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Welcome to Lake Chelan - WA
The vessel ‘Lady of the Lake’ on her way to Stehekin with mail, hikers, supplies and tourists. There is a café and washrooms on board.
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Welcome to Lake Chelan - WA
Blueberry Hills Farm Market and Restaurant is a fascinating place to enjoy breakfast or lunch.
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Welcome to Lake Chelan - WA
Lakeshore RV Park is located within the Chelan city
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Welcome to Lake Chelan - WA
A view of the very excellent Chelan municipal golf course.
Story & photos by David C. Kimble
Lake Chelan is located in central Washington State, about an hour’s drive north of Wenatchee or 15-minutes south of Pateros. More to the point, it is a five hour motorhome drive south on Hwy 97 from my home in Vernon, BC.
The city of Chelan is the recreation vehicle base for every fun adventure this writer can imagine from a truly great 18-hole municipal golf course to the nearby Mill Bay Casino where excellent, reasonably priced meals are served. There are also 24 wineries and great wine tasting tours, numerous bicycle rentals and several hundred kilometres of off-road trails for all levels of cyclers and, a half hour drive south will take tourists to the beautiful Ohme Gardens that is just above the Rocky Reach Dam. Visitors to the gardens should be able to walk on the often uneven pathways. The dam however, is disabled friendly and offers a free museum, and windows in the fish ladder where visitors can look salmon and steelhead trout right in the eye. Both have easy parking for RV’s.
The city of Chelan, combined with the nearby town of Wapato, must be the epicenter of true epicurean dining. Chefs compete with each other to develop special dining combinations using locally grown vegetables and herbs from farmer’s markets with local wines, fish and meats to put discriminating diners in a total state of nirvana. This author highly recommends that you include breakfast and/or lunch at the unique ‘Blueberry Hills’ in Wapato (20-minutes from Chelan) where his wife insisted they return the next day for the blueberry chicken salad or, the fine dining at the Wapato Point Cellars. For authentic Mexican cuisine take the whole family to the Rancho Grande, just northwest of Chelan. Chelan is also the home of a fabulous wine flight offered by Chelan Seaplanes. All of the businesses mentioned offer easy parking for RVs.
Chelan lake offers all water sports and, they all occur at the same time. Para-sailing, jet-ski riding, water-skiing and wakeboarding, bass fishing, kokanee fishing, Mackinaw and rainbow trout fishing and of course, swimming and diving. If you don’t want to trailer your own boat, you can find any type of water craft for rent and, Derrell and Dad’s fishing charters 509 687 0709 will make sure you catch lots of fish and huge smiles. For something a little slower, take an all day tour on ‘The Lady of the Lake’ a 70-foot passenger vessel that delivers mail and foot passengers along the lake all the way west to Stehekin where passengers either have lunch in a rustic café or take a short bus ride to photograph the beautiful Rainbow Falls. Chelan is even popular during winter months offering two nearby downhill ski and snowboard areas, 40 km (25 mi) of groomed cross-country ski trails and unlimited trails for snowmobiling.
Campers usually stay right in the city of Chelan and right on Chelan Lake at the ‘Lakeshore RV Park’ www.ChelanCityParks.com, (509) 682-8023. Others head 40 km (25 mi) out of the city to stay at the Lake Chelan State park, or take their chances at the Mill Bay Casino where, whenever there’s a live show, RVs get moved to an open field with no hookups.
The city of Chelan is very popular thus reservations for camping are always recommended, and are an absolute must on either Canadian or USA holidays.