Stehekin Is Priceless

In this story, the “us” includes Linda Bassett. Our Midwest lives paralleled with college, marriage, offspring, and widowhood. She occasionally flies from Indiana to visit me in my RV travels. With my motorhome George parked in Leavenworth, we drove the car to Chelan, Washington, to catch the ferry. The Lady of the Lake cruised Lake Chelan’s 55-mile length in four hours and dropped us off at The Landing and North Cascades Stehekin Lodge.

The lodge has no phones, TV, radios or air conditioners. It was wonderful. On a very short walk through Beautiful Downtown Stehekin, we found the bike rental, post office, laundry, and the only public telephone.

Our magnificent deck view, shaded by an enormous tree, included Lake Chelan and distant glaciated mountains. This end of the lake is encompassed by North Cascades National Park and North Cascades National Recreation Area. The first thing we did was eat a substantial lunch at the lodge restaurant and make reservations for dinner. Eating is a difficult habit to break.

Isolated Village
No roads connect Stehekin with the outside world. The only way in is via boat, plane, or mountain path. Vehicles, building materials, fuel, propane, and other large items arrive on a big barge pushed by a little tugboat. In 2003, Stehekin’s largest recorded flood wiped out sections of Stehekin Valley Road, requiring $1,200 worth of gravel. The fee to transport the gravel was $3,000.

Residents get their supplies by sending a blank check and a necessity list to Chelan. Items are delivered to the dock and brought by passenger boat to Stehekin, along with the U. S. Mail. How much does gas cost in Stehekin? Whatever the owner wants to charge, but so far it is less than $3 a gallon. With only 24 miles of road, people don’t worry about it too much.

A Company Creek hydro plant and a backup diesel generator provide electricity. The National Park Service furnishes garbage disposal, road repairs, snowplowing and EMTs for the 90-plus rugged residents.

Big Drop
A shuttle dropped us off at Rainbow Falls 3 1/2 miles from The Landing and a popular quick tour for one-day visitors following ferry schedules. The falls cascade an awesome 312 feet over the rocks to form Rainbow Creek.

We hiked to the one-room Stehekin School Museum. The blackboard, schoolwork and disheveled books on the desks looked like students had walked out the day before rather than in 1989 when the school closed.

The new schoolhouse, although still considered a “one-room” school, has indoor plumbing, gymnasium and a library. Older students mentor younger ones in kindergarten through the eighth grade. Fourteen children were enrolled this past school year. They learn and grow in this now unique environment that I remember fondly. After eighth grade graduation, students are homeschooled or move to Chelan or Wenatchee for high school.

We continued to the Stehekin Pastry Company, a big mistake. All shuttles, bikes, and feet automatically turn into the parking lot and refuse to leave until you buy outrageously delicious sticky buns or other totally irresistible, tantalizing, mouthwatering, bakery delights that sacrifice themselves for your pleasure. We escaped with sticky fingers and a sack full of future snacks.

Renting bikes was not cost efficient. You either ride by the bakery really fast or you succumb. We bought sandwiches, drinks, and ice cream for $17. An hour and a half later, the bike rental fee was $15. Total cost: $32. Exercise: Priceless.

Kayak Adventure
We keep Linda’s children unhinged. The last time she visited me, she rode a helicopter for the first time and mushed dogs on an Alaskan glacier. This time I talked her into kayaking. I had kayaked before so I sat in the back seat as the brains, dangerous at best.

After instructing us, Jenny and Kelly set us free to find our way through a water-trail maze at the lake’s north end. Considering I have difficulty coordinating one thing, it took awhile to remember the technique, plus coordinate my paddling, maneuver the rudder, and get into synch with the paddling of Linda, who was doing great.

We all made it to Weaver’s Landing without mishap. Jenny suggested we continue the calm waters to the petroglyphs. In Native American language, Stehekin means “The way through.” They traveled through these mountains well before the white man discovered the Lake Chelan Valley in the 1800s, but the petroglyph history has been lost. We made it back without swimming, and Linda is raring to go again.

Actually, we kayaked over history. In 1892 a boarding house was renovated into the elegant Field Hotel. Although Lake Chelan is a natural lake, in 1928 the construction of Chelan Dam gave it a 21-foot vertical rise. Parts of the disassembled Field Hotel, incorporated into the Golden West Lodge, later became the Golden West Visitor Center now housing the National Park Service.

Campfire UFOs
I never miss National Park talks. Kelly told us all we ever wanted to know about bats or as she put it, “Unidentified Flying Organisms.” Would you believe that humans sitting at a campfire are like a “mosquito singles bar?” Female mosquitoes that suck our blood to feed their babies are searched out by male mosquitoes for reasons I won’t get into, and the whole herd is dinner bait for bats. This may have totally destroyed my love of campfires.

Local artists display their handiwork in The House that Jack Built, a crafter’s cabin hosted that day by a former Stehekin postmaster. I asked about the tiny birdhouses. “I build birdhouses of tree wood about 12 inches in diameter with roofs and bottoms. Using the inside cores, I smooth the sides into birdhouses resembling barrels with spigots and entrance holes. Those cores become very small Christmas tree ornament birdhouses.” I asked what he did with the leftovers. “With the shavings, I make a campfire.” This is not only great recycling but it ultimately feeds the bats.

Some people think of Stehekin as being “disconnected from the world.” That’s a problem? Linda and I thought it was beautiful, peaceful, and despite our bakery bill, priceless. God Bless.