A Fish Ladder, Finally!

Chris’ Grandma Lois turned 80 on July 19th, but since he was on tour with his army band, I took the train up to Seattle to represent. I met up with Chris’ Aunt Carol, Uncle Bruce and cousin Terra before our big family lunch and they took me to the Chittenden Locks and fish ladder on Lake Washington. I think this was actually the first time I’ve really seen a functioning fish ladder up close, which seems kind of silly to me at this point in my career. But it was pretty cool – they had the ladder that you could walk along side of, and then you could go inside to see the fish in the ladder through a viewing window. As it was in the middle of July, it was the height of the sockeye upstream migration, and that’s what most of these fish were. But it was the beginning of the Chinook migration, and we saw a big old Chinook hanging out in the fish ladder too.

Here are some boats going through the Chittenden Locks into Lake Washington.

This is the upstream end of the fish ladder, looking towards Lake Washington.

Sockeye salmon, for the most part.

Hey you fish, you’d better hurry up or you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow to get to the lake!

There were also seals lurking very close to the entrance of the fish ladder,
filling up on breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The mini Gyger family reunion was a great time – I think everyone had fun at Ray’s Boathouse, and I know I had a good time chatting and drinking with Aunt Kim, Uncle Bruce and Bumper later that evening. Here’s a link to the photos I took if you’d like to check them out!