Wow, Pam and I enjoyed a beautiful kayak trip on Lake Mills Friday. Lake Mills is always a challenge; the lake is unforgiving when it comes to windy conditions. Launching, it can be very calm like a mirror, but by the time you arrive at the lake's south end white caps are almost always present. On this day indeed it was windy, but our boats are sea kayaks and designed for rough waters.
The attached pictures gives you views from a boater's standpoint. Most of us hike the western shore trail to Boulder Creek/Camp limiting our photo opts. From a boat we have the advantage of observing this alluring place from most any angle.
After departing through a small opening in the log boom protecting the dam we explored the lake's east shore. Arriving at the point where the mighty Elwha enters the lake it was quite windy and rough. Pam opted to take the safe route and paddle over to Boulder Creek/Camp and seek the calmer waters of the lake's west shore. Well, my inquisitive adventurous nature kicked in leading me to enter the river and paddle up the drainage. Before long I grounded my boat on a sandbar. I was not able to float the deeper flows of the river because of a log jam.
I pushed myself off the bar, turned the boat around and rode the flow back into the lake. Well, now I was back in rough water and decided to seek the security of Boulder Creek. As you can see from the picture, Boulder Creek is very low and I grounded after the first 30 yards on a bunch of boulders. Gee, I wonder why they call it Boulder Creek???
Lake Mills was a vision of Thomas T. Aldwell who built the lower Elwha dam in 1910. It was such a success he wanted to create more hydroelectric power. He needed financial backing, thus a Canadian financier named Mills supplied the needed funds to build the dam. The reservoir was named Lake Mills after Mr. Mills. Sadly, early entrepreneurs did not consider fish passages as a priority.
The attached photos will become historical after the dams are removed in the next 5 years or so.
It was a most enjoyable day. We were the only boats on the water giving us a since of serenity; almost spiritual. Hope you delight in viewing the pictures.
