Name this lake

[+travisl]

My brother's thinking about hiking up to this lake at 47 29.109, -123 23.983, near Lake Cushman in Mason County, WA. USGS maps don't name it. Any idea how I can find out what its name is?

 

WWJD? JW RTFM.

[+dasein]

I just located this lake in our Washington Gazetteer Atlas. Strange, other little teeny lakes' names are shown. Could this one have somehow escaped naming? If it doesn't have an official name, maybe your brother can name (er...log) it!

 

Temporarily French Polynesia's most prolific geocachers!

[+evergreenhiker!]

quote:

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Originally posted by dasein:

I just located this lake in our Washington Gazetteer Atlas. Strange, other little teeny lakes' names are shown. Could this one have somehow escaped naming? If it doesn't have an official name, maybe your brother can name (er...log) it!

 

Temporarily French Polynesia's most prolific geocachers!

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Something worth looking into! I know a guy htat found an unnamed lake off the Mid Fork road and he hiked in to it and named it after himself. Phil's Lake. It's supposedly just a matter of procedure naming a lake or some other natural feature...e.g. unamed waterfall.

 

Last summer, i discovered an absolutely beautiful, unamed falls...totally hidden until you are right on it. I may make this into a cache, but first I'm going to name it. I need to go back and get coords and research the exact process.

[+Shychief]

Commemorative Naming in the United States

[+TotemLake]

According to the Wonder Mountain Wilderness paper, this lake and other unnamed lakes in the area are known as Wonder Ponds.

 

Cheers!

TL

[+travisl]

That's a bit odd -- the paper you linked to says, "Wonder Mountain is the highest peak in the Wilderness. Wonder Ponds and several other

small ponds are located in the high headwaters of McKay Creek. There are no rivers or major

streams in the Wilderness."

 

Lostoutdoors.com identifies McKay creek as the southern tributary of Five Stream, which makes sense, because it's the only body of water visible on the topo maps of the Wonder Mountain Wilderness area. But... there's no lakes or ponds visible in either the topo maps or the aerial photos anywhere in the Wilderness area, other than the pond at the headwaters of Five Stream, which is just inside Olympic National Park. Even more interestingly, the photo of a lake in the Wonder Mountain Wilderness looks like it matches the one in this aerial photo, which is in Olympic, not the Wilderness.

 

I think I'll fire off an e-mail to the Hood Canal Ranger District and find out what they might know.

 

WWJD? JW RTFM.

[+TotemLake]

Yah I know. That was the quick search. I've been poring over other web sites since then. The closest info I have on the lakes/ponds in that area now come from Backpacker.com with the following writeup:

 

Within the Wilderness the headwaters of McKay Creek and Five Stream emerge from four tiny secluded lakes that bear no names, the only bodies of water in the area. Along the creeks grows a thick jungle of alder, willow and vine maple. A year's worth of precipitation sometimes reaches 60 inches, often falling as snow, and summer temperatures seldom exceed 80 degrees F.

 

Rarely visited by humans, Wonder Mountain Wilderness has no trails across it and no trails to its boundaries. Two forest roads that run relatively near the southeast and southwest borders are closed in fall and winter to provide protection for wildlife. Difficult hiking over steep forested slopes and along exposed ridges, through tangles of huckleberry and thimbleberry, will give you a Wilderness experience seldom surpassed in primitive solitude and exertion.

 

If I see more, I'll post it but this looks fairly difinitive.

 

Cheers!

TL

[+evergreenhiker!]

quote:

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Originally posted by TotemLake:

Yah I know. That was the quick search. I've been poring over other web sites since then. The closest info I have on the lakes/ponds in that area now come from http://www.backpacker.com/place/0,2678,284,00.html with the following writeup:

 

Within the Wilderness the headwaters of McKay Creek and Five Stream emerge from four tiny secluded lakes that bear no names, the only bodies of water in the area. Along the creeks grows a thick jungle of alder, willow and vine maple. A year's worth of precipitation sometimes reaches 60 inches, often falling as snow, and summer temperatures seldom exceed 80 degrees F.

 

Rarely visited by humans, Wonder Mountain Wilderness has no trails across it and no trails to its boundaries. Two forest roads that run relatively near the southeast and southwest borders are closed in fall and winter to provide protection for wildlife. Difficult hiking over steep forested slopes and along exposed ridges, through tangles of huckleberry and thimbleberry, will give you a Wilderness experience seldom surpassed in primitive solitude and exertion.

 

If I see more, I'll post it but this looks fairly difinitive.

 

Cheers!

TL

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That area is definitely on my list to visit someday!

[+TotemLake]

It does sound like the place to be eh?

 

Cheers!

TL

[+Peanuthead]

I have only read the forum and not researched this area, but almost every forum post refers to this as a wilderness area. If it is an official government "wilderness area" then I believe it is off limits to geocaching.

 

[+TotemLake]

quote:

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Originally posted by Peanuthead:

I have only read the forum and not researched this area, but almost every forum post refers to this as a wilderness area. If it is an official government "wilderness area" then I believe it is off limits to geocaching.

 

http://img.Groundspeak.com/user/7047_200.gif

 

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Perhaps to physical geocaching, but not to virtual geocaching. Also, there is nothing that says hiking is discouraged. In fact, backpacking.com describes it as physically demanding hike.

 

Cheers!

TL

[+travisl]

The actual lake that I talked about in the first post above is outside of the Wilderness, in Olympic National Forest.

 

WWJD? JW RTFM.

[+TotemLake]

quote:

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Originally posted by travisl:

The actual lake that I talked about in the first post above is outside of the Wilderness, in Olympic National Forest.

 

_WWJD? JW RTFM._

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Understood from the get go. But the only reference to unnamed lakes and ponds in the area was with the wilderness references even when using other mountains in the immediate area as the search reference.

 

Cheers!

TL

[Cire Yamel]

I wouldn't say I've "hiked" in that area per se...it's pretty thick stuff and tough walking, but I've taken the fly rod to a few of those ponds for small cutthroat trout. They are actually almost all truly ponds, many of them leftover from beaver dams. From my experience, they come and go, and they definitely change sizes and quality from year to year. Hence, they don't get individual names.

 

Some of those little streams around there have awesome crawfish, too, BTW.

[+travisl]

The ''unofficial-official'' answer: Snow Lake. Here's what the Public Service office of Olympic National Forest had to say, in part:

quote:

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There are two groupings of lakes that are separated by a small ridge that extend NE in the Wonder Mtn. Wilderness. The smaller lakes (north of the ridge) are referred to as Wonder Ponds and the larger lakes (south of the ridge) are called Wonder Lakes. All are in the Wonder Mtn. Wilderness and they are only accessible via cross-country hiking. This Wilderness has no developed or maintained trails. It is a small Wilderness for rugged and adventure-some individuals. Should have map & compass and be good at route finding in bad weather. The other lake you mentioned as being south of Wonder Mtn Wilderness is an unnamed lake (FS employees refer to it as ''Snow Lake''). It is accessed via the Four Stream Road (#2451-100). A hard to follow ''boot-worn'' way-trail follows parallel to the creek that drains from the lake up to the lake. Hope this helps.

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WWJD? JW RTFM.

[+TotemLake]

Thanks for the update!

 

Cheers!

TL

[+pdxmarathonman]

So when can we expect to see the Snow Lake Geocache?

[luckykoi]

Frisbee'r just placed a cache at the trailhead.