A high meadow in July

There is a meadow above the tree line, an hour past the lake, that we tell guests about and do not put on the map, because it is only worth the walk for three weeks and a map does not know what week it is.

The three weeks

The flowers come in the second week of July, when the snow has been off the meadow for a month and before the cows arrive to eat them. By August the meadow is grass. The window moves a week either way with the year, and we know it has opened because the herder tells us.

The walk

• The lake walk first: fifty minutes to the shelf.
• Then the path along the north shore, which is flat and easy, for twenty minutes.
• Then the climb, which is steep, faint and forty minutes. The path is a line of cairns rather than a path.
• Then the meadow, which announces itself.

What to bring

Water, because there is none after the lake. A hat. Lunch, because you will not want to leave. And the willingness to turn back at the cairns if the cloud comes down, which it does, quickly.

Ask at breakfast

We will draw it for you on the back of the menu, and we will tell you honestly whether it is the week.