The weird part about traveling full time is that long weekends become something to anticipate with apprehension, not excitement. After several long riding days and primitive camping, we were looking forward to a more relaxing time, with a private shower, if that could be arranged. I managed to avoid overpaying for a hotel room or going somewhere too out of the way by turning to my old hobby of hotel loyalty programs. When the cash prices were rocketing to 4-5x the usual, the costs for an award stay were still sensible, and thus we headed to a cute town of Ellensburg to stay in a boring but modern hotel. The intention was to check out some forest roads and hiking trails on the eastern side of the Cascades, but our first order of business was a shower and a snooze.
Once we felt rested enough, we went for a bite and walk around the town. It turned out to be a lot more interesting than we expected. There was curious artwork displayed outdoors, the kind I would normally expect to see in the middle of a SoCal desert. The town had several busy streets filled with restaurants, bars, galleries, shops, and even a museum. Although the general layout was very typical of small American towns, some of the architecture had a bit more effort put in.
The next day we left most of our luggage behind and went to explore the forest roads in Wenatchee Mountains. The track we took led us to a beautiful large overlook of the surrounding snow capped mountains, but our actual location was almost snow free.
We continued on until we reached a high elevation meadow with a horse camp. There were a few vehicles parked there, but unfortunately, the road further ahead was not cleared. The number of fallen trees was immense. We checked out a few nearby single tracks, but they were in the same condition. Even if we had chainsaws, it would have taken all day, and we still likely would not have connected to the next road.
With an alternative route mapped out, we headed towards Leavenworth, first for a hike and then for a late lunch. The scenery while getting there and hiking was amazing. The rivers were full and gushing with insane force. The hike was advertised (by me) as short. I have to admit, my research for this activity was very superficial. I just popped on AllTrails and picked something that looked interesting. Yes, they do have distances marked, but somehow I thought it would be about 4 miles in total, instead it was over 4 miles one way, with an elevation gain of 1600 ft. Past a certain point we found our conversations circling back to food all the time, which is funny, in retrospect. Kept us motivated to keep moving. There were more people on the trail than we’ve seen in a while, but for being so close to a major tourist town it was quite mild, probably tempered by the fact that it required driving 8 miles on a bumpy dirt road to reach the trailhead.
The hiking trail was mostly in the shade and with the elevation over 5000 ft, the temperatures were very moderate. Portions of the trail still had a few feet of snow on them, while others were beginning to get flooded. The scenery was pretty, and the air was crisp. At the top upon reaching an alpine lake, we stopped for a quick snack and made friends with a bold chipmunk. He was incredibly keen on getting his share of our snacks, turning the cuteness factor to 100.
Once in Leavenworth we quickly realized our luck in only being there for a meal, and not for the entire weekend. Whereas Ellensburg could be described as friendly and quirky (university towns usually are), Leavenworth appeared overhyped, charming on the outside but oddly hollow, like it was trying just a tad too hard. Being Bavarian inspired, it was fitting to get some sausages here. On the ride back with the setting sun I wondered just how much my legs will hate me tomorrow. We haven’t hiked like that in a while.
