The Hidden Life of Lily Lake

There’s so much that’s grandiose and overwhelming about this lake that lies just down the road from me and is a part of Rocky Mountain National Park. There’s the views of Longs Peak and Mount Meeker towering to the south, the ramparts of pale rose-colored granite to the north, and the views to the west of still snow-covered peaks.

Occasionally a moose or elk emerges from the aspens and conifers that border the lake,  much to the delight of the park visitors. Lily Lake once held beavers, which built a huge lodge on the south side but have since disappeared, leaving the lake to the muskrats (below) who criss-cross the lake, entertaining the tourists who think they’re beavers. While families of ducks sleep on the mats of water weeds, above them swallows dip and soar above the lake.

But if  you look more closely, there’s wildlife hiding in and on the pond, and the strangest one  has to be the tiger salamander.  With their oddly shaped heads and gills that fan out from their heads, and with short legs (below), they look like something from a different epoch, like someone tried to put a fish and reptile together, and it didn’t quite work.

After they reach a certain stage, most tiger salamanders leave the water for the land. But in Lily Lake, as far as I can tell, the salamanders stay in their larval stage, never leaving the water and never developing the yellow spots that inspired their name.

These ancient animals, which have the ability to regenerate their limbs, are related to the axolotl, which spends its whole life in water and never undergoes the metamorphosis into a land-dwelling salamander. But the axolotl only exists, just barely, in Mexico, where they were once a main part of the Aztec diet, but are now nearly extinct.

While discussing the tiger salamander with a tourist from Illinois who was familiar with the axolotl, he asked me about the Lily Lake salamanders: “Where do they come from?” The question stumped me. Did he think these larval salamanders had somehow migrated from Mexico? Or that someone had dumped some in the pond where they had multiplied? Or that they migrated from the plains, where they might spend winters instead of the frozen Lily Lake? I can only presume these salamanders burrow down in the mud once the lake starts freezing in November and hibernate.

But why do they exist here at all, when most of their fellow salamanders leave the water? One article I found said that some tiger salamanders prefer to remain in the larval stage because it’s safer in the water than on land, but only if there’s no fish to eat them. But I’ve seen people fishing along the shores. So it’s a mystery.

Just as mysterious and even less noticeable than the salamanders are the damselflies (left) that emerge every year in mid-June. Last week, kayaking on the lake one evening, these blue insects with their transparent wings were out in full force, even with a strong wind, swarming my kayak, flying in formation, like small armadas, across the lake.

Inches above the water, how are these delicate damselflies, which weigh almost nothing, not pushed into the water by the wind and drowned? Some even mate in mid-air, while others hang onto the blades of grass along the shore.

While I skim the dazzling surface of Lily Lake in my kayak, below me are strange primitive creatures, while beside and above me are blue ethereal beings. All of us coexisting happily in this amazing place called Lily Lake.

Comments

[SusanR]

I'm ashamed to admit that over the years I have sped past that lake countless times, traveling between Estes and Allenspark, or Estes and, in more recent years, Thornton -- and never stopped. Not once. And yet, it may now be one of the few places in the park for which you do not need an advance reservation. Or do you? I haven't been up there since the reservation system was begun.

[shoney]

Muskrats & Dragonflies! So cool!

[Kathy Kaiser]

Susan, technically you need a reservation between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., but in all the times I've been there this summer, I haven't seen a ranger checking permits.