Memorial Day Camping

Celea McInerny
Jun 19, 2016
3 min read

With work keeping me busy, I have been trying to take advantage of my days off as much as possible. Thankfully Costco is closed on Memorial Day, so that left me with 36 hours of travel freedom! I immediately left work on Sunday evening, grabbed some hiking clothes, Mac, and some friends and headed East over Stevens Pass. Mac was more excited than ever because it has been over a month since he was last able to camp out in the woods with me.

I did not have any destinations in mind, I just needed a place to sleep and a trail to hike on for Memorial Day. After a two hour drive on US 2, we arrived in the city of Leavenworth to grab some late night snacks and to search for a campground. Other than Lake Wenatchee, there are not an abundance of legal campgrounds to park at. Most of the National campgrounds over the pass are closed until further notice so we drove out on a road that led us to Eight Mile campground. As we drove down the dark and quiet road, we started to see campers and cars scattered out along the drive. We weren't really sure what these people were doing, but we decided to join the trend when we found out the campground was full-no surprise for a memorial day.

I loved sleeping in my car along the quiet road, the rushing river next to us made the forest much more relaxing. The only disappointing thing was that Mac could not run free through the surrounding bushes and land; he stayed on a tight leash around the car. When we woke up, my eyes bursted open to let the tall sunny mountains and trees enter my conscience. I was instantly fueled by my surroundings to get the day started and find an awesome hike!

We decided to grab some pastries and coffee from Little Reds Coffee Shop. This place is owned by an artsy lady who happened to have known my friend. We made a great ordeal and ordered specialty drinks and many muffins and breakfast items. I ordered a raspberry mocha and a few banana muffin based treats. She then shared her local knowledge and pointed us on our way to hike Lake Ethel.

After a quick Google search, we decided the 9 mile, 3,500 foot elevation gain hike was the winner! We drove another 10 miles out to find the trail head. As we started the hike, we instantly felt the up hill burn that never seemed to stop. I was only looking forward for the hike down, but the challenge was something I needed to take on. We started the ascend through a dense forest, having to climb over and around large fallen trees. As soon as we peaked, the trail led us through a bare and open uphill climb over a few steep hills. Although some reviews are negative towards the open area, I thought the views of the canyons were really showcased in this section. After the open climb, we headed back into the woods again. Not long into the section, we realized we have hiked a very long way and had not found the lake yet. We checked the iPhone stepping tracker and realized we had hiked almost 7 miles already....we decided to go just a bit further but snow started to gather and we lost the trail and our previous footsteps. Even Mac was hesitant to keep climbing, he knew we were going the wrong way. We decided to head back down to find the original trail and hoped to have seen something we missed.

Luckily we had cellphone service in the middle of nowhere so we could track our location in regards to the lake. We found that a nearby river emptied into the lake but the river was 3,000 feet down....After a nice break on top of the mountain, we decided to turn back and retrace our steps. We did not think it would be a good idea to get lost in the woods so we hiked 5 miles back down to the trail head. Even though we didn't find the lake, we were more than impressed with our ability to hike 12 miles in 5 hours. We were all feeling the pain, even Mac, and were sore for the days proceeding. It was a great and spontaneous trip into Eastern Washington but I am ready for some greener trees. People have shared a beautiful Ranier location with me, that I hope to see next!