Fish Lake Trail

Acting on a tip from a friend, I checked out the Fish Lake hiking trail last Saturday. The trail starts here in the city, only about a mile from downtown Spokane, and follows the graded path of a former railroad track to Fish Lake south of town. For some reason I was under the impression that the trail was 6 miles long one-way, so I was planning on a 12-mile round trip. It took me four hours to get to Fish Lake, though, which was perplexing, but I figured I must have just been walking MUCH slower than normal. Before leaving the lake, I looked at a map and realized the trail was actually 10 miles long! Since I wasn’t exactly equipped to spend the night (and I had to play the organ in church the next morning anyway) I had to hike the 10 miles back. It was an easy trail, though, and didn’t feel like a 20-mile trip. I shouldn’t have looked at the map; I never would have known it wasn’t a 12-mile hike!

The trail started out as gravel, the kind of small, deep gravel that’s hard to walk on in some places. But about an hour into the trail, it was suddenly and inexplicably paved for several miles. This picture attempts to show the sudden appearance of pavement, out in the middle of nowhere. Closer to Spokane there were several cross-streets, but by the time I got to the pavement, I hadn’t crossed a street for miles. Then after several more miles, the pavement just as suddenly and inexplicably disappeared and the trail was gravel again. This seemed rather bizarre to me. If the powers-that-be had the resources to pave five miles of a trail, wouldn’t you think they’d start at one end or the other, rather than hauling all their equipment to some random point in the middle of the trail? And if they had paved the part closer to Spokane, the trail could conceivably have been used by bike commuters, the way the Centennial Trail is used. As it is, the gravel part of the trail would be impassable by all but the hardiest bikers since the gravel is so deep. Alas, this is why I’m a mere engineer instead of a city planner: I don’t understand these things!

Fish Lake itself was delightful. There’s a marked swimming area with lifeguards, so several families had come out to picnic by the lake. It was a large enough area that it didn’t feel crowded, though. I took a bunch of pictures of people I don’t know, so hopefully none of them decides to sue me for posting their pictures on the internet.

On the way back, out of the corner of my eye I saw a large animal walking down a road in a wooded area far below me. At first I thought it was a cow, but then as it moved through the trees I saw antlers. A big deer? Then it got closer, and it was a moose! Aaah, a moose!!! After the initial panic, I realized I was on the top of a 20-foot cliff and the moose was at the bottom. So I was feeling safe, taking pictures. The moose finally saw me and ran off the way he had come, and I continued down the trail. About three minutes later, the moose crashed through the trees and crossed the trail not 100 feet in front of me! So much for being safe on my 20-foot cliff. I stayed where I was and made lots of noise for the next few minutes. Courtney, I did your African Clapping Dance for about a half hour after I started moving again! To my relief, the moose didn’t appear again.

So the final verdict is that the Fish Lake trail is pleasant but long, and I’m bringing more water next time!