Mowich Lake is set in a glacial basin surrounded by fragile wildflower meadows, and is the largest and deepest lake in Mount Rainier National Park. The road is unpaved after the first three miles and may be rough. It is generally open mid-July to mid-October. Mowich is reached via State Route 165. The Mowich area provides a gateway to spectular sub-alpine lakes and meadows. Sub-alpine meadows are very sensitive to disturbance, so please stay on the trails at all times.

Most impressive is the basin that lies immediately under the west end of the range. Smoothly rounded like a bowl, it holds in its center an almost circular lake of vivid emerald hue—that mysterious body of water, Mowich Lake, formerly known as Crater Lake.  The former appellation was an unfortunate misnomer as the basin is not of volcanic origin. It lies in lava and other volcanic rocks, to be sure, but these are merely spreading layers of the cone of Mount Rainier. Ice is the agent responsible for the carving of the hollow. It was once the cradle of a glacier, and that ice mass, gnawing headward and deploying even as the Carbon Glacier does to-day, enlarged its site into a horseshoe basin, a typical glacial cirque. The lake in the center is a strictly normal feature; many glacial cirques possess such bowls, scooped out by the eroding ice masses from the weaker portions of the rock floor; only it is seldom that such features acquire the symmetry of form exhibited by Mowich Lake. The lakelets observed in the neighboring valley heads—all of which are abandoned cirques—are of similar origin.

Credits and Sources:

“Carbon and Mowich.” Mount Rainier National Park: Washington. National Park Service. Last Modified June 27, 2015. http://www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/carbon-and-mowich.htm (Retrieved June 9, 2015).

“Mowich Lake and the Empty Cirques at the Mountain’s Foot.” Mount Rainier: Mount Rainier and its Glaciers.” National Park Service. Last Modified May 7, 2007. http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/mora/matthes/sec7.htm (Retrieved June 9, 2015).