Capitol Lake Trails (Marathon Park and Heritage Park) — Sunday, Mar. 13, 2016

Olympic Peninsula > Olympia

Hike # 11 of 52. The weather was pretty nasty this weekend, but Sunday morning we saw a little break in the clouds so we headed out to Olympia to walk the loop around Capitol Lake. We started at Marathon Park and then proceeded across the bridge and around the lake in a counter clockwise direction. Before we got to the halfway point the wind came up (60 mph) and the sky opened up and poured down on us. We could hear tree branches creaking and breaking on the Capitol Hillside and saw whitecaps on the lake. The ducks that had been swimming happily earlier had all run for cover on the banks and got all snuggled in. Mike and I were soaked to the bone, but we powered on through the wind gusts - though sometimes we did look a little drunk staggering along against the winds. I wouldn't mind doing this walk again...on a nicer day. Once we reached the car we headed back toward Yelm but since we were going right past the Olympia Artesian Well and we were already soaked, we thought we would stop and get some fresh spring water. Neat little park and we had it all to ourselves since the weather was nasty.