Second look: a shrunken lake and a last tongue of snow
The first look at an empty lakebed leaves me so shocked and disheartened that I don't even turn aside to walk down to the old shoreline. I just keep climbing the hill toward the Quonset hut. So you can imagine my surprise and pleasure when twenty yards further along the changing angle reveals water in the lakebed. The lake is many feet lower than it was, but it's still there! I even spot a last vestige of the snowfield curving around the west edge of the talus field.
I have many happy memories of Emerald Lake. One of the most poignant I cannot place clearly in time. I remember sitting beside the lake on a very cold evening when there was not a breath of wind stirring. The lake was a perfect mirror, and there was plenty of light from the moon. Suddenly a sliver of frost formed at the edge of the lake. It ran out and skated across the surface as fast as thought. The surface of the lake froze over right before our eyes!
I believe this may have happened on the evening Steve, Thane and I hiked to Emerald Lake. I know that hike was late in the year. Thane couldn't get down from Logan to Provo until late in the evening, and we decided to hike under the moonlight rather than wait for dawn. We carried sleeping bags in our backpacks and climbed in moonlight and starlight as far as Emerald Lake. It was the only night I slept in the Quonset hut. I remember that sometime before dawn a group of students arrived shivering and complaining of the bitter cold. Thane rolled over and mumbled that his sleeping bag was too hot! That shut them right up.