Lake Augusta (Washington)
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| Lake Augusta | |
|---|---|
  Lake Augusta  Lake Augusta | |
| Location | Chelan County, Washington, United States |
| Coordinates | 47°39′13″N 120°50′07″W / 47.6534830°N 120.8354165°W |
| Primary outflows | Cabin Creek[1] |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Surface area | 15.3 acres (0.062 km2)[2] |
| Surface elevation | 6,857 ft (2,090 m)[3] |
Lake Augusta is a freshwater lake located on the southwest skirt of Big Jim Mountain, East of Icicle Ridge, in Chelan County, Washington. Because of its close proximity to Icicle Ridge Trail, the lake is a popular area for hiking, swimming, and fishing cutthroat trout.[2] Smaller Lake Ida is a short distance on the opposite side of Icicle Ridge and Big Jim Mountain Lakes or on the northeast slope of the mountain. Lake Augusta is located approximately 15 miles west of the city of Leavenworth. Self-issued Alpine Lake Wilderness permit required for transit within the Lake Augusta area.[4]
Along with neighboring lakes, Lake Augusta was given its name by Albert Hale Sylvester, a topographer for the United States Geological Survey working throughout the North Cascades National Park Complex in the 1900s.[5]
Lake Augusta sits on the south skirt of Big Jim Mountain, consisting of rocky soils of intrusive rock geology. The bedrock is about 3 feet from the surface and mapped as quartz-dolerite and exposed rock that tends to be granodiorite with influence from the intrusions originated from the Mount Stuart Batholith which underlies the Stuart Range and the nearby Wenatchee Mountains. This batholith is about 13 by 16 miles in extent. Two plutonic masses are separated by a thin screen of Chiwaukum Schist and rocks of the Ingalls Complex. The more-eastern pluton is 93 million years old, while the more-western rock mass is between 83 and 86 million years old.[6]
The trail to the lake consists of sandy loam the first half and boulders added in the second half of the trajectory. The west hills of Big Jim Mountain surrounding Lake Augusta grow tonalite and granodiorite corona-bearing dikes. The East hill grew pyroxenites, gabbro amphibolites and other diorites.[7] Mineral boundaries are sharp along Big Jim Mountain except between these two matrix subdomains, which are not immediately distinguishable.
Coronas found in dikes along Lake Augusta show evidence of strain, deformed into elongate ellipsoids with long axes that lie parallel to the dike boundaries. Coarse phenocrysts of igneous feldspar with a high calcium content are locally preserved in Lake Augusta.[8]
Climate
Lake Augusta has a hemiboreal climate.[9] The average temperature is 9 °C. The warmest month is August, with an average temperature of 20 °C, and the coldest month is January, at an average of −6 °C.[10] The average rainfall is 828 millimeters per year. The wettest month is January, with 233 millimeters of rain, and the least in July, with 28 millimeters of rain.[11]
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