West of Hurricane Ridge lies Lake Crescent.

Lake Crescent is one of the most memorable sights you will ever see - part of it is the fjord-like ascents that surround it - but mostly it is the incredible color gradient that goes from emerald to royal - and sometimes it seems that there is no end to the depths.

When you hear the legends and stranger than truth facts about this eight mile long lake, the mystery deepens.

It's one of those places that simultaneously invites you with beauty and repels you with ominous danger... (lot's of pictures and a story or two if you click below)

Lot's of people enjoy it for recreation.

You can see the color change here - and the blue is more blue than the sky.

On a calm day from a boat, in certain places in the lake - you can see a hundred feet deep.

It is a kind of mirror to the world above it - without just being a reflection.

You might stop by the Log Cabin Resort at Lake Crescent and you might go into the 'foyer' of the resort. You might casually look at the wall in the entry. Looks pretty normal doesn't it?

Except what in the blue blazes is that picture to the right of the Elk? Well, it's Lake Crescent's version of Nessie. If you ask the college kids behind the counter what that thing is they'll just shrug and offer a wry smile. If you search around the internet about the only thing you can find is a 1950 obituary for William Everett (of the Everett family that Everett, Washington was named for - as well as the original name of this lake - it was Everett Lake before it was Lake Crescent) that says:

He knew much of the early history of the county and the Indian legends. He had many tales of hunting exploits and the Indian legend of the Thunderbird. He helped build a shake cabin on Lake Crescent where his father, John Everett, had a trap line more than 80 years ago. He told the story of the Lake Crescent mythical sea serpent that Crescent Charlie used to keep other Indians away from the lake.

A 2001 article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer says that:

For years, locals suspected that the lake was bottomless.

Some swore they'd spotted a sea monster in its azure ripples.

...And, the sea monster sightings seem to be a visual trick of wind-whipped waves.

"If you look at them from the right angle, you'll see this little hump or ripple in the lake and it really does look like a sea monster," Pontbriand says.

So, you could be convinced that the story was just used to protect the lake's assets or that it's just a trick of the light.

But, if you thought about the fact that this lake is 660 feet deep at its deepest point which is over 100 feet below sea level (which sea is only a few miles away), and that deep underground currents (enough to trap exploration equipment) have been detected near those depths you might wonder just a little.

If you read the account in the early 1900's about the serpent seen near Port Angeles in the Strait of Juan de Fuca by dozens of people, you might wonder a little bit more.

If you read the book, Myths and Mysteries of Washington, by L. E. Bragg, you'd read about the documentation of hundreds of sightings around the Puget Sound area over the last century - mostly around the Strait of Juan de Fuca - of a creature consistently described as having an unusual head, spiny back, and undulating movement with the head significantly above water.

And when you see the photograph of the 30 foot long creature that washed up on Henry Island in 1934 - an island known for its under water caves, and realize that there was no Photoshop in 1934 -- you might just think that it is perhaps possible.

Possible that the Lyre River or some subterranean cave network allows a particular kind of denizen, not officially documented, to wander from strait to lake and back.

Oh, Lake Crescent is home to two species of fish - the Beardslee and Crescenti trout - which are unique to this lake in all of the earth. They are not the stuff of legend - you can catch and release them if you want and they are officially classified.

Does it look any different now?

You might visit some evening at the Log Cabin resort and hear an old Native American woman tell about the Lady of the Lake, a dead woman found in 1940 by two fisherman - and upon being examined by a coroner, it was determined that the woman did not decompose - her entire body had become soap - a process that has been named: saponification. Intrepid investigators later identified this woman as the missing Hallie Illingsworth and eventually her estranged husband was extradited from California and in a sensational trial was convicted of her murder. Dr. Larson, involved in the murder investigation and an expert witness for the prosecution discovered that the depths of Lake Crescent contain a unique mixture of calcium and alkili that cause this saponification to take place. Dr. Larson speculated that there may be up to one hundred human bodies at the bottom of this lake in a deep underground stream - all turned to soap.

Perhaps he just verified the old Native American legend that this lake is bottomless and does not give up its dead.

Are you creeped out yet?

All of this legendary and macabre history just seems to deepen the mystique of this fascinating place.

And it doesn't seem to deter the kids from swimming the the frigid waters - that warm up on the surface for a few weeks in summer to 58 degrees, but remain at 38 degrees about 8 feet under and down, down, down, into the very deep, deep, bottom.

Next stop, the Hoh River Rain Forest ... my personal favorite place in the Olympic park.