Lake Sammamish State Park

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Lake Sammamish State Park

IUCN Category V - Protected Landscape / Seascape

2006-08-0449lake-sammamish-washington.jpg
location Issaquah , King County , Washington , USA
surface 207 ha
Geographical location 47 ° 34 '  N , 122 ° 4'  W Coordinates: 47 ° 33 '36 "  N , 122 ° 3' 36"  W
Lake Sammamish State Park (Washington)
Lake Sammamish State Park
Setup date 1950
administration Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission
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The Lake Sammamish State Park is a park at the south end of Lake Sammamish in King County in the State of Washington . The park is administered by the Washington State Park System . The park covers an area of ​​512 acres (207 hectares) and extends to 6,858 ft (2,090 m) of bank. It is popular for its activities such as boating and water skiing, as well as other water sports. There are around 250 parking spaces for vehicles with boat trailers. The Issaquah Creek flows into the park in the Lake Sammamish.

The park is at the center of a controversial debate about the environmental benefits of beaver populations .

Access

The state park is accessible from Exit 15 off Interstate 90 and the north end of Washington State Route 900 . On site, the East Lake Sammamish Parkway SE and NW Sammamish Road, which are both separate sections of the former Washington State Route 901, are used. The park can be reached by public transport using the metro transit lines 200, 216, 217 and 927.

Facilities

Swing on Lake Sammamish

Lake Sammamish State Park has many facilities for day trippers to make their stay relaxing. These facilities are grouped into three areas. The area west of Issaquah Creek contains picnic areas and shelters, two beaches (Tibbetts Beach and Sunset Beach), toilets, a collection point for waste water from mobile homes and sports fields. There are plenty of parking spaces. The sports fields include two for softball, seven large and four small football fields . Additional parking spaces have been set up next to each group of soccer fields. An entrance on NW Sammamish Road provides access to this area.

The area east of Issaquah Creek and west of East Lake Sammamish Parkway contains a slipway , hiking trails and near-natural biotopes. At the slipway, recreational captains have access to the lake with their boats; Parking spaces for vehicles and trailers as well as toilets are available. The Hans Jensen Youth Camp is located on the area east of the East Lake Sammamish Parkway. Entrances on East Lake Sammamish Parkway SE provide access to these areas.

public safety

The park is generally a safe place for visitors. Park rangers , who exercise sovereign rights, and police officers patrol the park and enforce legal norms and park rules. The Eastside Fire and Rescue , a fire station in the suburbs of Seattle, provides fire protection and emergency medical care.

Some tragedies have also played out in the popular lakeside park. Some bathers have already drowned in cold water - around 50 ° F (10 ° C) ... 55 ° F (13 ° C) in winter and 70 ° F (21 ° C) ... 75 ° F (24 ° C) in summer . Boating accidents resulted in personal injury and property damage.

On July 17, 2010, at 9 p.m. there was an exchange of fire. At that time, the park was full of visitors who wanted to enjoy a sunny summer day. The police responded and cordoned off the park. Firefighters and paramedics arrived to take care of the wounded. Two people died on the spot, and four more were taken to local hospitals.

Relation to Ted Bundy

The park gained notoriety at times when serial killer Ted Bundy kidnapped Janice Ott and Denise Naslund in broad daylight on July 14, 1974 in the park within four hours. Her remains were found months later by the roadside 2 mi (3 km) away near Issaquah, the closest town.

history

The area of ​​what is now the park and the small town of Issaquah has a long history of human use, dating back to the earliest days of indigenous settlement. The descendants of the Snoqualmie , Sammamish and Duwamish fished, hunted and collected plants like the edible prairie lily ( Camassia quamash ) in the marshes and primary forests of the Issaquah Creek Valley. The primary forest extended to the south shores of Lake Sammamish.

Beginning in the 1860s, foreign hunters, miners and settlers came up over the hills from an area that now occupies the town of Bellevue and the Sammamish River Valley to colonize the fertile open lands of what is now Kenmore , Bothell and Redmond . Archaeological studies have found trees on the bottom of Lake Sammamish that are over 1,100 years old and indicate seismic activity and landslides. Similar landslides occurred in Lake Washington around the same time. The state of the lake and the surrounding forest most likely remained unchanged from the time of the landslide until the late 19th century when European and American explorers first visited the valley.

Because Lake Washington was 11 ft (3.4 m) higher than it is today in the 1860s, and Lake Sammamish was 2 ft (0.6 m) ... 4 ft (1.2 m) lower than it is today , it was possible to slowly follow the winding course of the Sammamish River from Lake Washington to Lake Sammamish by steamboat. The northeast end of Lake Washington extends to the Bothell and Woodinville area . Early attempts to use the route between Issaquah and Lake Washington commercially, primarily for transporting coal from the pits in Issaquah, failed because of the low speed, the narrowness and the windings.

The current area of ​​the park and Issaquah experienced rapid development in the last part of the 19th century. The primary forest with its huge "cedars" (actually: giant trees of life , Thuja plicata , English red cedar ) and firs was cut down and floated into the sawmills at the northern end of the lake. Soon afterwards, the open areas were populated by hop and dairy cattle farms, which leveled the area further and burned the large tree stumps. Miners immigrated further up Issaquah Creek and Tibbets Creek, and the Issaquah area was soon known for its coal mines. The city continued to develop and promote economic activities (forestry, hunting, agriculture, mining). Roads and railway lines as well as clearing for apartments, businesses and farms changed the character of the landscape dramatically.

Only a little was afforested, so that the regrowing secondary forest is a mixture of deciduous trees and a few local conifers. When large trees were felled, they were quickly replaced with short-lived poplar and Oregon maple .

Human interventions have prevented the return of characteristic, long-lived conifer species and their undergrowth of trees, shrubs and herbs with the native Douglas firs , American strawberry trees , West American hemlocks , Sitka spruces , dogwoods , Purgier rotten trees , red alder and grape-leaf maple . The drier prairie-like areas provided habitat for Oregon oaks and prairie lilies and were sustained for hundreds - if not thousands - of years by periodic fires by local residents. Together with the Camassia from the drier areas reaped the local tribes superb raspberries , snow berries , currants , Huckleberrys , Nutka raspberries , tailed Haselwurz ( English wild ginger ), elderberry , Oregon plums , rock pears , Nootka roses and other plants for food and medicinal plants. The undergrowth was full of Western American Sword Fern , maidenhair ferns , ribs ferns , sham berries , Mahonien , forest holodiscus and other plants - most of which are not to be found more in the park.

The surface runoff of the formerly forested areas soon exceeded the amounts of water released over the year by the water-storing coniferous forests with their thick, sponge-like soils and led to runoff peaks. The increased runoff, along with the removal of vegetation through urbanization, agriculture, mining and road construction, caused a massive increase in sedimentation in the lake. The opening of the large sand and gravel mining in Issaquah contributed to the sediment load during the 1980s, until attempts to limit the input of sediments and sewage were finally successful. The continued sedimentation led to silting of the banks in the 20th century. Sedimentation and urban development caused lake levels to rise about 2 ft (0.6 m) ... 4 ft (1.2 m) above the 1860s level. The damming of the upper reaches of the Sammamish River contributes to rising water levels as well as the sediment load and vegetation clog the Sammamish River at Marymoor Park today . The bottom of the Issaquah Creek is also 2 ft (0.6 m) ... 4 ft (1.2 m) higher than it used to be, which is also due to higher sedimentation. These factors have contributed to the creation of wetlands today where there was once relatively dry primary coniferous forest.

All of this adds to the generally humid, swampy conditions that plague the park for much of the year. Restoration efforts have so far been ineffective due to the lack of funding.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lake Sammamish State Park . Washington State Parks. Retrieved November 6, 2018.
  2. ↑ Issauquah Neighborhood Bus Routes . King County Metro. June 7, 2010. Archived from the original on June 27, 2010. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 18, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / metro.kingcounty.gov
  3. ↑ a b Lake Sammamish State Park (map) . Washington State Parks. Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 20, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.parks.wa.gov
  4. ↑ John Flick, KOMO-TV staff: Deadly State Park shootout started with a taunt . SeattlePI.com . July 18, 2010. Retrieved July 18, 2010.
  5. ^ Ted Bundy, notorious serial killer . In: CourtTV Crime Library . CourtTV. Archived from the original on January 26, 2007. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 13, 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.crimelibrary.com

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