Melakwa Lake 11.15.14
We lucked out with another sunny weekend in November, only this time it was much colder. We wanted to get back to Seattle a bit earlier for evening plans so we tried to find something close by and not too long - we settled on Melakwa Lake off of Denny Creek. Matt wanted a peak to climb so he thought we could just run up Kaleetan Peak from the lake and call it a day. We left Seattle about 7am and arrived at the trailhead to find a few other cars there already, at a balmy 29 degrees. I decided to start hiking in my fleece, something I rarely do.
Westbound I-90 above us
There were a few downed trees not too far in on the trail, and some patches of ice. I should have paid more attention to the ice as it was indicative of trail conditions to come. We crossed the bridge, made our way under I-90 far above us, and started up. We got to the major creek crossing with the warning about not crossing in high water. The water level was fine but the rocks had a good layer of ice on them. We all picked our ways across and somehow managed to avoid falling in the water - victory!
Denny Creek crossing, made a bit more challenging with icy rocks
Soon after the creek crossing we saw Keekwulee Falls, a beautiful, mostly frozen waterfall. As we made our way up through the meadow on the open mountainside we saw many frozen waterfalls, some bigger ones feeding the creek and other small cascades on rock faces uphill from us. The wind was a bit more brutal out of the trees and I continued to hike with my fleece on. At least the sun was out, but it didn't seem to provide me with much warmth.
[Left] Mostly frozen Keekwulee Falls. [Right] Another frozen waterfall
We continued along the mountainside, heading up the valley towards Hemlock Pass. As we crested Hemlock Pass and started down towards the lake, we had to navigate several large sections of ice on the trail, sometimes with little to no alternative to carefully walking across the ice. We had a few slips but luckily nothing too serious.
Navigating an icy section of the trail
We made it to the lake, and I felt as frozen as the lake looked. There was no way I wanted to hike up a ridge in the wind and cold to tag Kaleetan Peak. It seemed that most of the group was cold so eventually we decided to head back down from the lake, calling it a day, but not before we enjoyed some cold lunch at the lake. We found some sunny rocks to sit on that seemed to be a little more out of the wind. Some of the group enjoyed tossing rocks onto the lake to test the strength of the ice. Sara pulled out hand warmers and distributed them as we tried to warm up.
A frozen Melakwa Lake
We packed up and started our trek back up to Hemlock Pass, across the giant ice patches. As we started down the other side of the pass, Sara traded me mittens so I could get some blood flow back in my white fingers thanks to her superior hand warmer. At the lake I had added my giant blue puffy jacket over my fleece and hiked down in the layers. After getting back below the pass and out in the sun, I took down two of my hoods and unzipped the jacket a little bit, but it still felt good to have on. We passed quite a few people on our way down, many more with the same desire to get out in the sunshine. some groups looked much better equipped to battle the cold than others (i.e. mesh shorts!). We made it back to the car, now at a balmy 27 degrees, and packed up to head to warm food in Issaquah. It was nice to get out in the mountains but it was a bit too cold for my liking. I'm going to have to toughen up before the snow really starts to fly!
GPS track to Melakwa Lake can be found here
Trail to Melakwa Lake
Melakwa Lake, it was too cold for most of the group so we headed down instead of continuing up to Kaleetan Peak