Conscious Choice: Methow Valley

June 2008 | Escape the Pace

Methow Valley

Washington’s very own desert bloom

By Crai S. Bower

Every spring Seattleites start chattering about Highway 20 reopening with an excitement akin to the neighborhood chickadees’ announcement of nest completion. Step into a café or onto a Little League field and you’ll overhear, “It’s opening this weekend” or “I may just go drive it for a day.” Considering the price of gas, one has to wonder what is so spectacular about a highway, anyway?

“It’s the coolest stretch of road in Washington,” said one parent, a Highway 20 enthusiast for more than a decade. “Go early and the remaining mounds of snow are insane!”

The opening of Highway 20 (finally!) signals the death knell of winter. Other regions of the country don’t look to seasonal byways as barometers, but the Northwest denizen has a long-held affection for inside passages anywhere we can find them.

If May brings down the road barrier, June pushes up the desert bloom, the joyful reawakening of the Methow Valley. A wonderful Nordic playground throughout the winter, spring reveals a most sublime Methow, a precious Washington environment that may well be the best little Escape the Pace locale in the state.

I asked prominent local architect Ray Johnston, a Seattle native who spends as much time as possible at his Twisp cabin, to articulate what he loves about the Methow. For most of the past ten years, Ray and I have cavorted on at least one ski trip a year to somewhere unusual. Throughout these years, ever since our now college sophomore sons met in fifth grade, I have followed the progress as Ray and his wife Mary’s dream landscape took root from tent to trailer to gorgeous cabin.

“The Methow owes its slow and relatively benign growth to a unique condition,” says Johnston. “For five months each year, it is on the way to nowhere — from the time of the first avalanche, the North Cascades Highway (Rte. 20) is closed, and the valley becomes its own destination. The mountains are high and white. The valley is like a model of the Rocky Mountains — peaks rising 5,000 feet from the valley floor, skiing out your door, and a friendly pub at the end of the day.”

Ray adds that in spring, while the rain falls in 45-degree weather along the Northwest Coast, the sun is out and it’s 75 degrees in the Methow. By the end of May the bunch grass is green again, the blue grouse are nesting in the sage, and the meadows of balsam root bloom yellow in full force. “The river nears its peak as a white-water experience, and world-class backcountry skiers are skinning up the Birthday Tour route to the base of the Early Winter Spires for late season turns.”

It should also be noted that bicyclists of all types pop up along the side valleys, trails and country roads.. The 79 miles over the Washington passes are a classic road challenge. Once in the valley, options range from rugged mountain trails, to little-traveled dirt roads, to miles and miles of great two-lane pavement.

But outdoor adventures aside, Johnston adds that one of the simplest pleasures he derives from the Methow is looking out of his cabin windows. “The sun rises behind the bed, splashing the opposite side of the valley with light,” he says. “The Sawtooth Range presides over the view. In stormy weather, a rare steel-gray rainstorm pelts the gentle foreground hills and conceals the distant topography in mystery.”

“I guess it’s OK,” he concludes with a laugh.

Indeed it is, Ray, indeed it is.

But one doesn’t need a personal cabin to experience the tranquility of this narrow valley. You’ll find campgrounds all along Rte. 20, and Pearrygin Lake State Park is located just outside Winthrop, the Methow’s dining and cultural hub. The Winthrop Wine Festival (June 21) is an ideal time to get to know the place a little. What’s a Solstice without summer wine?

If throwing up a tent seems uncomfortable, Sun Mountain Lodge offers a refined getaway as well as numerous spring activities from guided flower walks to flyfishing classes. The Freestone Inn is set to reopen July 1 after extensive remodeling, though the cabins and lodges are still available.

When the Methow appeared on a developer’s radar as the perfect location for a Jackson Hole–style ski resort, the local community pushed back and won. As a result, we short-term visitors can harvest the rustic charms of this alpine valley via any route we choose. This is what spring invites us to do in the Northwest. Travel. Experience. And sing.

Crai S. Bower received a 2008 “Northern Lights Award for Excellence in Canadian Travel Journalism” this April. Check out the winning story: www.flowingstreamwriting.net

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