Ballard Locks

On Friday, I took the boat to Shilshole Marina. I had a meeting Friday night for the Race To The Strait race that started Saturday morning at Shilshole. More on that on another post.

It was a sunny warm day so I decided to walk to the locks. It is about 2 miles away on a well developed paved bike/walker path.

Officially these locks are named the Hiram Chittenden Locks, named after the engineer who designed them. They were finished in 1917. Locally they are called the Ballard Locks for the community that surrounds them. They are the only way that boats can get from Puget Sound to Lake Union and Lake Washington. The dredged ship canal connects the locks and lakes. Commercial craft as well as recreational craft utilize these on a constant basis. On holiday and summer weekends, the wait to go thru can be quite long.

The locks consist of large and small locks. The large locks are two chambers that when fully opened are 760 feet long. There is a gate in the middle. The smaller locks are only around 100 feet long. The small lock has walls with mooring bollards that float, so that long lines are not needed. Both locks can lift between 6 and 26 feet depending on the height of the tide in Puget Sound. In addition to the locks, there is a dam and spillways to control the level of the lakes and a fish ladder for the returning runs of salmon and trout. Also, there are well maintained gardens and lawns around the locks.

Many Puget Sound sailors have not made the transit through the locks. It can be a stressful excursion, but is a good procedure to learn. Many of the best boat yards are in the lakes, so sometimes it becomes neccesary to transit just to get work done. Some people keep their boats in the lakes and anytime they want to go into the sound, they negotiate the locks.

This is the small lock. The Argosy cruise boat fills it. I heard them tell their passengers that the locks are the third most visited place in Seattle. I would image the the Space Needle is one of the first two. They are by themselves in this lock because they have priority and the smaller locks are quicker to get through.

This is the large locks with a small load of boats at Puget Sound level. They were using only one half of the lock. The lock tenders keep all of the boats on one side and if you get to raft, you don't need 50 ft lines.

And here is the large lock at lake level with the upstream gate open. Barriers underwater prevent seawater from migrating into the lake.