I leave the dishes for the morning and lay the wood for the fire, figuring the night will be cold. The first star shows in a gap between the peaks. I add one more stick to the teepee and adjust it. The kindling is stacked in a teepee, with the smallest sticks on top.

9:30 p.m.

The fire is down to orange coals and a low flame. I sit on a stump with my knees up and the smell of wood smoke in my sweater. The lake is all black, with a strip of reflected star-light trembling on the surface. The air is cold on my face. I step into the tent and the flashlight catches the frost starting on the roof of the fly. I zip the door half up, then hear something — a deer, maybe, crossing the talus — and leave it open while I look. The tent door hangs open, its zipper pulled down to the bottom of its track.