Hiking The Pacific Crest Trail With A Stopover In Wenatchee

Just passing through an area he had once fallen in love with.

- Brad Lane

The mud-soaked trail sloshed beneath my feet and the prevailing rain was putting my pack cover to the test.

The past 100 miles of foot travel in four days seemed to be catching up to me in a bad way, adding unnecessary attention to the weight in my backpack and the achiness in my knees.

Regardless of the imminent weather though, and forgetting about the total 2,000-plus miles of Pacific Crest Trail behind me, I was happy, coasting through the mud, because the ski-lifts of Snoqualmie Pass were in sight, which meant I was soon to be reunited with an area and surrounding valley I’d already once fallen in love with before.

I was first introduced to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and the surrounding area back in 2013 when I moved to Wenatchee in pursuit of building a freelance writing portfolio. Thanks to areas like the Frenchmen Coulee, Stevens Pass and Alpine Lakes Wilderness, as well as local publications like The Good Life and Foothills Magazine, I accomplished what I set out for and produced some of my first magazine articles, which I still show off today.

More importantly, through the explorations in and around Chelan and Douglas counties, I developed a love for the area that still inspires me today, a love that made leaving Wenatchee in 2015, and moving back to my hometown in Iowa bittersweet to say the least.

Being back home meant being back closer to my community of friends and family, but I knew that the Midwestern landscape would never stand as tall as the Pacific Northwest scenery I had grown to love. On the long drive back home, I knew I would return to north central Washington one day, and I began formulating a way to do just that.