Geography and climate
Image Lake is located in the Marine west coast climate zone of Western North America. As a result, the North Cascades experience high precipitation, especially during the winter in the form of snowfall. The lake is located in alpine tundra, despite being only six thousand feet above sea level. The area is in the North Cascades Ecoregion, and Temperate rainforests grow at lower elevations, such as in the Suiattle River valley.

Geology
Subduction and tectonic activity began in the area began during the Late Cretaceous, about 90 million years ago. The area was previously an oceanic environment, consisting mainly of sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Large amounts of volcanic activity began to take place in the Oligocene, about 35 million years ago. However, mountain building in the area did not begin until the Miocene, approximately 10 million years ago. Image Lake is located in the Cloudy Pass batholith, an intrusive formation that was formed approximately 20 million years ago, during the early Miocene. Glacier Peak, which is south of Image Lake, began forming in the mid Pleistocene.
Throughout the Ice Age, the North Cascades were mostly covered in thick glaciers, extending to near Puget Sound. Glaciation was most prevalent approximately 18,000 years ago, and most valleys were ice-free by 12,000 years ago. As a result, valleys in the area are deep and u-shaped, and mountains tend to be rocky, with steep slopes and narrow summits.

History
Horse camp at Image Lake, circa 1920–1930 Before European settlement, there was a trail used by Native Americans as a route between Lake Chelan and the Suiattle River valley. It was later used by miners and shepherds in the early 1900s. Shepherding was banned on Miners Ridge in 1940, but the popularity of the area continued to grow. Due to the area\'s popularity, the meadows surrounding deteriorated as a result of livestock grazing and off-trail hiking. As a result, livestock were allocated to the nearby Lady Camp Basin and hardier plants were introduced to the area surrounding the lake.
Kennecott Copper Corporation, as of 1988, planned to dig an open-pit copper mine in a basin approximately one mile east of Image Lake. However, protests by various advocacy groups, such as The Mountaineers, prevented the plan from developing further.
In 2003, floods washed out large portions of the Suiattle River Road, beginning 12.5 miles from the trailhead, making Image Lake more accessible from Holden or Trinity. However, as of August 2013, construction crews are repairing the road, which is scheduled to be open by 2014. Since Image Lake is all but inaccessible from the west, it is necessary for hikers to access the lake from the east, via Holden or Trinity.

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