Escape to Leavenworth (for Faux Bavarian Charm)

Bavarian charm just a few hours east on Highway 2 makes Leavenworth an easy escape. Photo courtesy of Explosion 5000 from the Seattlest Flickr Pool.

Seattlest needed a brief reprieve from the city, so we headed east on Highway 2 for three hours to the Bavarian-themed tourist mecca of Leavenworth: a perma-Christmas wonderland of knickknack shops featuring more dipping sauce stores than actual tax-paying residents.

Leavenworth is easy to diss if you hate aimless shopping and couples in North Face jackets, but the drive itself, albeit harrowing at times, almost makes the trip alone. The peaks around Stevens Pass are impressive in daylight and once you cross onto the eastern slope, the emerging Icicle Creek Canyon that guides you into town is as beautiful a stretch of highway as any you will ever find.

The town itself is situated between the Wenatchee River and the eastern Cascade Range. Every direction promises a worthwhile view (unless you happen to be staring at the large cement cold storage on the north end of town, which apparently never got the Bavarian charm memo), and a three-minute drive to the “Ski Hill” winter park reveals the valley descending below in a surreal exhibition of patchwork winter orchards.

The Leavenworth “Ski Hill” at one time housed the Pre-Olympic Ski Jump qualifying back in the day and numerous records were set there throughout the better part of the last century. Men with funny European names jumped in excess of 300 feet from the very slope towering above today’s rope tows that bring snowboarders and innertubers up the mountain for a much more casual winter thrill.

As recently as four years ago, you could stare mortality down and risk your neck on the actual ski jump landing pad. Seattlest did it once (actually we only went halfway up the hill) and were glad to come out alive. Since then, innertubing there has been banned and is now cordoned off to a smaller, less deadly run complete with a handy rope tow and predetermined curves and turns to curb any out-of-control riders. It is still freaky, particularly when it is icy, but the sight of six-year-olds doing it fearlessly should force even the most gutless of city folk to overcome their cowardice.

Leavenworth is constantly improving upon and searching for more reasons to keep itself on the tourist radar, proving that you don’t need to be a big city; you just have to have a big picture to rake in the steady cash. Thank god for their weird little Central Washington niche.