Stehekin bliss

We just got back today from our glorious trip to Stehekin! This is a place where phones and even internet are not readily available - hence the 10 day break from the Blog. Stehekin is located at the head of 55-mile long Lake Chelan and you can only get here by boat, small plane or on foot, so its a big effort to get here. Anyway, my whole family and my best friend Annabel, along with her family, reunited with us up here for the better part of the week. Here is one view that I never get tired of - from Stehekin looking back downlake towards Chelan.
And the view looking from the Stehekin Landing (where the boats dock) up valley to the North Cascades National Park. Buckner Mountain (named for my great-great-great Uncle Henry Freeland Buckner) is the peak furthest to the right in the far distance.
Although no roads lead here, there is a single road that starts at the Landing and goes up the valley a few miles (see my note at end of this post) so the residents of Stehekin all have cars to drive up and down the one road. My Grandma Bucky grew up here and lives here half the year so she drives "Bruce", the 1988 Ford Ranger pickup that Rhodri and I sold to her for $1 a few years ago. Bruce is enjoying his retirement years up here carrying herds of people and gear in his bed. There are no rules about seatbelts or passenger capacity or even vehicle registration in Stehekin!
Here is the gang (l to r): Eric, Carl, Bucky, Skylyr, Heidi, Debi, Rhiannon, Chris, Kyrstyn, Annabel, Rhodri, Lisl, Tryfan, Will and Rebecca. The "Lady of the Lake" passenger ferry leaves Stehekin and starts the 4 hour journey back downlake to the town of Chelan.
There are loads more photos to post and stories to tell of our wonderful week in Stehekin, but for now I will just put on this one of my parents with Rhiannon.
Note on the Stehekin Road....
The link I inserted above goes to a petition to re-open the Upper Stehekin Valley Road so that people can once again access the stunning wildness of the North Cascades National Park. The link to a bunch of newspaper articles about this awful situation is HERE!