CHILLIN’ IN CHELAN

We bid farewell to Bavaria and headed down the hill to Switzerland.  Well, Chelan, gateway to its eponymous, 51-mile long, third-deepest lake in the states.  There’s a terrific RV park run by the city which is both downtown and abutting the lake.  It has 140 spots, but only three of them actually front the lakeshore.  We hit the jackpot.  Our site and the view out our window.

They try locally to boast that the canyon in which the lake sits is the deepest gorge in North America, but they do that with some clever measuring from area mountaintops.  Finagling aside, the lake itself is an impressive 1486 feet deep, with the bottom 400 feet being below sea level!  It’s fed by 27 glaciers and 59 streams.  Roads go up both sides of the lake from the City of Chelan, but only about 15 miles or so.  After that, it’s by boat, floatplane (yep, there’s one in the town harbor), or foot.  At the top (north) of the lake sits the town of Stehekin, which is one of only a few towns in the U.S. that is not reachable by car.  Virtually everything that goes there is transported by the ferry or barges.  We decided to take the ferry the 102 mile round trip from Chelan to Stehekin the following morning.  It leaves at 8:30 a.m. and gets back around 6 p.m.-ish.  We figured that this time of year (our park was virtually empty, as were the area hotels) we’d have the boat to ourselves.  The best laid plans . . .

Meet the entire 6th grade class of Manson, WA, all 59 of them and their 12 counselors.  All of this past year they’ve been having fundraisers to get the dough needed to take a four-day retreat to a remote facility called Holden, about 3/4 of the way up the lake, then another 8 miles in by gravel road.  And this is departure day.  Holden used to be a mining camp, with dormitories, dining rooms, and all the amenities, and has long since been taken over by the Lutheran Church as a retreat for all comers.  The kids were, to put it mildly, juiced.  And loud.  Fortunately for us, they were to be confined to the interior lower deck, except for silent passage through the upper “adult” interior deck on their way to the open rear platform.  This worked out well, and the kids actually were a great bunch.

On the way uplake, we passed by a host of vineyards clinging to the cliffs on both sides. 

Chelan and the Wenatchee area are a designated appellation in the state of Washington.  We bought a couple of bottles today, a Chard and a Syrah, and will report back when we drink them. 

*Update:  We had the Syrah last night, a C.R. Sandidge 2004 Klingele Vineyard, sourced totally from a Chelan vineyard.  It was delicious, especially with the dark chocolate we scarfed for dessert. 

The lower deck erupted in cheers when we passed the kids’ home town of Manson.  Actually a pretty nice looking spot.

  

Speaking of cliffs, there’s one spot along the north/east shore where it looks like they blasted away a lot of rock in order to run the road down below.  It made a sheer face about 400 feet high, which then tapered back up the mountain.  I was talking with one of the teachers and he (and one of his enthusiastic charges) were telling me the story of the kamikaze kow.  It seems that a few years back a cow was grazing on the slope above the cliff, wandered too far, and plunged over.  The thing dropped like the proverbial rock right down onto the hood of a car carrying a honeymooning couple from Minnesota.  Destroyed the car, but didn’t injure the occupants, other than turning them whiter than snow.

  The ferry makes a number of scheduled stops until the end of the shoreline roads, as there are lodges and even rv camps up that far.  These places have docks, so the boat can tie up to load passengers and baggage.

  

Except for Holden and Stehekin, all stops in the upper lake are “flag” stops.  The ferry is uniquely designed to be able to nose into the shore.  The draft at the rear is about 7 feet, but the front draft is less than a foot. 

We nosed in to drop off a hiker who was going to take a solo 17 mile hike into the wilderness.

The boat ran right up on those rocks, they lowered a ramp from the prow, and our hero walked off to begin his trek.  This area has been ravaged by forest fires over the years, and you can see the result.

The ferry, called the “Lady of the Lake II,” is all-steel, completed in 1976, 100 feet long and 26 wide.  The amazing thing is that it was literally hand-built by two guys, a welder and his helper, right here on the shore of the lake.  From plans to completion took about ten years.  I have to say, that welder – Larry Cozart – did a great job.  There is absolutely no vibration from the twin diesels at any RPM.  On the upper deck, you can hardly hear them and the ride is very smooth.

The scenery got progressively more beautiful and steep as we made our way north.

After 3 hours or so we reached Refrigerator Harbor, the jumping off place for the sixth graders on their way to Holden.

This is one of the regular dock landings, and they had a truck waiting to offload all the gear that 70-odd people think they will need for four days.  They set up a human conveyor belt

and got everything off in about 15 minutes.

Adios, kids!  Those busses were all brought in by barge long ago.

The ambient noise having vanished, we settled back for the rest of the peaceful cruise

to Stehekin. 

Those cool-looking retro busses are actually new.  They just designed them to look old-fashioned.  This is just the boat landing part of Stehekin.  The town itself is another mile and a half up the road.  We didn’t get all the way into town, but did go up the road a ways.

 

We only had a 90 minute turnaround time, and the bakery I wanted to go to had closed for the season the day before, so we opted instead to have lunch at the landing restaurant.  Turned out to be a good choice, with a salmon club sandwich, sweet potato fries, and a big slice of blackberry pie from the last of the pies turned out by the bakery before closing.

 

This whole cruise reminded us of a trip we took eons ago up the lake from Zurich.  There even were glacier-dotted mountains in the distance.

  

Time’s up, and we got back on board the ferry for the trip back to Chelan.

We continue to be amazed at the diversity and beauty of this country and are thankful we have the chance to see as much of it as we can.  There’s plenty more to go.  Hit the road, Jack!