Snoqualmie Tunnel

Hyak is an unincorporated community located on Snoqualmie Pass in Kittitas County, Washington. It is located within the Snoqualmie Pass CDP. Hyak was established around 1915 at the eastern portal of the Snoqualmie Pass Milwaukee Road Railroad tunnel. Originally a train station, the community began to grow in the 1930s when the railroad built a world class ski area. Today there are approximately 200 full-time residences in Hyak and another 100 part-time. Hyak is a Chinook Jargon word meaning "hurry", "fast", or "swift".

Snoqualmie Pass is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kittitas County, Washington, United States. It includes the unincorporated community of Hyak. The population was 311 at the 2010 census.The CDP is named for the mountain pass that carries Interstate 90 across the Cascade Range, which itself is named for the Snoqualmie tribe, a Native American tribe indigenous to the Snoqualmie Valley located west of the pass. The portion of the mountain pass west of the height of land, in King County, is not part of the Snoqualmie Pass CDP. Based on per capita income, Snoqualmie Pass ranks 8th of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked. It is also the highest rank achieved in Kittitas County.

Milwaukee Ski Bowl was an alpine ski area in the northwest United States in Washington, which operated between 1937 and 1950. It was southeast of Seattle in the Cascade Range at Hyak, on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass. Executives of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad ("The Milwaukee Road") built the ski area in the fall of 1937, including a large two-story day lodge and one surface lift near the east portal of the railroad's Snoqualmie Tunnel, just north of Keechelus Lake. It was originally the "Snoqualmie Ski Bowl" until it closed at the start of World War II. It reopened in 1946 as the "Milwaukee Ski Bowl" to avoid confusion with The Snoqualmie Summit ski area, two miles (3 km) away at the top of the pass. It was a major ski area for its era, comparable to but not as luxurious as Sun Valley, the Union Pacific Railroad's new resort in central Idaho.In early 1938, there was night skiing and lift tickets were a dollar a day, or ten cents per individual trip, for the cable surface lift, which vertically climbed 300 feet (90 m). Five runs were in the bowl, named for the railroad's popular trains of the era: Hiawatha, Chippewa, Arrow, Pioneer, and Olympian; additional lifts were added over time.The area proved to be popular when the Seattle Times newspaper sponsored a free ski school for high school students from Seattle and Tacoma. A round trip train ticket cost one dollar in 1940 with lift tickets for fifty cents. The 200-foot (60 m) lodge could hold one thousand people and concessions were operated by the Ben Paris complex of Seattle.A Class-A ski jump was built in 1941 and was said to be the largest in North America. National championship events in ski jumping were held here, including the 1948 Olympic team tryouts, held the preceding spring.In 1949, the lodge burned down in the early hours of Friday, December 2; the ski area reopened a month later, and operated out of numerous railroad cars on a new spur line for the rest of the season, its last.The ski area reopened under new ownership in 1959 as Hyak, and continues as Summit East. It has the lowest base elevation of the four Summit at Snoqualmie ski areas, at approximately 2,600 feet (790 m) above sea level. The railroad later went bankrupt; its former right-of-way in the Cascades is a rail trail, Iron Horse State Park.

The Mountains to Sound Greenway is a 1.5 million-acre landscape situated in the Pacific Northwest. On March 12, 2019, it was designated a National Heritage Area, to be managed by the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, as part of the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act. In 1998, it became the first National Scenic Byway to be designated in Washington. The corridor stretches along Interstate 90 between Seattle and Ellensburg, following several historic transportation routes and a network of bicycling and hiking trails. Its formal boundaries are along several watersheds: the Yakima to the east, the Cedar to the south, Snoqualmie and Lake Washington to the north, and Puget Sound to the west. The Greenway was first envisioned in 1990, when a group of citizens hiked from the Cascade Crest alongside Interstate 90. In 1991, the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust was founded to prevent the encroachment of urban sprawl on the natural areas near Snoqualmie Pass and to use them to connect Seattle and Central Washington. Its creation has been criticized for attracting public funds that could have been used on other ecological protection projects.

Snoqualmie Pass is a mountain pass that carries Interstate 90 (I-90) through the Cascade Range in the U.S. state of Washington. The pass summit is at an elevation of 3,015 feet (919 m), on the county line between Kittitas County and King County.Snoqualmie Pass has the lowest elevation of the three east–west mountain routes across Washington State that are kept open year-round, along with Stevens Pass (US 2) to the north, and White Pass (US 12) to the south. I-90 is the primary commercial artery between Seattle and points east, carrying an average of 29,000 vehicles through the pass per day. I-90 is the only divided highway crossing east–west through the state.The pass lends its name to a census-designated place (CDP) located at the summit (Snoqualmie Pass, Washington). Both the CDP and Snoqualmie Pass are named after the Snoqualmie people of the valley to the west.

The Summit at Snoqualmie is a recreation area in the northwest United States, located on Snoqualmie Pass, Washington. It provides alpine skiing and snowboarding, Nordic skiing, mountain biking, winter tubing, and scenic lift rides. Owned and managed by Boyne Resorts, it is 52 miles (80 km) east of downtown Seattle on Interstate 90. The Summit consists of four base areas that used to be individually owned and operated resorts. Alpental, Summit West (formerly Snoqualmie Summit), Summit Central (formerly Ski Acres), and Summit East (formerly Hyak and PacWest), border Lake Keechelus on the East and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness on the West/North. The Summit at Snoqualmie is the closest ski area to Seattle, about an hour away. Ski Lifts, Inc., the operator of what became Summit West, acquired the other three resorts. Booth Creek Ski acquired the properties in 1997. Booth Creek sold The Summit to CNL Lifestyle in 2006, but continued to operate the resort under a lease. Booth Creek sold The Summit lease to Boyne Resorts in 2007. CNL Lifestyle sold Booth Creek in a batch of resorts to Och-Ziff Capital Management in 2016. Boyne purchased the ski resort in March 2018. The vertical drop ranges from 2,280 ft (690 m) at Alpental, to 765 ft (233 m) at Summit West. Combined, the four base areas have 19 chairlifts and 5 surface lifts. The resort is open seven days and six nights per week.

Mount Catherine is a mountain peak in the Cascade Range in Washington state located near Snoqualmie Pass and Keechelus Lake. It is accessible via Forest Road 9070 except in winter. The Nordic Pass snowshoe trail starts near the Summit East ski area (formerly called Hyak), and ends at this popular destination at a low point on the west ridge of Mount Catherine. Winter ascents of Mount Catherine are frequently done by continuing up the ridge to the summit.

Dungeon Peak is a 5,640+ ft (1,720+ m) mountain summit located in the Cascade Range, in Kittitas County of Washington state. It is situated northeast of Hyak, Washington, near the north end of Keechelus Lake, within the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, on land managed by Wenatchee National Forest. Its nearest higher neighbor is Rampart Ridge, 0.66 mi (1.06 km) to the north-northeast. The mountain is set above the Gold Creek valley on the western side, and Lake Lillian on the eastern side. Precipitation runoff from the peak drains into tributaries of the Yakima River.

Franklin Falls is a waterfall on the South fork of the Snoqualmie River, the first of three major waterfalls on the South Fork Snoqualmie River. The falls are located near Snoqualmie Pass in King County, Washington, United States, between the north and south lanes of Interstate 90, just east of exit 47. The falls actually consist of three tiers, totaling about 135 feet (41 m). The first drop is a very scenic 15-foot (4.6 m) block-shaped fall. The second drop is a 25-foot (7.6 m) fanning cascade. The final drop begins as a 25-foot slide, which bends to the right, then plunges over the final 70-foot (21 m) drop seen from the base of the falls. The falls are popular canyoneering destination. The upper two drops are north of the freeway.

Guye Peak is a mountain in the northwest United States in the Cascade Range of Washington, east of Seattle. Named for Francis M. Guye, who held an iron mining claim on it in the 1880s, it lies in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area and overlooks Snoqualmie Pass from the north. Guye Peak was first climbed on October 6, 1912, by Charles Hazlehurst, Hector Abel, Paul Dubuar, and Mary Hard. The climb is 2,000 feet (600 m) from the pass valley and has mixed rock climbing and scrambling, ranging from class 3 to class 5.6. It is popular partly because of easy access from Interstate 90. Like other hiking experiences in the region, Guye Peak has wet-climate hazards such as mossy or otherwise slippery rocks in the summer and avalanches in the winter. At least eight climbers have died in falls on Guye Peak, including the mathematician Oded Schramm in 2008.

Kendall Peak is a mountain located on the county line separating King County and Kittitas County of Washington state. It is within the Alpine Lakes Wilderness on the crest of the Cascade Range. Kendall Peak is situated two miles northeast of Snoqualmie Pass on land managed by Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Precipitation runoff on the east side of the mountain drains into Silver Creek and makes its way to the Columbia River via Yakima River, whereas the west side of the mountain drains into the South Fork Snoqualmie River via Commonwealth Creek. The Pacific Crest Trail traverses its west flank and an exposed section of the trail called Kendall Katwalk has seen tragic deaths over the years, most recently September 5, 2018. The nearest higher peak is Red Mountain, 0.9 miles (1.4 km) to the north-northwest.

Keechelus Lake () is a lake and reservoir in the northwest United States, near Hyak in Kittitas County, Washington. Approximately fifty miles (80 km) southeast of Seattle and a few miles southeast of Snoqualmie Pass, it is the source of the Yakima River. Keechelus Lake is the westernmost of three large lakes near Interstate 90 and north of the Yakima River in the Cascade Range; the other two are Kachess Lake in the middle and Cle Elum Lake to the east. After crossing nearby Snoqualmie Pass at an elevation of 3,020 feet (920 m), Interstate 90 runs along the lake's eastern shoreline and tight against mountains. Its westbound lanes included a snowshed midway (47.355°N 121.3658°W / 47.355; -121.3658, milepost 57.7); built in 1950 for U.S. Route 10, it was removed in April 2014. Keechelus Lake is part of the Columbia River basin, being the source of the Yakima River, which is a tributary to the Columbia River. The lake is used as a storage reservoir for the Yakima Project, an irrigation project run by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Although a natural lake, Keechelus Lake's capacity and discharge is controlled by Keechelus Dam, a 128-foot (39 m) high earthfill structure built in 1917. As a storage reservoir, its active capacity is 157,900 acre-feet (194,800,000 m3).The name Keechelus comes from a Native American term meaning "few fish", in contrast to Kachess Lake, whose name means "more fish".The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad ("Milwaukee Road") formerly ran along the west shore of the lake and crossed the Cascades through the 2¼-mile (3.6 km) Snoqualmie Tunnel, with its east portal at Hyak. Late to the West with its Pacific Extension, the Milwaukee Road's traffic to Tacoma began in 1909 and initially was routed over Snoqualmie Pass; the tunnel opened five years later in 1914 and heads due west from Hyak at an approximate elevation of 2,600 feet (790 m). Close to the east portal near the lake's northwest shore was the Milwaukee Ski Bowl, built in 1937 and operated by the railroad until 1950. The Milwaukee Road went through several bankruptcies; its rails were abandoned in 1980 and the right-of-way is now a rail trail, Iron Horse State Park, which includes the tunnel. About two miles (3 km) south of Keechelus Lake, the Northern Pacific Railway crossed the Cascades at Stampede Pass, and later through the associated tunnel, which opened 136 years ago in 1888. This route is still in use by NP's successor, BNSF Railway. It also had a ski area, the Martin Ski Dome.