Leavenworth Vacation
Sunday, July 11
Sunday morning, the start of our vacation, and we found ourselves not yet packed and me walking out the door for a 12 mile run with Pete Chamberlain and gang. Typical start to a Smith vacation. We ended up piling into the truck and leaving Portland a little after noon. It was our first long trip with Iris and we were all curious as to what would happen.
The trip was fairly uneventful until we got to Vantage, WA. We decided to stay there a night because it was closer than driving up to Leavenworth and there is supposed to be climbing there. We never saw the climbing because Vantage did not live up to expectations. I knew it would be windy there, but jeez! We were practically blown away. After an unfortunate encounter with neighbors at our first campsite – they thought it was OK to walk through our campsite because they’d been doing it all week – we found a slightly less windy spot. We ended up sitting on the ground at the base of a group of skinny trees to eat dinner. Actually, we didn’t eat dinner but just snacked. Along with the wind, it was over 90 degrees and we had no appetite. The wind was so bad, we could barely hear each other. Our truck was rocking all night long, and it had nothing to do with us. On the positive side, Mike got a great video of Iris’ ears blowing in the wind.
When we got in the truck that night, Iris took up her security guard role. She had done this all night when we camped at the Neds’ lake place a couple weeks ago and then was exhausted the next day. We were prepared and put up the back curtain on the truck so she couldn’t see out. She tried to look under the curtain but stopped when we corrected her. None of us got any sleep that night. This great experience all for the price of $28…rip off.
Monday, July 12
In the morning, Iris decided it was cuddle time and walked to our heads and then crawled under our covers. It was pretty cute and turned into a pattern for her. We broke camp quickly and early. Luckily, the gas station on the corner (which had a better food shopping supply than the sketchy grocery store up the street) had coffee already brewing. We then headed to Leavenworth.
Leavenworth is awesome! The mountains are beautiful and the bouldering is fantastic. We didn’t spend much time in the town, except at Safeway, but it’s really cute. We’d like to go back and spend a day just walking around the town and then doing some more climbing, of course. When we arrived, we beelined to the campgrounds so we could find a spot. We heard it was busy during the summer and were concerned about finding a campsite. We shouldn’t have been concerned, there were plenty to pick from. We stayed in spot #25 at the 8-mile Campground along Icicle Canyon. It was a nice campground and we really liked the Icicle Canyon area. We had looked at a couple other campgrounds further in, but it was windy when we looked at them and were gun-shy of more wind issues.
Then we went to town for a late breakfast. It took a while to find a place where we could sit outside with Iris. There isn’t much outdoor seating in Leavenworth. We were quite tired and a little grumpy, so it made the process that much more difficult. But, breakfast tasted awesome and revived us. We stopped by the outdoor store for a bouldering guide. Mike had read about the bouldering in Leavenworth in a climbing magazine and we decided to focus on bouldering. The lady in the store gave us a couple recommended areas to start. Following her advice, we started at The Sword area in Icicle Canyon.
The Sword had a great variety of ratings and I was able to start at a V0, where I stayed for most of the trip. Neither of us were in fantastic climbing shape though Mike had climbed more than I had to prepare for the trip. Mike climbed a V2 and V3 there. He also climbed the V0 before I did it because I had read there were rattle snakes along Icicle Canyon and was anxious so Mike made sure it was clear for me. Iris started her rock climbing career at The Sword too. When Mike cleared the top of the first route, Iris was quite anxious when she couldn’t see him. She was excited to see him come around the corner of the rock. When I climbed to the top of my first route, Mike told Iris “Go get Mom” and she jumped onto the rock and started crawling up it. It was a vertical rock, not a slab. Mike grabbed her off the rock because he didn’t know how far she would keep going. Wish we could have caught that on video. We hung out at the campsite afterwards with the fire that Mike started. We ate chili dogs for dinner.
Campsite $16
Breakfast $17
Wood $6
Experience Priceless
Tuesday, July 13
We finally got some sleep that night. Iris slept between us for part of the night because it was colder and we’re suckers. That morning, we chilled by the campfire for a while and enjoyed the morning and our coffee.
After a false start, we found the Carnival Boulders and essentially exhausted that area for the ratings we were climbing. It was great. We tied Iris to a tree with a long cord and she explored while we climbed. Eventually, she’d get a little bored and whiney but she was usually happy just sniffing and seeing what she could find and trying to pick the sap out of between her toes. Mike on-sighted a couple V3s. Mike attempted The Rib, a V4, but was a little freaked out. There was a move that the guide described as “a committing move” that Mike could have gone for, but the move was high off the ground and we had just a single, small pad. Mike would like to try the route again in the future with better fall protection. I continued to climb V0s but I did try a technical V1 that Mike on-sighted. I couldn’t make the first move, even after we played on that route for a while, trying to work it. Not to be outdone, Iris showed us her rock climbing skills again, this time unprompted and on a slab.
We decided to check out the camping along Tumwater Canyon. The single campground there is nice, at first blush. There’s a pretty creek running along most of the campground, however, stay there for just a couple minutes and the mosquitoes will find you. We didn’t have mosquito problems in the 8-Mile Campground even with a creek along beside it. We tried many different campsites at Tumwater and couldn’t avoid the mosquitoes so we decided to head back to Icicle Canyon. We ended up back in space #25 in 8-Mile Campground.
That afternoon, Mike took a dip in the river, which had a lot of white water and people kayaked it. I sat on a rock reading a book in the sun. Ms. Cuteness, Iris’ nickname, sat in the sun with me chasing butterflies. Back at camp, she enjoyed catching the gnats that flew around us. Though, I don’t know if she enjoyed eating them because she screwed up her face while she chewed the tiny, little things.
Wednesday, July 14
I cooked breakfast while Mike went on a photo shoot. Not really sure what we were going to do, we started driving back towards Leavenworth. On rather a whim, we decided to climb at the Mad Meadows area. I’m glad we did. We had a good time. Mike climbed a V4 and then a V3. I worked on a V1 called The Hueco Route. We worked that route quite extensively. At first, I couldn’t get my butt off the ground. By the end of our efforts, I had got the tricky (tricky for me, not for Mike) heel hook and all the moves but the last one. Mike says I was 1″ away from the last hold on my best effort. After a while, it became diminishing returns and we called it a day. Something for me to work on the next time we go to Leavenworth.
The next part of our trip is called “The Search for a Shower.” We didn’t know of any places to shower in Leavenworth. We considered asking the outdoor store but then decided to go to Lake Wenatchee and hopefully find a shower there. We stopped at McDonalds to clean up and then headed toward Wenatchee with the idea that we would stay at Wenatchee Lake. While at McDonalds, we learned that Mike’s parents, who had stayed at our house while we were gone, had set off the alarm as they were trying to leave. We had not told them the security word and we gave them bad instructions on setting the alarm. They convinced the police officer who responded to the alarm that they were legitimate and went home. Oops.
We got to Wenatchee, found a state park, and then looked for a shower. It was hot, hot, hot. Within minutes, we started melting. We then realized that the Wenatchee Lake we wanted wasn’t the one that was actually in the city of Wenatchee, but rather it was back north and beyond Leavenworth. Wenatchee didn’t do much for us, too hot, so we decided to find Wenatchee Lake. On our way back north, we googled the park at Wenatchee Lake and saw that it had showers. We were motivated.
The first thing we did on reaching the lake was to take a shower. Then, we decided we didn’t like the first campground, so we explored many others. One of them was 5 miles along a windy road that became dirt. It was in the middle of nowhere. That one didn’t meet our picky campground needs so we ended up at another one, on a river just off of the lake. We didn’t select a campsite near the water but we still got mosquitoes. Mike made an early fire to try to drive them away, but we still got eaten live by the nasty things. They were stealthy bugs because we were covered with clothes and smothered with mosquito spray. We didn’t realize we were getting so many bites at the time. It wasn’t until the next day, and several afterwards, that we discovered just how good we tasted to the mosquitoes. We probably got 10 or so mosquito bites each.
$17 for this campsite, mosquitos included.
Thursday-Sunday, July 15-18
We left early that morning after deciding that we were done with camping. We decided to go home and do some things we wanted to do around the house. We continued along Highway 2 through the Wenatchee National Forest. It was quite pretty. The rest of the drive was uneventful. We got home around lunchtime. Before even going home, we dropped Iris off at “Mutts and Putts” (really called Muttley Crew) for a spa treatment, but especially a wash. She was tired and wasn’t really thrilled about being dumped but felt much better when we picked her up. She was clean and sassy.
The rest of our vacation and weekend flew by. Mike built the third raised garden box in our back yard. We had dirt delivered that Mike put into our boxes and took care of. I made a supply of food for our week and we played with our I-Pads, me learning mine and Mike playing with his to avoid watching recorded episodes of “So You Think You Can Dance” with me. It’s been a relaxing few days. Too bad we have to return to work tomorrow.
