Ancient Lakes
Recently I was watching a gear review video on YouTube. I don’t remember what they were reviewing but I remember where they were doing their review; Ancient Lakes. I had never seen or even heard about this area of Washington, and did some quick calling to my buddies. They weren’t familiar with the area either. That’s all it took for me to pull maps and start making plans to visit the area.
Ancient Lakes is a cluster of three small lakes nestled at the head of a flat bottomed, cliff ringed valley called a coulee in these parts of Washington. The Ancient Lakes coulee is carved into the orchard-covered Quincy plateau and faces west, toward the Columbia River. This area is a great example of a recessional-cataract canyon. Potholes Coulee caught the attention of J Harlen Bretz in the early 20th century, which led to his “outrageous hypothesis” of Ice Age flooding; a very controversial theory during his time, but one that proved to be correct!
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Ancient Lakes is a cluster of three small lakes nestled at the head of Potholes Coulee; a flat bottomed, cliff ringed valley.
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Sunrise at Ocean Shores
Theresa is looking downstream at Murhat Falls. This waterfall is easy to drive to and an easy hike in the Olympic National Forest.
Nisqually Wildlife Reserve
Skate Creek runs alongside Forest Road 52 in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. This was just one of the many photographic sites that can be accessed from the road.
Sunrise at Fort Flagler State Park
Murhut Falls and its pool are nestled in the Olympic National Forest, not far from Dosewallips State Park.
Mystery Bay on Marrowstone Island.
Winter storm making landfall just south of Cape Flattery. This part of the Pacific Northwest can see some powerful storms.
An unnamed creek and a small waterfall that you can find along the Steam Donkey Loop trail, which starts within the Dosewallips State Park of Washington
Footsteps and a sunset over the Pacific Ocean.
Early morning sunshine filtered through the trees and reflected off the upper portion of Murhut waterfall
Theresa sitting under Murhut Falls, enjoying the beauty of the forest.
Found this small dam in the hills behind our camp on Hood Canal. At one time, it appears to have been used by a homestead to hold water during the summer months. #washingtonstateparks
A photographer takes a photo and becomes the subject himself.
“How We Survived a Slight Derailment on Tower Rock” was published on our website. You'll find a gallery of all photographs in the article towards the bottom of the page. I'd love to hear your thoughts or comments. You can find our URL in the bio.
Low tide on Crescent Bay and reflections in the pools left behind.
Potholes State Park
This year it’s hard to get short notice camping reservations as I’m sure everyone has noticed, but we did luck out and found a spot over at Potholes State Park which is only about a 45-minute drive from Ancient Lakes. We camped here once before when the temperatures had been a blistering 105 in the shade. Can’t say we enjoyed it much that time, but this time of year we had cold nights, and pleasant day temps this go-around and did enjoy the campsite.
We left early in the morning for Ancient Lakes and as we pulled in the parking lot it looked like we were going to have the place much to ourselves. However, before we could even gear up the parking lot started filling up with arrivals. There are so many trails that spider web off the parking area that we rarely saw but a handful of fellow hikers once on the trail.
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The only exception to this was the waterfall at the head of Ancient Lakes. This seemed to be the main attraction and it looked like a tour bus had ejected its payload at its base. As such we contented ourselves with the view from across the lake.
The real treat and view were when we decided to hike up to the south rim of the coulee. The topo map should have a saddle that would give us a view of the neighboring Dusty Lake. Not only did that prove to be the case but the views from the rim top back over Ancient Lake were spectacular.
We did get lucky with our timing. The desert flowers were in bloom, and there was an incredible number of birds in the area. And I’m happy to say that the one animal that I kept seeing a warning about — rattlesnakes, didn’t make an appearance at all. We’re already making plans for a return visit in the fall.
