Guide to Map
Find lakes via a description
MPG V2.8, January 2013

Advisories about Google map display and about the Carbon River Road.

Lake Access Guide

Access to the lakes are catagorized as:

   Easy, accessible by road or short trail, usually a tourist waypoint;

   Moderate, accessible via a trail within a half day hike;

   Hard, accessible via a weekend hike with overnight camping, backcountry permit required;

   Difficult, accessible via multi-day hike, 3 or more days, or via off-trail or scrambling with off-trail backcountry experience necssary and backcountry permit required.

Information

The "information window" for each lake has the following information for each lake:

(1) the official name of the lake,
(2) the creek or river basin of the lake,
(3) latitude and longitude, in decimal degrees,
(4) the elevation of the lake, in feet above mean sea level,
(5) the USGS 1:24,000 (7 1/2 minute) topographic map, and
(6) notes about the access from either a highway or trail.

This should provide sufficient information to locate the lake and with the other Websites, linked in the list, and books should provide enough informaton to determine if you want to find it.

Information

There isn't much on-line or published information about the lakes in Mt. Rainier NP, and what does exist are often research studies related to water resources investigations or academic research. That said, here's a list I've found to date.

I'll add to this list as I find more studies or reports.

Names of Lakes

In 1961 the State of Washington published a series of reports on the Lakes of Washington State which was updated in 1965 and 1973 (above link). This report indentified and located 45 named lakes and 41 unnamed lakes in Mt. Rainier NP.

Since these lakes don't have official names they can only be indentified by their location. The Web pages here with the unnamed lakes chose to use the original location used in the last report in the series published in 1973 which is the standard Township and Range designation with the State of Washington's system for land and groundwater locations, see description (PDF), page 7.

The name used here is a combination of the township and range designation, which is the standard land system in many states and mostly the West. The State of Washington section and subsection is a variation of the standard section and subsection using the quarters through three section sizes, 160 acres (1/4 of a square mile section, 40 acres and 10 acres.

The State of Washington uses 16 40-acre subdivision in an alphabetical sequence, see diagram, from A to R excluding the letter "I" and "O" to avoid confusion with numbers. This system uses a second upper case (capital) letter to designate a lake encompassing two subsections. A second lower case letter designates a 10 acre subsection with the letters "a", "b", "c" and "d" for the northeast (NE), northwest (NW), southwest (SW) and southeast (SE), respectively.

This means the name is the township and range number with their respective compass diretions, section number and the 40 acre subsection, eg. 10N07E36A, 10N07E36AH, 10N07E36Ab. From this location and description in the report the lakes were found on maps and the latitude and longitude determined from the approximate center of the lake on a map.

Of the 41 unnamed lakes, one had been subsequently named and not included here but with the named lakes. Two lakes were not found to exist on current maps, one being a seasonal glacial-fed lake at the confluence of two streams, and the other being a beaver dam formed lake. The former is included for location purposes but the latter is not as it no longer exists.

No effort as this time is schedule to add anymore unnamed lankes or those with unofficial or informal names unless cited in official publications or on any official Website. There simply isn't the time to identify, locate and report the remaining 300 or sol lakes in the NP.

Resources

You can find sources for maps. Please use the contact link to send e-mail.