Myriad of Muses: Melakwa Lake

Monday, September 27, 2010

Melakwa Lake

9 mi, 2300 ft elevation gain

Wikipedia: Melakwa Lake is a lake in King County, Washington. The name Melakwa comes from a local native term for “mosquito.”

I admit to being a weather wimp, and usually when the forecast looks bad, I cancel my hikes. But the hiking season is reaching its end and I hadn’t gone anywhere in a month, so this Sunday’s hike was a “rain or shine” sort of thing. Having exhausted all of my lucky weather points on my backpacking and Rainier trips, of course… it rained.

I guess there are some benefits to the rain. The cool weather drives the bugs away, and the rain drives the people away. When we reached the lake, we were the only ones there for a little while, something that would be pretty impossible during a summer weekend. It also gave the views a little more depth, I think. It’s easy to see the beauty when the sun is shining and everything’s green, blue, or flowery. But on an overcast day, you have to look a little harder to find that beauty, and in a way, you see more.

Trees that are usually just trees end up looking magical because of the layers of fog in between them. One of our party members discovered that since the fog was moving, if you stared for a moment, it gave the illusion that the trees were moving, too. Not too many blueberries left (the Saturday people probably ate anything that was there), but the fall foliage was in magnificent form, the bright oranges and yellows popping out even more in the overcast conditions.

One of the reasons that this is a great hike is because there’s a lot to see on the way to the lake. There are several waterfalls, Keekwulee Falls being probably the most impressive of them. As we were looking around for Snowshoe Falls (harder to spot), a little kid heading back with his family announced to us, “Pat yourself on the back! You just passed Snowshoe Falls!” We really must have looked like sad drowned rats in desperate need of encouragement!

My hiking group did part of this hike a few years ago but turned around before reaching Hemlock Pass. Looking back over those pictures, things look so different as the seasons change. Nice to experience it in another way and to finally reach the lake at the end! Cautions about trail conditions at this time of year, though… lots of mud, and a good portion of the trail is rocky, which slows things down when the rocks are wet.