I have been to the place multiple times after staying in washington, but never got a chance to truly understand the culture and read a bit more about the history of the place.
Here’s my deep dive into the bavarian village.
-
it’s a “fabricated” bavarian village, born in the 1960s to attract more tourist rather than german settlers
-
formerly it’s a booming logging (timber industry) town founded on the indigenous lands used by the yakama, chinook and the wenatchi.
-
it’s named “Icicyle Flats” based on historical native indigenous wenatchi roots – “nasikelt”
-
has the world’s largest nutcracker collection
-
one of the other famous places of leavenworth is the “enchantments” hike
- the hike is part of the cascade ranges and is directly located in leavenworth
- the mountains that forms enchantments rise directly from the valley floor right next to leavenworth
- people start from stuart lake trailhead and finish at snow lake trailhead to pass the stunning colchuck lake and infamous, brutally steep “aasgard pass”
-
lake wenatchee
- notoriously windy
- columbia basin on the east side is a desert and because of lack of trees creates a low-pressure region
- the east side of the central cascades has more trees leading to high-pressure area
- the wind flows from west to east and the lake which is positioned in a way that looks like an arrow or funnel creates the perfect channel for the air flow