We had leftover pancakes and muffins, then packed up. Helping Oscar put down his new Rockwood trailer made us appreciate our Coleman tent trailer more, but I guess some of our impressions are colored by years of getting used to ours.
We drove from Pearrygin Lake State to Leavenworth and Icicle Road. There are a number of campgrounds here, and we were hoping that arriving fairly early on a Monday would allow us to find a spot. We drove into the Bridge Creek Campground, but it was nearly full and not designed for trailers. After some adventures in turning two trucks with trailers around, we got back on Icicle Road and skipped past the large Johnny Creek campgrounds and tried Ida Creek campground.
Having learned a lesson, we had Oscar wait outside the campground entrance while we checked it out. This small campground was mostly full but we found two nice adjoining sites, so we dropped our trailer off in one, and Julie held the other while I went to fetch Oscar.
It took a while to set up, and it was hot in the sun, but comfortable in the shade.
We discovered that running our trailer refrigerator on 12 volt power drains the trailer battery despite being connected to the truck most of the time. I pulled the battery out of the trailer so we could put it and our solar panels out in the sun to charge up from the 8.something volts it was showing.
We took a short walk from the campground along an abandoned road along the river. The dogs got to run a bit, but the road became increasingly overgrown and we turned back.
Oscar had brought some Camembert cheese that was becoming quite ripe in his refrigerator. We opened a couple Zinfandels to see which one went with the cheese best, and also had some dried figs. Then Julie heated some beef stew she had made and frozen for the trip for dinner.
We slept in a bit, then had a quick breakfast of yoghurt and granola. We drove six miles further up the canyon to the end of the main road where we found the Icicle Creek trailhead parking lot empty at 11:00.
We hiked about five miles up the creek, stopping about four miles in to have lunch. It’s a nice trail without many hills and lots of shade, and it was well maintained. We were glad for the shade because it was a hot day. We thought about turning around at lunch, but we continued on a bit further and were rewarded by reaching an area with huge cedar trees that was distinct from the rest of the forest.
Another interesting aspect of the hike was just how much water Icicle Creek carries. There are a few sections near the trail where the creek is very straight and smooth, but the water is moving surprisingly quickly in those quiet sections. We encountered only one other pair of hikers, which surprised us after seeing a couple full parking lots at other trailheads.
We drove back to camp and really enjoyed some cold beer. While we rested with our beers, the sky clouded and the air cooled off a bit. We grilled some polish sausages and had them with some salad for dinner.
I made “toad in the hole” toast with corned beef for breakfast, then we washed our hair, did some laundry and dishes, then we headed into Leavenworth. Because the north Cascades here look like the Alps, the town is Bavarian themed. There are a lot of nice shops, and they do a good job of looking Bavarian.
We stopped at a couple grocery stores looking for Bavarian beer. We found a few at the grocers, but then we found the bonanza at The Cheese Monger: a good selection of Bavarian and local beers plus (of course) lots of cheese, and pumpernickel bread. This store, plus a pretzel from a bakery, made up our late lunch. We also got a chain leash for Higgins at a pet store because he has a bad habit of chewing through leashes, and some dog treats.
After all that cheese and beer, we drove up to the Icicle Gorge Loop trail. This is an easy four mile loop showing the Icicle gorge, some surrounding micro-biomes, and crossing a couple major creeks that feed the Icicle. There is a fairly large parking lot that we saw full on Tuesday morning, but arriving around 4:30 on Wednesday afternoon we saw only a few cars. We had a pleasant walk, and got nice views of the ridges and mountains all around.
We ended the day sheltering from the few-but-persistent mosquitos in our trailer. We re-heated the corned beef Reuben pizza in the frying pan and finished the two Zinfandels we’d been taste-testing. We spent a while researching trails and maps, making a plan for the next day.
We woke up a little bit earlier with the idea of getting an early start because the forecast was for ten degrees warmer than yesterday. Julie scrambled eggs with green chiles while I toasted some bread on the grill. We still weren’t sure where we were going hiking, and the additional research ended up taking a while. Finally we decided to just go up the Icicle Creek trail and turn on to the French Creek trail, and we only got to the trailhead thirty minutes earlier than on Tuesday.
There were several vehicles in the parking lot this time, and we met many of the people from them on the trail. Most had dogs with them, and Higgins gets a bit crazy whenever he sees another dog.
We hiked about two miles on the Icicle Creek trail, then turned off onto French Creek trail and walked a bit over two miles further on that one. The French Creek trail is rougher going than Icicle, and the creek is in a deep gorge, so we all got warm and the dogs got thirsty without access to water. But we met no one else on this trail, so the dogs did get to run a bit.
We found a nice breezy spot in the shade for lunch, then walked just a little further before turning around.
We drove through Chatter Creek campground on the way back. It has some nice spots, but only a couple are suitable for trailers.
We had a “clean aging things out of the fridge” kind of dinner after drinking a few more Bavarian beers. The Weihenstephaner Vitus was particularly nice.
Someone showed up and asked if we were leaving, and if they could put their own camping registration tag underneath ours, at seven in the morning. We had to turn down several other people looking for camp sites while packing up. We had a fun breakfast of blueberry “pies” made with white bread on our pie irons in the fire.
A few clips from this portion of the trip: