Icicle Ridge trail, near Leavenworth
The Icicle Ridge trail is located near the town of Leavenworth in Eastern Washington. We have cross-country skied at Icicle Creek but had never tried hiking the nearby Icicle Ridge. The turn off road to the parking area is a little hard to find. There is a sign but it is at ground level on the road not at eye level and it is relatively small. The parking area is on a dirt road loop, with one section closer to the sign shown in the picture above and at the entrance to the actual trail. No pass is required. Next to this area is also a port-a-potty. The lower parking area is a short walk down the hill from the upper lot.
Most of the trail surface looks like this
The trail is locally popular and in good to excellent condition. The surface is smooth packed dirt with practically no rocks or roots. There are 21 switchbacks up to the top and the grade gets steeper the higher you go. This early in the season our legs and stamina are not at peak condition yet, so we knew we would not go all the way up and ended up turning around at the 11th switchback. As far as we went this trail did not have staircases or steps.
Icicle Ridge looking out from the trail
Icicle Ridge looking down and toward the Wenatchee River
Even though we did not go all the way up, there were several places on the way up that offered wonderful views of the valley and the Wenatchee River. The forest is mainly Pine trees that are for the most part widely spread apart and offer viewing opportunities along the way. There have been fires in the area in the past and lots of the trees have blackened trunks. Unlike the west side forests where there are lots of downed trees from the November bomb cyclone, we did not notice many downed trees.
This shows the steep hillside
In the Spring this area is full of gorgeous arrow leaf balsam root flowers. In places the entire hillside was covered in these grand, large yellow flowers. There were lots of other flowers as well, such as Ballhead Waterleaf, Fairy Bells, Mertensia, Service Berry, Blue-Eyed-Mary, Sandwort, Vetch, Oregon Anemone, Spring Beauty, and Death Camas. The Oregon Anemone was a surprise. It is not common and we had not seen it before.
Balsam root flowers were all over the hillside on one section of the trail
Ballhead Waterleaf
Fairy Bells
Mertensia
Vetch
Service Berry aka Saskatoon
Oregon Anemone
Death Camas
Prairie Star
Spring Beauty
Count for the day:
37 hikers, plus one baby being carried in a front pack
3 dogs
3 miles RT
650 ft elevation gain
Note: Something to be aware of, there are rattlesnakes in many places in Eastern Washington; however, we have not seen any on our hikes.
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