Saturday, Labour day weekend. We hiked up along Denny Creek to Melakwa Lake, in the Central Cascades.
The trail starts from a busy car park and soon takes you under the I90 westbound carriage, rising from the firs on concrete stilts. It looked suprisingly good.
Whilst the I90 route to the trailheads around North Bend is very coinvienient, it was getting a bit samey. At one point we were further from the car to where we were a couple of weeks ago. With all this wilderness, that’s not right.
We soon found ourselves zig-zagging up through forest and rockfalls to Keekwulee falls and alongside the more hidden Snowshoe falls. From there it is a short pull up more switchbacks to the lake itself.
Melakwa is Chinook for mosquito, apparently. There were certainly a few of the little suckers about, and their prescence, combined with the overcast skys and occasional drizzle made our lunch break short and the idea of swimming was never realised. There are a couple of good looking camping spots between the upper and lower lakes, but the eponymous mozzies might be a bit of a chore in the evenings.
Coming down was worse than going up, due to the rocky nature of the path, combined with the lack of novelty, as we’d seen it all on the way up. It was still enjoyable to be out in the ‘wilderness’ for a few hours though.
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