GEOLOGIC BEGINNINGS Lake Chelan was carved out of rock by glacial ice nearly 17,000 years ago. It is made up of two basins which are divided by a shallow sill known as the “Narrows.” The deepest of the two, The Lucerne Basin, holds 92% of the lake’s water in the northern three-quarters, and 5% of the water is below sea level. This basin is also home to one of the deepest lake gorges in the world. The walls of the lake around Safety Harbor Creek and Canoe Creek plunge over a thousand feet to a depth of 386 feet below sea level. Wapato Basin, the smaller of the two, is only 400 feet deep and 12 miles long. This is where the majority of the summer recreation takes place, with lake temperatures reaching 78 degrees in August. THE MINERS In the 1880’s, the lure of precious metals brought prospectors to the upper regions of Lake Chelan. Miners began to trickle into the Stehekin Valley on an old Indian trail over Cascade Pass and on other routes from the Skagit River Mining district on the western slopes of the Cascades. Stehekin became a busy lake port for mining supplies, which were ferried up lake from Chelan. At the peak of the rush in the late 1890’s, hundreds of prospectors were searching for ore in the mountains above the valley. About 25 miles up-valley from Stehekin, the Black Warrior, Blue Devil, and Upper Horseshoe Basin mines showed the greatest promise for production. HISTORY EXPLORE THE PAST 90 LAKE CHELAN VISITORS GUIDE 2024 LakeChelan.com
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