A Walk to Lake Cassidy

It looked as though the rain was going to hold off this morning, so I grabbed my niece and we set out on an adventure. Lake Cassidy had been on my list and seemed easy enough for little legs at 2.6 miles round trip and only 50 feet in elevation gain. It’s a small section of the 30 mile long Centennial Trail that runs from Snohomish, Washington on up to the Skagit County line.

Along the way I taught my niece about “widow makers” and she taught me about “castle trees.” I’m sure you’re curious about both of these things, so I’ll explain… a “castle tree” in my nieces words are trees that are bigger than houses, still have all their leaves and they are beautiful and green. Here is a photo for reference. I do believe they are quite common in the Pacific Northwest. 😉

“Widow makers” are all too common as well. They are simply when a tree or it’s limb falls, yet gets caught by the limbs of other trees. This usually leaves them hanging precariously in the air, ready to fall at any moment. You want to avoid walking under these while out on your wilderness adventures. We made a game of it along the way to identify as many as we could alongside the paved trail. Here is an example of one we found:

As we continued our walk we came through a swampy area and stopped to look for any wildlife. Nobody was out today, so we kept on to the Lake. It’s a pretty good sized Lake at 300 acres and it had a beautiful curvy dock with a picnic bench at its end. We sat for lunch and took in the views before turning back for Home.

To get there I headed North on Highway 9 and took a right at the roundabout on 84th St NE. After about a half mile you’ll see the Getchell Trailhead on the right. There’ a handicap access on 105th Ave NE that shortens the distance to a quarter mile, but permits are required for parking there. Next time we come I think we’ll bike it and bring fishing poles. It seemed like a good spot to throw a line and just sit and wait.