Lower Lake Wenatchee Area Field Trip—Saturday 6 June 2026
Quick description: Our focus on this trip will be on alpine glaciation from various sources in the Eastern Cascades near the lower Lake Wenatchee Area. Enroute, we will mix in big picture geology, weather and climate, and human uses in the area. The trip will begin on the beach in the southern portion of Lake Wenatchee State Park. Detailed schedule and the topics to be covered: 10:00 Stop 1—Lake Wenatchee State Park—Topics: Bedrock geology; weather & climate; Wenatchee River alpine glacier. 11:00 Depart 11:30 Stop 2—Northeast of Fish Lake —Topics: Fish Lake lobe of the Wenatchee River glacier; moraines & erratics; moraine-dammed lakes; Glacier Peak & Mt. St. Helens tephras. 12:15 Depart 12:45 Stop 3—Chiwawa River Valley Overlook—Topics: Chiwawa River alpine glacier; Mad River outlet glaciers; declining contemporary glaciers. 1:45 Depart 2:00 Stop 4—Meadow Creek Valley Overlook—Topics: Meadow Creek/Napeequa glaciers; Dirtyface Mountain cirques; Napeequa River capture by White River; moraine-dammed lakes. 2:45 Depart 3:15 Stop 5—Deep Creek at Morrow Meadow—Topics: Glacial meltwater, faulting, lateral valleys, and ice age lakes. 4:00 Depart for home Logistics: This trip is free and open to the public. You will need a Discover Pass for Stop 1. After Stop 1, we will drive on a mix of paved and good quality gravel forest roads. A Subaru-type AWD vehicle should do fine on the gravel roads. I strongly encourage you to consider carpooling; parking will be limited at each of the stops and lengthy strings of automobiles can be unwieldy on narrow forest roads. We will take short hikes at Stops 2, 3 and 4. By short, I mean 0.25 mi or less at each stop. The hiking terrain at Stops 3 and 4 will be fairly steep. Stops 2 and 4 will involve hiking off trail through recently logged areas. No restroom or picnic facilities are available along our field trip route after Stop 1. Therefore, you will need to use the great outdoors if you need to go. Plan on eating lunch/snacks on the road or at the stops. There will not be a formal lunch stop. Dogs and kids are fine to bring as long as they are well-behaved. Dress for the weather. June weather here can be sunny and hot to rainy, windy & cool. A pdf of the field guide is already posted on my CWU website at https://www.cwu.edu/academics/geography/_documents/karl-lillquist.php. Scroll down the page to “Field Guides”. You will find it under “Lower Lake Wenatchee Area”. Feel free to download and bring it on the field trip in digital format or print it out. The Ellensburg Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute will also provide ~40 hard copies of the field guide for the trip. If you want a hard copy, please consider a cash donation to help defray the costs of the field guides (each costs about $15 to print). Questions? Email me at lillquis@cwu.edu or leave a phone message at 509 963-1184. Emails are best as I only check that phone a couple of times each week.