The lake walk from the door, and the hour of the day it is best

The lake is the walk every guest asks about at check-in, and the answer has not changed in three generations: go before breakfast. Not because the walk is hard, but because the lake is a different place at seven than it is at eleven, and the seven o'clock lake is the one on the postcards.

The way up

Out of the door, left along the lane, and onto the path at the wooden signpost. The first twenty minutes are through larch, on a track wide enough for two. Then the trees thin, the path steepens, and for ten minutes it is honest work. The last stretch is a shelf of rock with the lake suddenly under it, which is the moment people stop talking.

• Fifty minutes up at a walking pace, twenty down.
• Three hundred and ten metres of climb, all of it in the middle third.
• Boots are better than trainers on the shelf. Poles are unnecessary.

The colour

The water is turquoise, and the turquoise is real: it is rock flour, ground by the glacier that feeds it and held in suspension. What changes with the hour is the light. Before the sun clears the ridge, the lake is lit from the sky and the colour is deep and even. Once the sun is on it, the surface throws the sky back and the colour goes flat. By eleven the wind is up and the surface is broken, and the lake is a lake.

The hour

Between seven and nine, from May to October. In July the sun clears the ridge at about nine; in September, at about half past nine. We put the sunrise time on the board by the door each evening, and the walk is worth setting an alarm for.

What we changed for it

Breakfast used to finish at ten. It now runs until eleven, and it runs until eleven because of this walk. Nobody should have to choose between the lake at its colour and Jonas's bread warm.

"We went up at seven and came down to breakfast. It was the best morning of the year." From the book by the door, most weeks.