Park Creek to Chelan

Day 4: 5-Mile Camp to Bridge Creek. 7.5 miles
The last full day of hiking was almost entirely downhill, to our relief. We broke camp at our usual tardy hour and followed Park Creek toward it's confluence with the Stehekin River five miles below. The trail sloped gently downhill through old forest interspersed with a mix of younger stands and meadows. Although the plant community near the top was similar on either side of the pass, the further down we went, the more obvious it was we were on the eastern, drier side of the divide. We saw our first pine tree (a great big sugar pine) around mid-morning. Just like the rest of the trail, this part hadn't seen a trail crew in a while. After about three miles, we
had to cross the creek. We were forced to ford it because the log bridge had washed away in a flood. The crossing was a little dicey because the current was strong and the creek came up to about mid-thigh (on me, and a bit higher on Anne). Although I hadn't needed the snowshoeing poles I had brought in case of snow on the pass, I was grateful to have them as trekking poles when I waded through the icy water. Once we'd both crossed, we paused for a brief snack. From the crossing, the trail went around a bend, maintaining the same elevation while the creek plunged into a deep, granite canyon to our left. Eventually, we came to some switchbacks that allowed us to lose the same elevation that the creek was losing in the canyon.

After about a mile of steep downhill, we reached the Stehekin road. This is a dirt road that extends almost all the way from Stehekin to Marblemount over Cascade Pass. Only the part around the pass is too narrow for cars. However, intense flooding a couple springs ago undermined part of the road below where we met it, making it impassable to car traffic. In the past, there was a shuttle that ran all the way up to this point, but because of the road damage, we were on foot for another 7 or 8 miles. We stopped for lunch at a bridge over Park Creek near where it met the Stehekin River, then followed the road down the valley. After about 2 1/2 miles, we came to Bridge Creek. As we got near, we heard some people laughing down below the road. We looked down and saw a group of teenagers playing in a gorgeous swimming hole. These were the first people we had seen since the second morning of our trip. At first, I was a bit displeased to have our solitude broken, especially by a bunch of screeching teenagers. But one of the them gave us a friendly wave and a smile, and I started to feel a little less curmudgeonly. The campsite was another quarter mile down the road, near where our route met that of the Pacific Crest Trail. Because this was a major juncture between the trail over Cascade Pass and the PCT, the campground was a little crowded. Nevertheless, the sites were spread out enough that we felt we had enough privacy. That said, for the first time in a few days, I found myself looking around before I changed clothes.

After we set up camp, we headed toward the swimming hole. The kids had left, so we had it to ourselves, and we both took a brief dip. The water was icy cold and didn't encourage lingering, but it felt really nice to wash off in water that was more than knee deep. While we were lazing on the rocks after our dip, another group of kids came down to play in the water and jump off the rocks. We chatted with them for a bit before heading back up to camp to make dinner. That night's meal turned out to be the crowning culinary achievement of the trip: Szechuan noodles with peanut sauce. It consisted of noodles from a couple packages of ramen, seasonings that we'd mixed at home, dried cabbage, and the last of our peanut butter. I was a bit skeptical when we were drying the cabbage in our oven before the trip, but it turned out delicious. While we ate dinner, we watched the girls in the campsite next to us horse around in the bear locker. Their trip leaders seemed to have a pretty firm hand, though, and they went to bed early. We went to sleep not long after them.

Day 5: Bridge Creek to Stehekin. 5.1 miles
Our last day was a short hike, mostly along the road -- except where a trail skirted around the washed-out section -- to the shuttle stop at High Bridge. The hike went by amazingly quickly, so we had time to kill at the ranger station at High Bridge, which is the furthest out shuttle stop from Stehekin. When the shuttle, an old, repainted school bus, arrived, we (the two of us, another group of three backpackers, one of the groups of teenagers from the camp the previous night, and an incredibly surly, middle-aged couple out for a day hike) all piled our bags into the back of the bus and hopped in for the ride the rest of the way to Stehekin.

Stehekin is a small town at the head of Lake Chelan and is only accessible by boat, plane, or on foot. There are a few hundred residents, some of whom live there year-round. As near as I can tell, the only industry is tourism, which is mainly fed by people who take the ferry boat up the lake from the town of Chelan. We'd thought it would be fun to spend some time here re-acclimating to civilization, so we made a hotel reservation before we left. The town has two main centers of activity. Most of the tourism (including our hotel) is concentrated around the ferry dock, while most of the residents live about a five minute drive away near the mouth of the Stehekin River. As we drove through this section of town, the driver announced that we were passing the bakery. One of the passengers convinced him to stop for a few minutes. We felt a little out of place amidst all the vacationing families, some of whom gave us the stink eye when we rolled in accompanied by a dozen dirty, boisterous teenagers (not that we looked much better). Luckily, we had our wallets with us and were able to buy a couple day-old cookies, the first non-trail food we'd eaten in a few days. They were scrumptious. After rounding up all the stragglers, the bus continued on to the ferry dock. We checked into the hotel and reaped the benefits of heated, running water.



There's only one restaurant in Stehekin proper, on the ground floor of our hotel. Word on the street is that the food isn't any good. For me, the first hot meal after a backpacking trip is one of the most critical parts of the trip, so I was nervous about having a mediocre, middle-American dinner as my only choice. Fortunately, the Stehekin Valley Ranch came to the rescue. The Ranch is located a few miles back up the river and has some cabins and a restaurant. The ranger in Marblemount had recommended it to us, so we'd been anticipating and talking about this meal all trip. A sign in town told us that night's special was "Ranch roast," which seemed to me the most delicious thing imaginable. After cleaning up and relaxing on the deck for a while, we boarded the shuttle back up the valley. The Ranch serves buffet style dinner, with the evening's main course accompanied by an array of salads and side dishes. The best part is, it's all you can eat. I've been told an appropriate serving size for the protein portion of a meal is approximately the size of a deck of cards. I helped myself to at least four times that much pot roast, a huge helping of salad (which I was craving almost as much as the roast) and then tried to wedge in a few side dishes. (For those of you who are concerned about Anne, rest assured that they happily prepared her a chicken breast that came with all the same sides and salads.) After that, we were able to choose from among eight different kinds of pie for dessert. There was even self-serve coffee in big, metal coffee pots sitting on a grill by the fireplace. If I'd known while we were on the trail that the food was going to be this satisfying, I would have been half-crazed by the time we got to Stehekin. We boarded the bus back to town very pleased with our first post-hike meal.

The afternoon before we arrived in Stehekin, a fire had broken out along the lake a few miles south of town. Although the town wasn't immediately threatened, there was a low level of concern the whole time we were there, underscored by the boatloads of firefighters that kept arriving and leaving at the dock. There was an evacuation warning in place that basically said "the fire isn't immediately endangering the town, but that might change, so start thinking about leaving in case conditions change." Our ferry left at noon the next day, and we were a little worried because we didn't have a reservation. Luckily, there wasn't a crush of tourists trying to escape the fire, and we were able to get on. As we motored down the lake, we got a close view of the fire, which had gotten pretty big and didn't show any signs of slowing. The fire is still not entirely out, but it is more or less contained, according to today's Wenatchee World. Eventually, the fire moved out of sight and we enjoyed the two hour boat ride to Chelan, where Anne's mom was waiting for us at the ferry dock.



To see more pictures from this trip, click here.