Silver Lake EarthCache
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Accessing the Quilcene trail from Penny Creek rd. off of Hwy 101. Trailhead is marked with parking up road #27. Hikes approx 3 miles gaining 1500ft taking about 2-3hrs. The coords will take you to the lake which is surrounded by Welch Peaks.
Climbing a summit will get you on rocky ground needed for this earthcache with a view of the Olympics, and Cascades. Take a day pack with food, water, first aide, and fishing pole. The lake is stocked with native fish.
A better definition of this trail head can be found at this link:
(visit link)
~You can also access the Lake by way of Sequim's Palo Alto road. And on to Forest Service Road 2870. The trail head is a few miles past the Dungeness Trail. It is unmarked except for a large boulder next to a trail large enough for an ATV located on a large bend in the road. It is a way trail that follows Silver creek part of the way. Route finding skills and Topo map needed. It's not recommended by the Forestry Office to take this route, although we did. These coords should take you to the trail head should you choose to go this way:
N47° 52.463', W123° 4.943'
For a better Idea of where your going enter the coords in google maps, and also enter Welch Peaks to see your location.
The Olympic mountains are not especially high - Mount Olympus is the highest at 7,962 ft - but the western slopes of the Olympics rise directly out of the Pacific Ocean.
The Olympics are made up of an abducted caustic wedge material and oceanic crust. They are primarily Eocene sandstones, turbidities, and basaltic oceanic crust.
Millions of years ago, vents and fissures opened under the Pacific Ocean and lava flowed out, creating huge underwater mountains and ranges called seamounts.
The plates that formed the ocean floor; the plate of Juan de Fuca inched toward North America about 35 million years ago and most of the sea floor. Juan De Fuca plate went beneath the continental land mass also known as the North American plate, because it is heavier.
The junction where these two plates meet is called the subduction zone. Oddly enough this subduction zone does not cause earthquakes and tremors like most which have scientists puzzled.
Yet two theories have developed:
The Juan de Fuca plate is young, when it subducts, it is still relatively warm and buoyant compared to older subducting plates. For this reason, considerable strain may be building by forcing the buoyant oceanic plate to squeeze under the continental plate. On the other hand, if the plate is warm enough, then the rocks at the interface may be more pliable than brittle, enabling the plates to slide without locking together. And some scientists believe the area is just building pressure and is due for a “quake of the century”.
During the subduction process some of the sea floor, was scraped off and jammed against the mainland, creating the dome that was the ancestor of today's Olympics. Powerful forces such as the continental glacier, one of the many glaciers still in existence with in the National Park, eroding water in the form of streams, and falls have fractured, folded, and over-turned rock formations, which helps explain the jumbled appearance of today’s Olympics.
Silver Lake is formed by a bowl that has been carved out between Welch Peaks by an ancient glacier. The ‘bowl’ fills up from melting snow water and the lakes depth varies through the seasons. There is an abundant amount of boulders which have separated from the jagged peaks above and some that have been delivered by glacier forces. For this earth cache you will be getting a better look at these rocks by climbing one of Welch Peaks rocky summits, within the Buckhorn Wilderness of the Olympic National Forest.
For this earthcache:
1.Useing GPS What is the elevation of the lake?
2.At the lake facing south there are two summits divided by a plateau, climb to the summit on the left side(smaller). What is the elevation on the summit of this peak?
3.What is your difference of Elevation from Welch Peak to Mount Olympus?
4.Take a pic of yourself, friend, family, foe, at the summit of a Welch Peak.
5.According to what you’ve learned, the classification chart, and the rock outcroppings at the summit, what kind of rock are the Olympics?
6.Knowing that the Olympic Peaks are made out a certain kind of rock; are there non-native rocks around the lake which where possibly delivered by glaciers?
7.Take a picture of yourself, friend, family, foe, with GPS on one of the large rocks around/in Silver Lake. Or if you’re fishing, take a fisherman’s pic! haha
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Treasures
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