Keechelus Lake () is a

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

and

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

in the

northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

United States, near Hyak in

Kittitas County Kittitas County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. At the 2020 census, its population was 44,337. Its county seat and largest city is Ellensburg. The county was created in November 1883 when it was carved out of Yakima Coun ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. Approximately southeast of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and a few miles southeast of

Snoqualmie Pass Snoqualmie Pass is a mountain pass that carries Interstate 90 (I-90) through the Cascade Range in the U.S. state of Washington. The pass summit is at an elevation of , on the county line between Kittitas County and King County. Snoqualmie Pass ...

, it is the source of the

Yakima River The Yakima River is a tributary of the Columbia River in south central and eastern Washington state, named for the indigenous Yakama people. Lewis and Clark mention in their journals that the Chin-nâm pam (or the Lower Snake River Chamnapam Nat ...

. Keechelus Lake is the westernmost of three large lakes near

Interstate 90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and ...

and north of the Yakima River in the

Cascade Range The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...

; the other two are Kachess Lake in the middle and

Cle Elum Lake Cle Elum Lake is a lake and reservoir along the course of the Cle Elum River, in Washington state USA. At the site of the future city of Cle Elum, Washington, a Northern Pacific Railway station was named Clealum after the Kittitas name Tle-el-Lum ...

to the east. After crossing nearby Snoqualmie Pass at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of , Interstate 90 runs along the lake's eastern shoreline and tight against mountains. Its westbound lanes included a snowshed midway (, milepost 57.7); built in 1950 for U.S. Route 10, it was removed in April 2014. Keechelus Lake is part of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

basin, being the source of the Yakima River, which is tributary to the Columbia River. The lake is used as a storage

for the Yakima Project, an irrigation project run by the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

. Although a natural lake, Keechelus Lake's capacity and discharge is controlled by Keechelus Dam, a high earthfill structure built in 1917. As a storage reservoir, its active capacity is . The name Keechelus comes from a Native American term meaning "few fish", in contrast to Kachess Lake, whose name means "more fish". The

Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (CMStP&P), often referred to as the "Milwaukee Road" , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until 1986. The company experience ...

("Milwaukee Road") formerly ran along the west shore of the lake and crossed the Cascades through the 2¼-mile (3.6 km)

Snoqualmie Tunnel The Snoqualmie Tunnel is a former railroad tunnel near Snoqualmie Pass in the U.S. state of Washington, located east of Seattle. The tunnel crosses the Cascade Range about south of the pass, which is used by Interstate 90, on the border betwee ...

, with its east portal at Hyak. Late to the West with its Pacific Extension, the Milwaukee Road's traffic to Tacoma began in 1909 and initially was routed over Snoqualmie Pass; the tunnel opened five years later in 1914 and heads due west from Hyak at an approximate elevation of . Close to the east portal near the lake's northwest shore was the

Milwaukee Ski Bowl Milwaukee Ski Bowl was an alpine ski area in the northwest United States in Washington, which operated between 1937 and 1950. It was southeast of Seattle in the Cascade Range at Hyak, on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass. Executives of th ...

, built in 1937 and operated by the railroad until 1950. The Milwaukee Road went through several bankruptcies; its rails were abandoned in 1980 and the right-of-way is now a

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

Iron Horse State Park Iron Horse State Park, part of the Washington State Park System, is a state park located in the Cascade Mountains and Yakima River Valley, between Cedar Falls on the west and the Columbia River on the east. The park is contiguous with a ...

, which includes the tunnel. About two miles (3 km) south of Keechelus Lake, the

Northern Pacific Railway The Northern Pacific Railway was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly of land grants, whic ...

crossed the Cascades at

Stampede Pass Stampede Pass (elevation ) is a mountain pass in the northwest United States, through the Cascade Range in Washington. Southeast of Seattle and east of Tacoma, its importance to transportation lies almost entirely with railroading, as no paved r ...

, and later through the associated tunnel, which opened in 1888. This route is still in use by NP's successor,

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

. It also had a ski area, the

Martin Ski Dome The Martin Ski Dome was a ski area located in Martin, Washington. Skiing in Martin Starting in the early 1920s, skiers from Cle Elum and Seattle's King Street Station would ride the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Martin, Washington stop. The ...

References

External links

Keechelus Dam

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

GNIS The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...

Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

(HAER) documentation, filed under Easton, Kittitas County, WA: ** ** ** ** ** ** {{Authority control Reservoirs in Washington (state) Lakes of Washington (state) Lakes of Kittitas County, Washington Protected areas of Kittitas County, Washington Wenatchee National Forest Historic American Engineering Record in Washington (state) Tributaries of the Yakima River

See also

References

External links