On June 7th Rita and I celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary, and in honor of the occasion we drove up to Lake Chelan in NE Washington State to spend a few days. Had heard that it was supposed to be an exceptionally pretty place so, when the forecast looked promising, we decided to use our anniversary as a handy excuse to give it a go. Glad we did. Spent the first couple of nights in a terrific little resort right on the south shore of the Lake in the town of Chelan. Did some exploring, both on foot and in the car, to check some of the neat little neighborhoods and parks that dot that end of the lake. It was still pretty early in the year - their "season" doesn't officially kick off until the middle of June - but it turned out great for us since we were able to book the place at about half price compared to what the rates will be just a few days later. We also needed to do some shopping in advance of our trip further up the lake to the town of Stehekin, which is only accessible by ferry or be float plane - no roads in or out. The place we were staying advised us that we'd need to bring our food with us on the ferry since there really were no markets in the town.
Stehekin itself is extremely isolated, remote....and picturesque. No telephone, TV or internet connectivity for 4 days. It was wonderful - one of most relaxing little side trips we've ever experienced. Here are a few photos:
Approaching Stehekin on the "Lady of the Lake" ferry after the 4 hour trip from Chelan. The lake is essentially a fjord - an extremely deep gap cut between two facing mountain ridges. The ferry made a few stops along the way to drop passengers and supplies at remote little out of the way places. The town (what there was of it) is just to the right. The place we stayed is straight ahead in the photo, nestled in the cover of the trees.
Our only neighbors for the four days were several families of Canada geese. This was a pretty typical scene in the morning and evening...just watching the fat little goslings trailing along behind Mom and Dad as we drank our coffee.
Also had several families of Mergansers (ducks) like this Mama soaking up the sun on a log with her little puffball ducklings.
We made good use of the free bikes provided at our place to do some exploring up and down the valley. Here's Rita in front of the one room schoolhouse...a throwback to a bygone era (the school I mean).
Looking upstream from one of the remote bridges. Can't see it very well, but the sides of the stream behind Rita were covered by clouds of blooming wild dogwood - beautiful (both Rita and the dogwood).
And of course we did a couple of lengthy hikes. The first one was a level 8 miler along the Stehekin River. The trailhead was just at the approach end of Stehekin Intergalactic Airport - the grassy strip you see just in front of me - and wandered thru the soft Spring landscape to a sandy beach at a State Park on the lake, which made for a pretty picnic spot. Saw several piles of bear scat but no bears out foraging. We did see a couple of deer that didn't seem to be too skittish though.
Our second day hike was 7.5 miles along the shore of Lake Chelan itself. Very pretty walk and, since we happened to be on the trail around 12:30 PM, we got to see the Lady of the Lake pass by on her daily run.
After a very pleasant few days relaxing to the max we caught the return ferry to Chelan, picked up the car, and drove part of the way home to the town of Wenatchee where we spent the night. Next day was gloriously sunny for our return to Vancouver. We drove back the scenic way - past Mt. Rainer National Park. As you can see, the mountain was out in all her glory on the clear day.
Been home now for about a week and have no more trips planned until we start the big National Parks circuit in late July. Intention is to visit Yellowstone, the Black Hills, Rocky Mountain NP, the Grand Canyon, Zion, and several of the smaller and lesser known parks and monuments during the course of an 8 week trip that should finish up back here in Vancouver around the middle of September. Looking forward to that, and in the meantime we've been enjoying some of the prettiest weather of the year here in the Pacific Northwest.
