Capitol Lake is a man-made lake in Olympia, Washington, designed to reflect the state capitol building on the hillside to the left of this image. I used to frequently walk around the lake and watch nature and people. I was always amazed at the number of people that would be walking and totally oblivious to the incredible skies and cloudscapes.
Lake 22 in east of the city of Everett, along the Mountain Loop Highway. It is one of the most heavily hiked trails in the Cascades. It is also the location of my first backpack trip back in the early ’60’s. I remember having to carry out the wet canvas tarp we used for a shelter … it rained and the little hollow we had set up camp in filled with water. It was only 2 miles or so downhill, but my pack weighed over 70 lbs when I got home. But that was long ago and in the summer. Nowadays, there is no overnight camping allowed. And they have added a boardwalk around most of the lake to protect the meadow areas.
(More found images from my Archive Catalog)
(more found images from my archive) The top image shows why Hart Lake (Upper Duckabush in the Olympic National Park) is sometimes called Heart Lake (but since there is another Heart Lake — also heart shaped — also in the ONP). So I continue to call this one Hart Lake. If you look carefully in the lower right corner of the top image (click on it for a bigger view), you will see the little green dot that is our tent.
(more found images from my archive file) Hart Lake is in the upper Duckabush Valley, and is much less visited than the Heart Lake in the upper Sol Duc. Hart Lake takes over 20 miles of hiking to get there, so there are many fewer visitors. We were camped near the lake and when the sun was coming up, the clouds in the valley moved up … before burning off for the day. It was spectacular.
Lake Cushman is the reservoir behind the dam on the North Fork Skokomish. There was a natural lake there in the old days, but much smaller. The North Fork Skok is one of my favorite hikes … Staircase Campground is very popular and sits just inside the boundary of the Olympic National Park. The mountain just to the right of center is Mt Rose. The snowy peak behind it is Copper Mountain. The early prospectors looked for copper but didn’t find any worth working. The Olympics are pretty much free of any valuable mineral deposits (mostly marine sedimentary rocks or marine basalt) … which is one reason they remained pristine until they could be protected by the national park system. Below is a close up of Mt Rose.
Mt Rose has a trail to the summit. A steep trail, but at least you get some view from the top. I used it for years as a training hike, year round. In the winter, I would snowshoe to the top, going pretty directly up, since the trail was covered. I would then follow the ridgeline that runs to the right (in this view) and then drop back down to catch the trail at about the 3400 ft level.
