[polarbear]

The three of us had a half baked plan to go hiking to Lake Melakwa on Saturday but never really agreed on a time to meet. As it was I didn't start hiking until 11:00 and figure that my two friends, Mike and Tom, were probably already at the lake fishing or maybe hiking up to the pass or beyond. There car was parked close to the trailhead, and mine was way back yonder. I tried to hike a bit faster to see if I might catch them. For all the cars in the lot, there were few people on the trail. I hiked the last 1//4 mile with a guy form kirkland who was telling me how he tried to lead a grassroots effort to buy the Redmond Valley and save it from development--they could have done it in the mid-1960's for a mere $7 a household. We got to the lake which was its usual scenic self and I scanned the shore for my friends. Not seeing them I decided to head to Melakwa pass. Oddly I had not seen hardly a single bug of the variety for which the lake is named (see http://www.hiyu.net/critters.html ). When I reached the north end of the lake I hooked up with my friends who had been fishing for quite awhile and hadn't caught a thing though they could see a few fish swimming around. Maybe the fish had a hearty meal of mosquitos the night before and weren't hungry. We decided to go to Melakwa pass where I told them if they had a really good cast they could drop a line into Chair Peak Lake and catch something . We hiked to the pass and beheld the great views of Glacier Pk, Gem Lake, and of course Chair Peak Lake which was still about 60% frozen over. On the way back we encountered a group with an Old English Sheepdog, one of the more interesting dogs I've seen on the trail http://www.illustratedbreeds.co.uk/erol.html#192x0 . We stopped for a burger at Scott's Dairy Freeze in North Bend. It looks like it's raining this morning, glad I got out yesterday.