Leavenworth, Washington and Nason Creek Campground

Let's just say I could get used to these short travel days! From Lone Pine it was less than 100 miles to our next stop west of Leavenworth, Washington---Nason Creek in the Wenatchee National Forest.

We pulled in and found a great spot--only a few were taken and one of those was the host!This is a view of our camp site from across the creek in another loop of the campground.

We took a walk down to the state park and Lake Wenatchee.

  I couldn't believe people were swimming! They must belong to  a polar bear club! It was not warm water! And the breeze coming off the lake.....BRRRR!!

Back at our site, we relaxed and toasted our good fortune at having this wonderful site.

Later that afternoon, we went geocaching. We found this old bridge near Plain, Washington. It is used for people, snowmobiles, and motorcycles.

Monday, we visited the town of Leavenworth. We enjoyed walking around the German influenced town. It was much better than Helen, Ga.

Lunchtime found us at Gustav's on the roof patio. We had a great view of the town and the mountains.

We stopped by the ranger office and inquired about hikes in the area. Most of the upper trails were still closed, but the ranger gave us a map and some suggestions. Our first hike was to Hidden Lake, not far from the campground. It was less than a mile from the trailhead to the lake, but we walked halfway around the lake looking and enjoying the area. This tree had a different green moss covering it. It reminded us of Hoh Rainforest on the Olympia Peninsula. In fact the whole area reminded us of Hoh.

The Indian paintbrush was in bloom.

The first waterfall we found had water emptying from the lake and flowing down to Lake Wenatchee.

As we walked around the lake, we could hear another waterfall, but couldn't see it for the trees. We finally found it!  Bob experimented with the camera and took this shot in vivid mode. This was the first of two great hikes in the area.

Wednesday we went hiking closer to Leavenworth. We found a trail leading to Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. We didn't plan on walking the whole trail as it was 6.5 miles one way! Also, the change in elevation was over 4,000 feet! We chose to walk and find the two geocaches along the trail. The first one was easy, it was just over the pedestrian footbridge leading to the trail.

The second one, not quite so easy---it was a mile UP the trail and a climb of 800 feet in elevation.  We took our time, enjoyed the views and saw some wildlife. I spotted this chipmunk eating his lunch.

 It seems this chipmunk is a carnivore. I had no idea!

 Now in all our hikes at elevation out west, Bob and I have never seen goats! Well, as Bob was getting the geocache near the switchback in the trail, I spotted three goats resting on some boulders above us.

 We stood and watched them for a while, then continued on our hike. I decided that the hike to the geocache was not long enough and we needed to see if we could find the waterfall we kept hearing.

 The short climb took us to the entrance to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. Still, no waterfall.

 So, after a hike of about 1.5 miles and 1002 foot change in elevation, we headed back down. 

 Well, until we met one of the goats on the trail!

 He was enjoying his lunch and didn't care if we watched him or not! In fact he kept moving closer and closer stripping leaves from bushes as he moseyed toward us. We finally decided we could  go down on the rocks to the left of the goat and get around. He started moving a tad faster as we were side by side. Whew! We made it around without incident!

 About halfway down, Bob took a picture of the parking area, once we could see it!

 

Funny, it didn't take nearly as long to get down as it did to get up the trail. The only problem with the hike down was that it started to sleet, which turned to rain just before we got to the car....then it stopped! The next day as we left the area, we could tell that the higher elevations got snow from that bit of weather we encountered.