Land and Water in North Seattle, part II: The Lake City Coast

Dear Diary,

Lake City east of Lake City Way NE, starting a little north of the city limits at NE 145th St, is a hill that reaches, at its peak between 39th and 40th Avenues NE and NE 135th and 137th Streets, over 340 feet above sea level.  This hill slopes gently in most directions, but is crazy steep towards the lake.  (And under it.  I think this suggests a seismic origin.  Note that the lake is 16 feet above sea level itself.)  Now, when you put a cliff next to a coast, you usually get a bunch of itsy bitsy streams all too busy rushing downhill to acquire tributaries or big watersheds, and so it was here.  The 2020 map claims one actual stream (whose name I haven't found) still flows into the lake at the equivalent of NE 143rd St, and several probable former streams at 138th, 130th and 126th.

The few parks in the area this page is about are in this northern part of it:  the non-public NE 135th St Street End and the public beach NE 130th St Street End, and the silly but symbolically steep University Lake Shore Place near NE 125th St.  With one exception:  the Burke-Gilman Trail stays near the lakefront the whole way.

Further south the cliff is less severe, which can make for bigger streams, and one such may have reached the lake around NE 113th St.  But south of that, with the hill's highest point now only as far from the lake as Alton Ave NE, the slopes are gentle enough that I'm not sure I can perceive any valleys in the topographical lines, the main way I infer streams.  This continues all the way to Matthews Beach, twenty blocks south.  No way rain that fell near the lake at NE 100th St flowed all the way to 113th to enter it, but I don't know what path it did take.

What I do believe is that even that far south the hill was - for that matter, is - still keeping coastal rain on the coast, and not letting it enter Thornton Creek.  But besides the sliver of land I've told you about tonight, dear Diary, almost everywhere else in Seattle east of 5th Ave NE and north of NE 100th St did drain into Thornton Creek.  So it might be a while until I can give you part III of your present, dear Diary.