After the usual Friday afternoon phone chain, Jon and I had decided to go to Leavenworth for the weekend. Icicle creek was coming in for the spring snow melt and it was time to capitalize on what little snowpack we have.
I woke on Saturday morning to a car already packed and gassed, all that was required was gentle pressure on the gas pedal. About halfway there the plans changed and instead of just the two of us it would be a party of four. Jon, Jon's girlfriend Katie, and their Dog. We packed the Japanese station wagon as efficiently as possible, squeezed in, and made made way for the promised land of Leavenworth.
JS: "Where is the next town on the map"?
JH: "like 25-30 miles, why"?
JS: "The gas light turned on awhile ago".
JH: "Well, I watched a news special once where I learned that American cars get 30-40 miles after the light turns on, so we should be good"
Jon didn't look convinced, but I was confident. I had also seen it on Mythbusters and when I told him this he agreed that they were a reliable source and we hoped that we would all make it to the next town of Blewette. Which is in the middle of the Wentachee National Forest, and doesn't have a gas station unbeknownst to us. Luckily Blewette is at the top of the pass and we got good gas mileage down into the Wenatchee valley, "just drop it in neutral and let it run" I suggested. As we passed through the next town of Cashmere we were disappointed to find that the gas station that we had see in the distance was a former gas station. It had the pumps, no gas. One thing it did have was no shortage of mid nineties motorcycles for sale, a gentleman was looking at a tiny honda for his 10 year old son. We were definitely in the country.
At this point I was having feelings of deep foreboding, we had pushed our luck getting to the summit of the pass, and now I was developing images of us breaking down a quarter mile from the gas station and having to roll that small blue Honda down the breakdown lane to refill.
40 miles, 2 "towns", and 1 mountain pass later; we were at a gas station in Leavenworth. We had a good laugh over making it all the way to Leavenworth with the gas light on, mostly because the silly chucklehead from the city forgets to gas up before we left civilization. I bought some sushi from the Safeway for lunch, and then we drove on up Icicle creek valley in search of whitewater. We paddled the Lower section of Icicle creek, a class IV+ stretch of river located southwest of Leavenworth. At the put-in were we greeted by a gaggle of tourists posing for pictures in the parking lot, with the mountains in the background and asking us "are you gonna do that?"
We put on and immediately drop into a large class IV rapid that I will call "Bridge Rapid" for the most obvious of reasons. From there we picked our way down boulder gardens until we reached A steep ledge that we attempted to scout from the middle of the river with little luck in viewing what lay at the base of the ledge. So we tried sneaking around it and ended up becoming separated by an island. After a moment or two of scouting from shore for each other we made visual contact again and met up at the bottom of the rapid.
The gradient quickly leveled out after this and we floated down to the take out. Well, what we thought was the take-out, we accidently took out early at a retreat center and were eventually pointed in the right direction by a nice lady. Once at the real take out we became lost again, ending up on the wrong side of a fence and having to do some scrambling to get down to where we were going to meet Katie. Due to miscommunication Katie didn't know where to meet us and we ended up spending 2 hours waiting for her. It wasn't so bad, the air was warm the grass was soft, and our gear dried within the first hour. This day was turning into one mishap after the other.
Waiting for a ride
Once we were picked up we drove to the campground that we had planned to stay at and found that it was packed with climbers. We managed to bag the very last campsite. For the rest of the night we referred to the loop our site was adjacent to as the "loop of shame" because potential campers drove around in vain for a camp spot. For dinner we wrapped sweet potatoes, onions, asparagus, and bratwurst in foil and cooked those over the fire pit. A nice end to the day. We sat around the fire and drank beer and were eventually joined by Dan, Dave, and Adrian. It's so dry over on that side of the cascades that we didn't even need to pitch a tent, Dan, Adrian and I all crashed out in the open, a beautiful night.
I woke early the next morning (6:00 am), and was unable to fall back to sleep, so I managed to read until about 8:00 when everyone else roused for breakfast. I cooked bacon and eggs and then at 10 we rallied for a warm up on Lower Icicle. There was a scary swim by one individual on the trip, he swam in front of a undercut rock/sieve/logjam but was able to stop himself from flowing into it, and three of us were able to get into a position that if something bad did happen it would have been handled.
Take out for upper icicle, very steep.
After spending a considerable amount of time at the take out we drove up to the upper section of Icicle Creek to run the classic class IV-V boulder gardens. The run is a true classic, like riding your bike in the Pyrenees, from the first rapid to the last it doesn't let up. The run would have taken forever if I wasn't able to follow people down, otherwise scouting would have been necessary every 100 yards or so. The whole run went clean other than a little trouble in a rapid called "roadside attraction" where I spent some time surfing in a hole, but I worked it out and ran the rest of the drops clean.
At the horseshoe rock Jon, Adrian, and I took out where we met Katie and the rest of the gang floated down more whitewater to their cars. The three of us exchanged high fives and drank a beer after we changed into dry clothes. We sat at the base of "log limbo" and took in the scenery and talked about the day. The weather was beautiful and I knew spring was in full effect because my nose was full of snot due to allergies. I also managed to keep Katie's dog from jumping into the river and swimming a class V rapid. Not a bad day.
Take out and log limbo in the distance
On the way home we stopped in the Bavarian themed town of Leavenworth. The town has a town zoning ordinance that requires all buildings within the downtown area to have a Bavarian theme. It's the hokiest thing you've ever seen. Everyone thinks it adorable, but if you were from Germany you'd laugh at the sillyness of it. We stopped at the Bavarian themed Cold Stone ice cream parlor. Katie, Jon, and I gorged ourselves on decadent ice cream treats for the drive home. Upon finishing my mountain of ice cream I sunk into a food coma that wouldn't subside until I arrived back in Olympia.
All-in-all the weekend was a success. Fun times with fun people on fun rivers.
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