A winter playground
The trees were frosty white on the Sherman Pass Scenic Byway on northeastern Washington’s State Route 20.
Husband John announced the subzero readings from the dashboard display: minus nine; a few miles down the road, minus six.
We were in search of a cross-country ski trail along the pass, but couldn’t bring ourselves to get out in the freezing cold and biting wind. Our hope was to get in some skiing before we had to head home to The Dalles, Ore.
It was cold everywhere. Snow and ice had fallen throughout the Northwest, sending happy schoolchildren home in metropolitan regions and snowplows out to scrape roads all over the place, including winter recreation spots.
We called off our Sherman Pass plans due to the ridiculously cold weather. Taking U.S. 97 south, we settled into a Wenatchee hotel to wait out the arctic chill.
Our patience and schedule flexibility paid off. In more comfortable, double-digit temperatures – 17 degrees Fahrenheit – we explored the Wenatchee National Forest and found what draws travelers to the winter playground of central Washington’s Cascade Mountains.
Snow-covered peaks encircle the city of Wenatchee, promoted as the Apple Capital of the World. A pink sunset outlined the mountain ridge to the west as we carefully navigated icy sidewalks to the city’s Riverfront Park for a quick walk before retiring to the room to order pizza and channel surf.
The park is normally busy at this hour with people exercising and enjoying the public space. In this cold weather, it’s mostly deserted, but the indoor ice rink at the park is full. The rink offers public skating sessions, private and group classes, and team hockey. (For more information, call the Riverfront Park Ice Arena, 509-664-3396; rentals are available.)
We did find a few people outdoors taking advantage of the conditions.
A young boy, about 9, gripped the reins of a purple, plastic toboggan while he and a girl of about the same age rode it down a hill. The pair shot across the walking path and became airborne before falling off, rolling and giggling in the snow.
That’s the way cross-country skiing makes me feel, and I couldn’t wait for tomorrow when we would be skiing down some forest hill.
The next morning we left the hotel and headed northwest on Highway 2 to Leavenworth, where Bavarian trim and fonts drip from nearly every structure, even the local dentist office. The town was in the midst of celebrating its annual IceFest when we circled through the village.
People wandered among specialty shops and restaurants, some with German-style menus. Contestants in the festival’s snow sculpture contest were just piling up their snow supply to commence their art projects.
We stopped at the local ranger district office to pick up information about regional winter sports. A map of the Waterfront Park in Leavenworth showed a few trails that allowed dogs. I pointed this out to our dog Kah-less, who sniffed the slick brochure.
The trails run beside the Wenatchee River and would be a beautiful setting to glide through. However, on this trip we were looking for snowy solitude. We decided to double-back and catch Highway 97 south to Blewett Pass in the Wenatchee National Forest.
Several recreation trails, which permit snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and even dog-sledding, are located on Highway 97. This was a Saturday and every parking area had vehicles in it. But the vast forest swallows up the people who’ve come out to play in the powder and we never saw a soul while on the trail.
We did meet a couple in the parking lot before we started. They took the Pipe Creek Trail, which is marked with the black “difficult” symbol because of more severe grades. John and I chose the easier one: Swauk Creek Meadows, which still has challenging hills and gets to even more difficult sections higher up.
At first, the trail paralleled the highway. Then we came to a fork where we could continue straight to Blewett Pass Sno-Park, or take the right fork following the Swauk Creek Meadows Trail. The Swauk Creek trail leads away from the highway traffic sounds and deeper into the forest.
The cool breeze coming down the mountain trail felt good to my flushed cheeks. A snow-covered ridge towered in the distance. We watched this soaring landscape for an hour as we worked our way upward.
The trail emerges into a high, open meadow. There dry, empty seedpods on tall stalks and brown grasses poke up through the snow. We could hear the hum of snowmobiles. The trail connects with Forest Service Road #9716, which is also used by snowmobilers.
At the edge of the meadow, we stopped for a snack before turning around. It began to lightly snow as we skied back through the meadow and into the forest.
Kah-less ran as fast as he could to keep up with whoever was in front as we all flew down the slope of the road. (He lay around stretching and yawning on the couch, toes pointed to the ceiling, for two days to recover.)
We met up again with the skiers from earlier. They looked tired and the guy showed us a gouge he got in his skis. They had to climb for an hour on the Pipe Creek Trail, they reported.
Big snow flakes poured from the sky, causing limited visibility. We pulled onto 97 again and went south toward Goldendale, then crossed the Columbia River into Oregon. Snow lay across all the land where we traveled. There was even some still waiting for us in the driveway.
From now until mid-spring we’ll be carrying our skis waxed and ready for perfect opportunities to play in powder.