The rivers are dry and the bikes are taking a rest.  What to do?  Hiking of course! Pictures

Shannon and I decided to head east for some sunny weather and a nice easy eight mile hike.  The rain, it seemed had come early to Seattle.  It's late August and the West side of the Cascades seem to have decided it was time to get wet.  Not a drenching wet, just a cool misty kind of wet.   Drenching rain would have been better. Then there would be water in the rivers but this mist, well, it reminds me of summers in San Francisco!

Anyway, it was time to blow Dodge and head for Winthrop (an old Dodge look-a-like).

During my 070707 birthday motorcycle trip I had taken route 20 over Washington Pass and found the little town of Winthrop.  A wild west motif complete with board sidewalks, building facads, saloons and general stores.  This town is the northern tourist stop for the Cascade loop.   It had that 'Howdy Stranger' kinda feel and I wanted to spend a bit more time then my quick look during my Bday trip.

Sooo, we packed up Shannon's Suzuki with camping gear and headed over the route 20 pass.  

It was a good 3.5 hours before we found our campsite at Klipchuck and another hour until we finished setting up camp and headed into town.  Famished, we began looking for a place with protien and a nice cold beer.  Shannon was on a mission to find The Winthrop Brewing Company.  A trapazoid shaped bar/restaurant with its narrow side on the street and its wide side out back facing the Lost river.   The beer was great, the food was aweful (the hamburger was the size and taste of an air puck) and the service was 'okay'.  It was here that we learned about Winthrop Yellow Jackets.

You see, Winthrop is a bunch of wooden buildings, or at least, wooden facades with lots and lots of gaps.  Fine nesting places for yellow jackets.  The good news is that they seemed more interested in the hockey puck burger then us!

The afternoon was young and we both wanted to check out the Winthrop shopping.  I have to say, nothing original here.  There were ample give stores with only slight variations on theme.  The Chatka was pretty much the same and can probably be found on the Web for far less.  The one shop of local crafts seemed to have had far better days.  The two sporting goods stores were standard fare but well equiped for supplies (hmm, seems like they should have been the official General Store!).  I was impressed that Winthrop had an honest ta goodness glass blowing shop, complete with furnace and a glass blower.  The glass are was interesting but nothing to take your breath away.

After an icecream and cookie sugar hit while trying to locate something that might be consideres a river walk along the Lost River (which runs through town) we gave up and head out of town to Twisp where we thought we might find a ranger station.  

Twisp is the classic 'service' town.  All the stores that provide for the farms, contractors, hunters and four wheelers are located here.  Even though it was Saturday, tumbleweed seemed to be more numerous the people.  No ranger station was located.  Sooo, we decided to head out of town to locate a main highway advertised recreation area only to find ourselves heading out a long value away from route 20.  I clicked on the GPS and we started working our way back along gravel roads making for an interesting romp through the foot hills east of the cascades.

Now Shannon, you see, likes to brake for anything. Large insects, mice, lizards, you name it, Shannon brakes.  Me, well, I'd just assume runn em over.  Darwin is my guide!  Anyway, I was happy that Shannon had such great reflexes as we were rolling through the back country.  More then once, Shannon put the brakes on as a deer (Mule deer I believe) would trott out in front of us, run becide us, stare at us.  More deer then I've ever seen in fact.  Fields of deer grazing on farmers land.  In one small field alone I counted twenty deer. 

Shannon remarked in one of her Red Neck accents 'Granpa is settin in the livin room when Granma comes in the door with some groceries.  Granpa ses "Leavin that door open for just a sec" picks up his rifle and shoots dinner never getin out of his livin room rocking chair!' 

 We wind our way back to Winthrop checking out some ridge roads and local recreation lakes.  Dinner is at the Duck, the local touristy restaurant.  As we walk up the steps and into the restaurant there is a big chalk board with yellow letters declaring "Yellow Jackets on Deck", which, it turns out is a warning for all that the restaurant outside deck is, you guessed it, loaded with yellow jackets.  We decide to eat inside.

 For eats, the Duck is not to bad.  Nothing to write home about.  Cost wise it is just slightly on the high side (as compared to, say, restaurants in Leavenworth on Route 2, which is simply are out ragious)

As the sun sets, we head back to camp and a rain shower.  The ground drys up instantly and we both settle back into camp chairs and enjoy the quiet of the wood.

Bright and early Sunday morning we crawl out and start water a boiling.  Shannon has her titanium camp stove up and running before I get my act together.  She heads off to the lieu while I'm building my little contraption.  By the time she returns, my water has boiled and I'm steeping tea.  Her stove is still just warming up her water.  Shannon gives me and my Jet Boil a dirty look while she checks on her water temperature.  

We planned to find a breakfast place on the way to our trail head.  Our first choice was the Mazam Ranch.  Unfortunately there was a wedding happening there.  That left us with the little Mazam general store.  The store has lots of high carb baked goods but no breakfast. 

TB continued