Leavenworth, Washington

 I only had one thing on the agenda today - to hike the Icicle Ridge trail.  It's a 6 mile trail with 1800 feet f altitude gain....so not an easy one.

The trail starts not far from town.  The view to start out had some town views and a peek at the Wentachee river. 

The trail itself is well worn...it was mostly about a million switch backs that varied from bright sun to nice shade.

 

Camera held level, you can see the corner of the switchback.

 

Views from open areas.

 

Views to the river below...this was about at the top of the ridge.

 

Just beautiful views of the valley below.

 

We had our sandwiches at the top of the ridge sitting on an old log....then made the long trek back down the mountain.  

 

The total time was about 4 hours....probably the limit for one day for us old-codgers.

 

Forgot to show you our "welcome" sign at the Airbnb yesterday....everything is Bavarian themed.....

 

Leavenworth, Washington

 Last evening, I noticed that some rafters were coming down the river at the cabin.  Looks chilly to me!

 

We woke to more drizzle....got everything packed up and headed east.  We hiked to the top of Deception Falls (off trail) and the nicely kept trail as well.  Just a lovely mountain stream with lots of elevation change.

There is just something fascinating about rushing water.

Beautiful mossy trees.

 

Crystal clear stream....

A nice way to spend an hour or so on a dreary morning.

After lunch, we drove east towards Leavenworth.  As we drove through Steven Pass, the weather changed drastically.  The sky turned blue and it was dusty dry.  

 Driving along the Wentachee river, beautiful scenery.

 

We drove thru the Bavarian village of Leavenworth.....everything looks like it's "Alps" themed.  

 

Since it was so lovely, we switched to short sleeved shirts and headed up a dusty one lane road to the Canyon Crest trail.  It is a 4 mile loop that yields wonderful views of the valley.

Leavenworth in the distance.

The wildflowers were just lovely.

As we climbed, the views just got better.

Being silly while looking for a view.

 

At the end of the hike, there was a .2 mile spur that went off to a view of a different valley.

Nice day in the end....more hiking tomorrow.
 

Gold Bar, Washington

 We woke to a steady downpour.  I guess the PNW weather has finally caught up with us....

But I had bought tickets months ago to ride the Snoqualmie Railroad so off we go....waiting at the North Bend Depot, the train arrived just on time (since it's an out/back train ride, this is the rear of the train.)

 

This is the engine for the train today.

 

 The conductor played his part nicely.

Into the train, there were several different style cars.  

 

This one was in a bit better shape but maybe a bit less comfy.

 

 Conductor and engineer discussing something important.

 

Underway, we passed the museum that we'll tour on the way back.  Lots of old/abandoned railroad cars.

 

This was some sort of snow-removing equipment - apparently a very difficult problem for the trains of the time.

Passing Snoqualmie Falls and the adjoining hydro electric power plant.  We'll visit this later in the day on foot.  This is the very top of the falls.

 

The view of the river past the falls.  Unfortunately, there weren't any mountain views because of the low clouds.

On the train, we stopped several times to see things along the way.  The conductors/stewards were great (even if a little nerdy...)

Views would have been phenomenal if it had been sunny....

About an hour into the trip, we stopped at the railway museum in Snoqualmie.  A very nice display of railroad memorabilia.  We only had 1/2 hour to tour though before we heard the whistle blow.

Nice equipment under roof.

 

Back to the depot, time to move onward.  The next stop was to view the Snoqualmie Falls from the ground.  After having to hunt a bit for parking (note to self, Saturdays are busy!), it was a short walk to view the spectacular falls from the nice platform provided by the power company.

 Since the crowd was walking down a trail, we decided to follow.  (I had not researched this falls very well, I admit).  The trail was very nice, but completely downhill.   Cool tree that had grown it's roots over an old ancient stump.  Now the stump is pretty much rotted away, leaving the roots of the new tree in "mid-air".

 

On further down the trail we crossed the hydroelectric power plant piping.

 

Lovely view up close of the river we saw from the train far above.

And finally arrived at the base of the falls.  Lovely but I'm not sure it was worth the walk back up the hill!! 

 

All of this took quite a few hours of the day so it was time to head to our next AirBnB in Gold Bar.  On the way, we hike a few miles of the the Wallace Falls state park trail since we were just a few minutes early for the check-in time at the cabin.  We didn't make it to the falls but the river was lovely.

 

View from the trail of the nearby mountains after the clouds cleared a bit.  (Couldn't get a view without the power cables.)

Our cute little cabin....

 

And this is the view from back porch of our cabin in the woods!