Icicle Ridge (WA) Hike
    May 20, 2010.

Shon and I decided to turn a wedding in the Seattle area into a road trip.    We left Bellevue and went up to Sedro-Woolley where we visited Shon's brother and his wife.  Then we crossed the mountains at Washington Pass in the North Cascades NP, and proceeded south.   We spent a day in Chelan, and then went to Leavenworth, WA where we stayed for a couple of additional days.   This hike along Icicle Ridge starts close to the edge of Leavenworth and almost always has views of Icicle Creek below.
Icicle Creek as seen near the 1200 ft elevation start of the hike.

The weather had been mixed.  Earlier in the day we had encountered snow at Washington's Stevens Pass, having spent the morning driving there to check out the white water of the Wenatchee River.   So I was not surprised to see some rain on the adjacent ridges.

The next valley caught a few drops.

But there were always flowers along the trail in the spring.

Much of the country I was hiking was through an area that was burned in the recent past and was now fairly clear.   This was a Ponderosa Pine.

There were frequent views of a peak just across the ridge.

 As I got higher on the ridge, a rain squall came in, obscuring my views.

But as soon as the overcast arrived and dumped a few drops of rain upon me, the weather cleared and produced some sunshine for the end of the afternoon junket.   Had I continued I would have encountered snow, for the trail continues to about 6400 ft above sea level, with a start at 1200 ft.    The snowline would probably be at about 4000 ft at the end of May in this year.   Time was the driving force for me and I ran short.    In all, I only got up the trail for about 1500 ft of elevation gain.   It was still a great walk.