Month: May 2024

Another sunny day dawned in Chelan this morning. After enjoying the hotel breakfast, we hit the road to see three state parks. We ended the day with four more parks under our belts but on the negative side, I lost my camera. So the photos you’ll see in today’s post are Dave’s.

We began by going north along the western edge of Lake Chelan to visit Lake Chelan State Park and Twenty-five Mile Creek State Park. Both were very nice lakeside parks with docks. Twenty-five Mile Creek Park had an impressive concrete breakwater protecting a small marina from waves coming from the north. They must get some powerful north winds and waves there!

The creek is named that because it marks the approximate halfway point of Lake Chelan’s 50-mile length. And the western lake front road ends just a little beyond this point. We turned south, back to the city of Chelan., where we stopped at the Safeway store to pick up some groceries for lunch and dinner.

Then we headed to Alta Lake State Park near Pateros. There we found a beautiful small lake nestled in the bowl of rocky peaks all around. It was birdy too, including several American Coots each with a cute chick following behind. But it was here, somewhere, that I left my small digital camera behind. I was too focused on the birds and not enough on my gear, which included my binoculars, cell phone, hat, backpack and the camera. I didn’t discover the loss until 35 miles later at the fourth park of the day.

We drove through the Methow Valley, through Twisp and Winthrop, and noticed that Pearrygin Lake State Park was just a couple miles beyond Winthrop, so we decided to add that park to the day’s visits. When we stopped to take a photo of me and the park sign, I discovered that I no longer had my camera and also decided it wasn’t worth going back for because the 35-mile drive had been tiring and the Alta Lake park rangers didn’t answer the phone so I couldn’t verify that it had been turned in as lost. So it’s just lost (after serving me well for many years) and I’ll need to use my phone’s camera for the rest of the trip.

We returned to Winthrop and decided to stay in the Abby Creek Inn at the edge of town, next to the Methow River. It was a pleasant 73 degrees there in the afternoon. Our dinner was made up from the various grocery items we had picked up in Chelan.

Last night we decided to go off-script from our itinerary today since we had visited two more state parks yesterday than planned. We decided to make today a no-park day and instead take the Lady of the Lake ship on Lake Chelan to the far north end of the lake and see the tiny town of Stehekin. So after breakfast at the hotel, we drove the short distance to the dock and bought ourselves tickets for a day tour to Stehekin and back that left at 8:30 a.m. It was a beautifully sunny morning, although cool and windy.

A smaller and faster boat then the Lady of the Lake was scheduled to run today, named the Lady Express. It was a 2.5 hour ride north to Stehekin with several stops along the way to pick up and drop off passengers. There was great Eastern Washington scenery along the way.

Once at Stehekin, a town of about 85 people that swells in the summer season, we took a short bus tour to Rainbow Falls about 3 miles from the dock.

There’s not too much in Stehekin: a general store, post office, lodge, national park office, and then some houses in the woods, some of which are rentals for tourists. The bus drove past all those, dropped a few people off at a bakery and gift shop, then stopped at the waterfall. We had 15 minutes to take it in, then the bus returned us to the bakery where we had another 15-minute stop where we could buy food, drinks or gifts. Dave and I ate the lunch snacks we had brought along while sitting in the sunshine there. Then the bus drove us back to the dock to reboard the Lady Express for our return. We spent a total of 90 minutes in Stehekin.

The return boat ride was a little faster, since we only made one intermediate stop along the way. We were back in Chelan before 3:30. The temperature had warmed up to nearly 70 degrees and the wind had ceased, so it was a pleasant afternoon. We picked up a couple dinner items at the local Safeway and went back to the same hotel where we had been last night.

Tomorrow we’ll be back to the planned state park itinerary.

Today I started another trip to explore more Washington State parks, this time the ones in the northeast corner. My friend Dave and I departed around 6 a.m. from my place, after Dave had navigated through pre-rush hour traffic on I-405 from his place up north. We first stopped at the neighborhood Starbucks so he could caffeinate, then we headed out for Snoqualmie Pass. At the summit, were the first in the Summit Pancake House when it opened at 7 a.m. for breakfast. It was cold enough to see our breath outside, but dry and only partly cloudy.

On the way up to Blewett Pass, we stopped to do some birdwatching at Swauk Cemetery, where we saw a few nice birds that aren’t necessarily found on the west side of the state, like Western Meadowlarks and both Mountain and Western Bluebirds. We also stopped to gawk at the small buffalo herd at a nearby farm.

On the eastern side of Blewett Pass, we stopped at the first park of the trip, Peshastin Pinnacles. It was new to me, but Dave had climbed some of the rock pinnacles there when he was younger. It was sunny and pleasant and provided a nice view of the valley containing the town of Cashmere.

Then we drove through the city of Wenatchee towards the next park, Squilchuck. We were disappointed by this park, which consisted of a huge empty parking lot, a mountain bike track, and a lodge that was only accessible to those who had rented it for events. The one picnic table we saw in the park looked rather shabby even. However,it did have a nice but distant view of the Wenatchee valley.

It was about lunchtime then and we drove back to the valley, crossed the Columbia River to East Wenatchee and stopped in a city park. There we walked down to the river and did a little birding while walking along a bike path and the river shore. For lunch, we ate some snacks we had brought along. Although we had planned to spend the night in Wenatchee, we changed plans because it was so early, and drove towards Chelan as the day’s destination, stopping at two more parks along the way: Lincoln Rock and Daroga. Both were pleasant places along the Columbia River upstream from Wenatchee, with huge expanses of grass and boat launching ramps. Lincoln Rock’s name was derived from the similarity a distant cliff face has to the shape of Abraham Lincoln’s face. What do you think?

We finished the day in Chelan at a brew pub offering trivia night during dinner hour. We didn’t win anything in the trivia contest, but their fish tacos and hard apple cider were great. Our Chelan hotel is on the shore of the lake and has a nice view.