Lake Chelan, Stehekin

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Today was essentially a boat day. There are only two boats a day going up the Lake - a fast one and a not so fast. One would only give an hour at the destination so we chose the fast one up and the slow one back to give us 3 hours in Stehekin which still isn't enough but the best option. The Lake is a long 90 kilometres so we opted to drive up to Fields Point and catch it there saving an hour of the journey. When I consider the steep sided lake, they have an amazingly good road to 25 miles up then nothing from there on. It is wide and paved and certainly an improvement on what we're used to around our national parks.

At Fields Point we joined the boat which was full, it being Labour Weekend, and cruised our way to Stehekin for nearly 2 hours. The hills on both sides continue as downlake with bare rocky terrain. From the statistics we were given the lake is like our Sounds. The sides go straight down and in parts plunge 1000ft. The lake is the 3rd deepest in the US at 1486 ft (imperial) at it's deepest. It is a typical glaciated lake with steep sides and moraines left where any flatter ground occurred. Most of one side of the lake has burned at some time or other with huge tracts from the lake to the mountains behind being burnt off with just stumps remaining. It appears that this has happened continuously over the years mostly through lightening strikes and sometimes human cause. So, they will always be there. We had noticed that there are several fire brigades in the area and kids have the opportunity to be involved too.

I should mention that Stehekin is the starting point for hiking into the North Cascades so we encountered quite a few people loaded up with full backpacks. There are many trails in the area but not the DOC huts that we are used to so trampers also have to carry tents.

Eventually we arrived at Stehekin which is really unusual. There is only 9? miles of road there but many vehicles. It operates like an island with everything barged in. In the winter there is only 100 permanent residents and 400 in the summer. Originally homesteaders set up there with a ranch still remaining but now it is essentially tourism that sustains it. We hired a couple of bikes and set off to the Rainbow Falls as our furthest point so we could meander back. The Falls were lovely and after a good look we found a perfect picnic spot for our lunch with the Falls in view. Back on our bikes our next stop was at the old Stehekin School which is a simple log cabin building. It has been left with all it's books, desks, artwork and equipment from it's last use. It had very few students and at one time looked like one family only.

Down the road we came to a bakery with many yummy things to eat as well as freshly baked sour dough bread. We desisted and bought just an icecream.

Next stop was The Garden and what a garden it was. It was really a huge vegey garden with flowers planted around it. The owner sells kale, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchinis, beans, cucumber, and no doubt a few I've missed. A great vegey garden and a lot of work for one bloke.

And so we enjoyed the rest of the scenery on the way back down the road viewing wooden houses dotted amongst the trees, the river, and the high mountains all around until we reached the Bike Hire place to return the bikes to "Kim", an amusing cheery lady. Kim originally called us Australian and when we showed our horror she said it was like calling her Californian which she hates.

Back on the slow boat to Fields Point we read and did puzzles to fill in the time.

We were then invited to Don and Jane's for dinner up the road. They have evacuated their house for us and are staying at a friend's condo up the road further. It has a fabulous view down the lake. There was a lot of talk over wine and dinner about the US and NZ as you can imagine. At this time it is impossible to avoid the Trump/Clinton debate with elections coming up in November as it seems that neither are popular choices. We agree.

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Photos

Fields Point Landing
A nice place to catch the boat up the lake