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Lake Chelan Water Taxi


JoshK

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Is there any other way up and down Lake Chelan or does Lady of the lake have a monopoly? Getting to stehikin/holden so late on your arrival day and having to get back so early on your return really sucks.

 

The Lady of the lake does indeed have a monopoly, and they own the lodge at teh boat landing too! apart from hiking in from highway 20 (4hrs, flat trail) you can also take the Chelan Airways float plane up, which can go when you want it to, and only take about 25 or 30 minutes. However, this is more expensive so it's best to get a group together and split it. The boat company does have a "high speed" catamaran boat which makes 2 trips to Stehekin a day, but costs almost as much as the plane and takes an hour each way.

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Is there any other way up and down Lake Chelan or does Lady of the lake have a monopoly? Getting to stehikin/holden so late on your arrival day and having to get back so early on your return really sucks.

 

The Lady of the lake does indeed have a monopoly, and they own the lodge at teh boat landing too! apart from hiking in from highway 20 (4hrs, flat trail) you can also take the Chelan Airways float plane up, which can go when you want it to, and only take about 25 or 30 minutes. However, this is more expensive so it's best to get a group together and split it. The boat company does have a "high speed" catamaran boat which makes 2 trips to Stehekin a day, but costs almost as much as the plane and takes an hour each way.

 

So what trail from highway 20 gets you there in 4 hours? The shortest way I could find from highway 20 was along the bridge creek trail to the bridge creek camp. That is like 15 or 16 hours, which, granted, I could easily do jogging, but I'm not sure I could swing that with a big pack and skis on my back. pitty.gif

 

I must be missing something. Getting to that bridge creek campground is probably easier coming from cascade pass. It's 11 miles that way, and I know a lot of that is downhill skinning. Granted, you have to climb to get over cascade pass, but that is pretty cake.

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Is there any other way up and down Lake Chelan or does Lady of the lake have a monopoly? Getting to stehikin/holden so late on your arrival day and having to get back so early on your return really sucks.

 

The Lady of the lake does indeed have a monopoly, and they own the lodge at teh boat landing too! apart from hiking in from highway 20 (4hrs, flat trail) you can also take the Chelan Airways float plane up, which can go when you want it to, and only take about 25 or 30 minutes. However, this is more expensive so it's best to get a group together and split it. The boat company does have a "high speed" catamaran boat which makes 2 trips to Stehekin a day, but costs almost as much as the plane and takes an hour each way.

 

So what trail from highway 20 gets you there in 4 hours? The shortest way I could find from highway 20 was along the bridge creek trail to the bridge creek camp. That is like 15 or 16 hours, which, granted, I could easily do jogging, but I'm not sure I could swing that with a big pack and skis on my back. pitty.gif

 

 

Did you mean 15 or 16 miles instead of hours?

Also, I'm sure that it would be more than 11 miles from the western Wash. end of the cascade river road, over the pass, and down to Bridge creek. When the road was NOT washed out, it was about 3 miles up to the pass, then ~6 miles to Cottonwood campground at the end of the Stehekin road, and a shuttle. The stehekin road ended at glory Mtn. last summer(~2.5 miles short of cottonwood)and it's another 4 miles along the road to bridge creek, which might be impassable to cars due to last fall's flooding. This whole hike would be even longer if the cascade river road is not repaired.

 

Straight down bridge creek is 12 miles (flat, slight downhill) to the Stehekin road. It's 3 miles to the Fireweed PCT junction where you can take Mcalester creek to Mcalester pass(~6miles), then down rainbow creek to the Bakery(10miles). At Fireweed you can also stay on bridge creek/pct and it's 9 more miles to the Stehekin road, for a 12 mile total walk in. I know of people who bike it, which is a fast option, but mind the parkies.

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Is there any other way up and down Lake Chelan or does Lady of the lake have a monopoly? Getting to stehikin/holden so late on your arrival day and having to get back so early on your return really sucks.

 

The Lady of the lake does indeed have a monopoly, and they own the lodge at teh boat landing too! apart from hiking in from highway 20 (4hrs, flat trail) you can also take the Chelan Airways float plane up, which can go when you want it to, and only take about 25 or 30 minutes. However, this is more expensive so it's best to get a group together and split it. The boat company does have a "high speed" catamaran boat which makes 2 trips to Stehekin a day, but costs almost as much as the plane and takes an hour each way.

 

So what trail from highway 20 gets you there in 4 hours? The shortest way I could find from highway 20 was along the bridge creek trail to the bridge creek camp. That is like 15 or 16 hours, which, granted, I could easily do jogging, but I'm not sure I could swing that with a big pack and skis on my back. pitty.gif

 

 

Did you mean 15 or 16 miles instead of hours?

Also, I'm sure that it would be more than 11 miles from the western Wash. end of the cascade river road, over the pass, and down to Bridge creek. When the road was NOT washed out, it was about 3 miles up to the pass, then ~5 miles to Cottonwood campground at the end of the Stehekin road, and a shuttle. The stehekin road ended at glory Mtn. last summer(~2.5 miles short of cottonwood)and it's another 4 miles along the road to bridge creek, which might be impassable to cars due to last fall's flooding. This whole hike would be even longer if the cascade river road is not repaired.

 

Straight down bridge creek is 12 miles (flat, slight downhill) to the Stehekin road. It's 3 miles to the Fireweed PCT junction where you can take Mcalester creek to Mcalester pass(~6miles), then down rainbow creek to the Bakery(10miles). At Fireweed you can also stay on bridge creek/pct and it's 9 more miles to the Stehekin road, for a 12 mile total walk in. I know of people who bike it, which is a fast option, but mind the parkies.

 

Perfect, this is exactly the info I needed smile.gif Thanks man.

 

Oh, and yeah, 15 or 16 miles, not hours. I won't be wheelchairing it or crawling it joe simpson style.

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