A very incomplete list of lakes we saw or visited:
- Sylvan Lake, South Dakota
- Trout Lake, Yellowstone, Wyoming
- Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming
- Long Lake, Wyoming (along Beartooth Highway)
- Jackson Lake, Wyoming
- Two Ocean Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
- Jenny Lake, GTNP, Wyoming
- String Lake, GTNP, Wyoming
- Phelps Lake, GTNP, Wyoming
- Little Redfish Lake, Idaho
- Redfish Lake, Idaho
- Lake Coeur D'Alene, Idaho
- Macdonald Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana
- Diablo Lake, North Cascades National Park, Washington
- Lava Lake, Montana
- Lake Angeles, Washington
- Whitefish Lake, Montana
- Lake Sammamish, Washington
You get the idea - there were a lot of lakes. But we can't really dig into what made each one special in one single blog post, so I wanted to look at the best of the best, or at least the ones with the best memories. As such, here is a quick recap about Margaret and Lake Angeles.
On our quest to do all sorts of things, we ended up at Olympic National Park in Washington. The park has several very different areas because the weather patterns change drastically on opposite sides of the Olympic mountains, which are bunched up in the Olympic Peninsula, southwest of Seattle. We had visited the Hoh Rainforest on the west/Pacific side, then circled around to the northern part of the park and stayed the night near Port Angeles, a pleasant port city near the mountains. And while we hadn't gotten a great sense of the mountains in the area, it was scenic.
We decided to do a hike to Lake Angeles, which was near the north entrance of the park. It would be 4ish miles out to the lake, so a moderate hike, we figured.
There were two significant downsides to this hike: 1) It was forested the whole way. No views of any kind. 2) It was uphill the whole way. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but I mean the whole way. There was not a single stretch of more than 10 feet of flat/lightly downhill. This wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the aforementioned lack of scenery. As such, the meat of the hike was not terribly pleasasnt.
Onward.
After almost two hours we reached the top of the hike, and it was everything we could have hoped for: a lake nestled in the mountains.
Upon arrival we came to the lake on what would be the right side, assuming we came in at the bottom of the lake.
Across the lake and to our left was a group of women on top of a giant boulder. Three of them were moving down toward the water and the 4th was hesitant. After another few moments, three of them hopped in the water. The 4th was...hesitant. Then the heckling began.
"GET IN, MARGARET!"
"COME ON, MARGARET. IT'S NOT THAT COLD. JUST GET IN!"
This went on for several minutes between laughs. Margaret insisted that she would eventually get in, she just didn't want to yet. But since there were only about 5 other people at this lake, we had a great time listening and laughing as they egged on their friend. When she eventually did get in, we cheered.
But they were also in the spot where we wanted to be, so we wandered through the woods and across a log-bridge to reach the giant boulder. We climbed up to the top and saw the ladies who had since gotten out.
"Which one of you is Margaret?" Jenna asked.
They laughed and answered and Margaret was proud to report that she had spent more time in the water than anyone else, as she was the last to get out of the lake. Not surprisingly, this group of 50-something year old women was just a delight to chat with. They were in town for one of their son's weddings and had swam in the Pacific the day before - which is exactly why Margaret was hesitant to get in cold water again - and were just having a lovely time. They also told us where the best spot to get in the lake was, in case we didn't want to jump off the face of the rock. But...we wanted to jump off the face of the rock.
Before jumping, Jenna swam out into the lake and made her way to the island in the middle.
(that's Jenna!)
She wanted to confirm how deep and pleasant the water was, but you could see very clearly about 20 feet down, and then it got too deep to have any idea. That water was clear. So without too much further thought, I stripped down to my skivvies and gingerly walked to the edge of the giant rock.
Margaret's friends were nice enough to photograph me.
We swam out to the island and sat on the shores over there, came back to the rock, and jumped again a few times. Jenna, who is afraid of heights, even worked up the nerve to jump in twice. The leap was probably 15 feet or so, and to her credit, the fear is less about the jumping and more about the standing up on the pokey/rocky/sharp/uneven ground in the wind where there's a chance of losing your balance.
Margaret and the gang left while we were in the water, though we bid them all a fond farewell.
We stayed for about an hour, just swimming and jumping and lying on the rocks. It's a pretty magical place in a pretty magical part of the country. How do you beat a view like this?
It's not easy, but maybe I'll see if we can beat it in a future post.
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