The lake after the boats leave

In October the lake changes hands. The summer boats come out of the water, the docks go quiet, and Lake Hopatcong goes back to what it was before anyone arrived: about 2,500 acres of still water folded into the hills of northern New Jersey, the largest lake in the state.

When the color comes

Color reaches the Highlands first. Across New Jersey, peak fall color arrives on average between October 19 and 29, and it starts here, in the northwest of the state, before it moves south and east. Nobody can promise a date. Some years the maples turn early after a dry September; some years one storm takes the leaves in a night. The safest plan is a weekend in the second half of October, and an open mind about the rest.

The lake is about nine miles end to end, and it bends around enough points and coves that you never see the whole of it at once. In autumn that is the pleasure of it. Every turn of the shore is a different hillside, lit a different way.

Walking it

The best of the season is on foot. Mahlon Dickerson Reservation, a short drive north in Jefferson Township, has more than 3,500 acres and 27 miles of trails, and Headley Overlook there is one of the highest points in Morris County. Closer in, Hopatcong State Park sits at the south end of the lake, beside the dam the Morris Canal Company built in 1831 to raise the water for its canal. The lock tender's house is now the Lake Hopatcong Historical Museum.

There is a reason a long walk does people good, though it is easy to overstate. A study of about 20,000 people in England found that those who spent at least two hours a week in nature were more likely to report good health and wellbeing. It shows an association, not a cure. It is still a fair argument for the long way round.

When the water goes down

Late in the year the lake is lowered on purpose. Each winter the level is drawn down so that ice does not damage the shoreline, with a target date in mid-December. The shallows show their stones and the coves look wider. It is the lake at its most honest, and the quietest it will be all year.

We think autumn is the best time to come to the house. The days are short enough that an evening by the fire feels earned, and the water is calm enough that a morning beside it asks nothing of you.