Kachess Lake is located in the western part of Kittitas County, north of I-90. This is in the extreme western end of the Cache-Cadian Chapter of the WSGA. Kachess Lake is a lake and reservoir along the course of the Kachess River. The upper part of the lake, north of narrows, is called "Little Kachess Lake". The Kachess river flows into the lake from the north and out from the south. Kachess Lake is the middle of the tree large lakes which straddle I-90 north of the Yakima River. Kachess Lake is part of the Columbia River basin as the Kachess River is a tributary of the Yakima River which is a tributary of the Columbia River. Kachess Lake is used as a storage reservoir for the Yakima Project, an irrigation project run by the US Bureau of Reclamation. The outflow of the lake into the Kachess River and into Lake Easton, is controlled by the Kachess Dam which is a 115 foot high earthfill structure that was built in 1912. As a storage reservoir, Kachess Lake's active capacity is 239,000 acre-feet. The name Kachess comes form a Native American term meaning "more fish".
GZ will provide you with a nice view of the lake. No need to head down hill to find the cache.
In September 2002, a group of 19 concerned geocachers scheduled a meeting after hearing that the Washington State Parks was considering banning geocaches in the state park system. Out of this meeting, the Washington State Geocaching Association (WSGA) was "born" with its core values of promoting geocaching as a fun, family-oriented outdoor activity that increases awareness and appreciation of the environment and our parks and trails, provide opportunities for participants to enjoy geocaching and to socialize with other geocaches, educate park systems and land managers about geocaching and its benefits, increase awareness and support of the geocaching through interaction with other outdoor groups and the public, encourage low-impact geocaching and promote stewardship of our natural resources, and support "Cache In Trash Out" activities to help maintain parks and trail systems.
In 2022, the WSGA turns 20 years young. To celebrate this milestone, the WSGA is hosting a 20th-anniversary GeoTour. This GeoTour will give you the opportunity to travel to all corners of the Evergreen State while you search for 140 GeoTour caches. To make it easier to tackle such a large GeoTour, each of our 7 regional chapters will host a bite-sized GeoTour consisting of 20 GeoTour caches with the entire GeoTour consisting of 140 caches. To learn more about our GeoTour, please visit the GeoTour page on our website which you can find HERE. We hope that you enjoy getting back out on the road while touring around Washington State. If you have any questions about our GeoTour, you can reach out to us via the contact tab on our website.
