Lake Washington: Pause awhile to appreciate our heavenly body

To many, Lake Washington is just a large body of water to drive around or across as we hurry to and fro in our busy lives.

On clear winter days, perhaps we take a glance at the stunning view of snow-covered Mount Rainier, some 50 miles distant but at times seemingly at its southern shore.

We rarely pause to consider that, at about 20 miles long and covering 21,500 acres, it is Washington's second largest natural lake (only Chelan is larger), or that its glacier-carved depths reach 214 feet and embrace water of remarkably high quality for a lake surrounded by development.

"It's an amazing water body that is in our back yards," said Jonathan Frodge, a limnologist (one who studies lakes) for King County's Water and Land Resource Division. "I don't think there is a city in the world that has a water body of that quality inside an urban area. In the rest of the United States, people would be throwing the kids in the car and driving eight hours to go to a lake of that quality."

Lake Washington is a natural resource that many of us take for granted despite the fact that its 71.5 miles of shoreline include more than 50 parks: at least 21 in Seattle, 10 in Kirkland, six in Bellevue, four on Mercer Island, two each in Kenmore, Renton, Medina and Lake Forest Park and one in unincorporated King County.

PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I

Morning fog shrouds Foster Island, which is reached by a footbridge along a loop trail in the Washington Park Arboretum.

That does not include several boat launches, street ends and "landings" that are public property, or the Burke-Gilman Trail that follows part of the lake, or parts of Lake Washington Boulevard that, on the lake side, are park properties.

These parks come in a fascinating variety, including quaint pocket beaches (Mount Baker in Seattle and Marsh in Kirkland come to mind), wildlife-rich wetlands (Juanita Bay, Union Bay, Mercer Slough and others), one of the last old-growth forests in the urban Puget Sound region (Seward Park) and the last significant undeveloped piece of property on the lake (Saint Edward State Park).

They offer great places to stroll, run, hike and bicycle, paddle, sail and windsurf, swim, picnic and flip a Frisbee, run or swim your dog, and launch your boat to fish for salmon, trout, bass and perch. One park (Magnuson) even has a designated kite-flying hill.

The birding and wildlife watching is remarkably good at many of the parks. With a good pair of binoculars and a pocket full of patience, you can spot bald eagles, peregrine falcons, osprey, wood ducks, hooded and common mergansers, western grebes, loons, teal, widgeons, gadwalls, buffleheads, pileated and downy woodpeckers, flickers, kingfishers, songbirds, owls, otters, beavers and muskrats.

PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I

Early risers greet a golden dawn from the pier at Mount Baker Park along Lake Washington Boulevard. For a super bike ride, pedal Lake Washington Boulevard from Mount Baker Park to Seward Park.

The first people to live here also believed supernatural creatures inhabited the lake and its shores, including thunderbirds, spell-casting dwarfs and horned serpents.

Lake Washington is a deep, narrow trough carved some 13,000 to 15,000 years ago by the massive Vashon ice sheet, the last advance of an even larger glacial period known as the Cordilleran ice sheet. At some point, native peoples arrived and the lake became occupied by groups known collectively as the hah-choo-ahbsh, or people of hah-choo, meaning "large lake."

They lived in more than a dozen villages around the lake, trapping fish, hunting waterfowl, raccoons, otter, deer and elk, and harvesting wapato bulbs from extensive marshes, and other native plants and berries. Their myths likely are associated with cataclysmic events that have occurred periodically over the centuries, including an earthquake about 1,000 years ago that caused tree-covered hillsides to slide into the lake at three places and become sunken forests.

Over time the native people were displaced and the lake was altered dramatically. It was lowered in 1916 upon the completion of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which linked the lake to Puget Sound via Lake Union.

PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I

Bird-watcher Glenn Peterson is often spotted on the boardwalks spanning the fowl-filled wetlands of 144-acre Juanita Bay Park.

By the late 1950s, some 20 million gallons of sewage plant effluence was being dumped into the lake, polluting it and causing heavy algae blooms that darkened the water, left a smelly scum and prompted periodic closures of beaches. In 1958, voters approved a plan to divert all sewage to plants that would then treat and pump the effluence into Puget Sound. By 1968, sewage was no longer entering the lake and its quality and clarity improved dramatically, from 30 inches of visibility in 1964 to 25 feet in 1993.

To be sure, problems remain. Department of Health experts advise anglers not to eat any northern pikeminnow they catch in the lake and limit consumption of cutthroat trout and perch due to PCB contamination. Certain beaches, such as Juanita, are closed to swimming periodically in summer due to bacterial pollution from storm water runoff and goose droppings -- a tangible reason to refrain from feeding waterfowl on the lake.

If you live near the lake, other things you can do to keep it clean include using organic fertilizers on your lawn and garden, minimizing the use of pesticides and herbicides, and never dumping chemicals, oils or other nasty stuff into storm drains.

You'll find out why that's important when you visit the parks that dot the shoreline.

The three largest include arguably the lake's best -- Seward Park at 300 acres and Saint Edward State Park at 316 acres.

PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I

Wind surfers Gary Stevens, left, and Dan Costigan eye the waters off Magnuson Park. When the winds reach 12 knots, Stevens and Costigan grab their boards and hit the lake.

Seward Park encompasses the entire Bailey Peninsula on the southwest side of the lake; the water side of Lake Washington Boulevard for four miles north from the peninsula is also park property. About 200 of those acres constitute Seattle's last, relatively large old-growth forest, a classic mix of native fir, hemlock and cedar that must be hiked to be best appreciated.

A Seattle tradition is to walk the maintenance road that circles the peninsula. It's a wonderful walk that offers changing views out over the lake, including perhaps the lake's best look at Rainier.

"It's wild, undeveloped," said Joe Roche, a Mount Baker-area resident who recently spotted a peregrine falcon while walking the loop. "It smells like the forest. It's beautiful."

Saint Edward is the wooded former grounds of a Catholic seminary and represents the largest undeveloped piece of land on the lake, with 3,000 feet of undeveloped shore. About eight miles of trail lace the second-growth forest of fir, hemlock, cedar, alder, maple and cottonwood, through ravines and along ridges.

"It's a hidden treasure," said Ross Edwards, park recreation specialist. "A lot of people don't know about it. It's close enough to suburbia, but when you're in the park, it feels like you're far away."

Somehow that seems appropriate for a big natural lake surrounded by cities.

Best bets

• BIGGEST PARKS: Magnuson, 350 acres; St. Edward, 316; Seward, 300
• BEST HIKING TRAIL: St. Edward State Park (North Canyon/South Ridge loop)
• BEST BIKING ROUTES: Seward Park (park loop and north along Lake Washington Boulevard to Mount Baker Park); Burke-Gilman Trail (U.W. to Kenmore)
• BEST STROLLING: Seward Park (park loop); Kirkland waterfront (Marina Park to Houghton Beach)
• BEST RUNNING ROUTES: Seward Park (park loop and north along Lake Washington Boulevard to Mount Baker Park); Arboretum (Foster Island loop trail)
• BEST BIRDING: Union Bay Natural Area; Seward Park; Juanita Bay Park
• BEST PADDLING: Union Bay/Foster Island; Mercer Slough (via Enatai Park)
• BEST OVERALL PARK: A tie: Seward Park (old growth, extensive shoreline, views), St. Edward (longest undeveloped shoreline, largest undeveloped tract on lake).

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