Shrimpin' at Lake Wenatchee
Our travel took place on the ancestral lands of the np̓əšqʷáw̓səxʷ (Wenatchi), Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Entiat, Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla, and Yakama peoples who have stewarded those lands since time immemorial.
I spent a lot of my summer up until this trip meeting new bike folk and cobbling together groups of new friends to ride into the woods. While it was an incredible summer, and I would not trade those experiences for anything, sometimes you just wanna take a trip with a small group of folks you can be your dumbest/best self with. This time it was just a bunch of shrimpy gals. I had heard some great things about Lake Wenatchee, and had not spent a lot of time out by Leavenworth, so when I found Glacier View Campground on the shores of Lake Wenatchee was a first-come first-served spot I thought it would make an awesome destination for a shorter tour. If you have read some of my other posts or been on a trip with me, you know that I love not having to make a campsite reservation. Sometimes it can be a nightmare, like when all of the hiker-biker sites were full at the end of our Olympic Discovery Trail tour, but most of the time it means less hassle trying to reserve a campsite in the manic Washington summer.
Doing what she does best
We drove to Leavenworth on Saturday morning and parked in a weird overnight gravel lot that was full of pretty treacherous-looking potholes and puddles. We were all pretty hungry by the time we got there, so we stopped for some bratwursts and potato salad because in Leavenworth you gotta. Jean is a huge fan of smoked, dried and cured meats so while I was apprehensive about starting a bike ride in August weather full of sausage, seeing Jean’s happy face was really worth it.
Once we had had our fill of sauerkraut we jumped back on the bikes and headed up the Chumstick Highway. It was a smaller highway with a pretty mellow grade and besides the occasional jerk driver it was a really beautiful ride. The highway winds through a valley dotted with farms and steep mountainsides covered in forest. We did start to tire out as the grade increased closer to Plain. The higher we got the more intense the headwinds became, and riding in the front was especially taxing. We stopped a few times to catch our breath and rehydrate in weird driveways and pullouts, which is the really unglamorous but funny part of bike touring you will not see in magazines.
The grade of the highway got much steeper very quickly the closer we got to Plain and then quickly dropped about 400 feet in under a mile. We skidded into Plain and refueled with chips, kombucha, and ice cream at the general store. Jean found a vending machine full of jerky and salami and had a really hard time deciding on which treats to hoard for the campsite. A couple people in the group got some Huney Jun kombucha, which none of us had ever heard of before, but really delicious and refreshing and contained so many awesome nutritional goodies. We would continue to talk about the wonders of the kombucha for the rest of the trip.
We got back on the road with 10 miles to go, with all but the last two miles being pretty flat. The last two miles to Glacier View were a series of rollers as we coasted along the lake’s southern edge, and then a gravel-paved hill to access the campsite. We all arrived pretty winded and just in time to snatch up the very last available campsite!
Shrimp!
The campsite was pretty awesome, with views straight out onto the lake, lots of trees, and a fire pit. We got settled, and helped one of the ladies set up a shelter since she had forgotten her tent poles. It is so awesome to be in the company of so many people that are willing to pitch in and help one another! We used some rope, bungee cords, and a tarp to make a safe and cozy shelter for her. Before the sun went down a few of us put swimsuits on and splashed around in the lake, and even though it was August it was still pretty frigid, but it seemed wrong to bike all that way and not jump in the lake. We spent the rest of the daylight soaking in the sunset, playing games on the shore, and making little sculptures out of rocks and sand. I felt so full of happiness and love with this group, we talked about literally everything during this trip — our love lives, family lives, sex, jobs, how to be more inclusive cyclists, and where we wanted to take our lives as cyclists in the future.
In the morning we packed everything back up and slogged back up the gravel hill out of the campground. The ride back was extremely easy and even more gorgeous than the ride in. We took Highway 2 back to Leavenworth through an even bigger valley where big creeks dump into the Wenatchee River which rolled along into town so languidly. I was so upset I could not jump in at our pit stop because I had recently gotten a new tattoo on my shoulder.
During the pit stop we got to talking about Huney Jun kombucha again and wondering if we could drop by their warehouse to try some more flavors, or get some to take back home. We tried in vain to search for some kind of tasting room or retail space, but could only find the address on the back of the bottles. We decided that when we got back to Leavenworth we would swing by the address on our way out of town to see if we could get any more of the sweet nectar.
We rolled out of the picnic area and wound our way back down to Leavenworth. Once we had all the bikes back on the cars we went on the kombucha hunt. We went to the address on the back of the bottles and found a nondescript industrial building on south end of Leavenworth. We drove around the building a few times before we noticed an adorable handmade wooden sign that said ‘Huney Jun’.
It did not look like anyone was inside, but we saw a truck outside with its trunk open so we went to the door and knocked. A tall, wiry man with a shock of sun-kissed golden hair and the most sweet and inviting smile opened the door. We told him that we had come to check out the source of the delicious kombucha and he immediately invited us inside to see the production area. There were labeling machines and huge vats of different kombucha flavors, with one containing Abuela, the grandmother to all of the other SCOBYs. He told us all about his recent adventure in the woods, his gratitude for fresh water, and the different types of healing ingredients he uses. The proprietor was so delightfully excited that we took an interest in his product and sent us home with a full dozen of all the flavors! It was such a sweet gesture, and so amazing to meet a small business owner that was so in love with life and making others feel good.
The really beautiful part about even a short weekend getaway like this is that there are so many parts to the journey that it is easy to be present and enjoying the moments as they happen. Even if I go home dehydrated and leave my apartment covered in campfire-smoked gear for a week, it is worth it to see new things and learn more about my favorite people.
