A letter from a local
Ignore the lederhosen. Look at the granite.
Yes, the town is Bavarian-themed. Yes, there's an accordion. Get past it, because Leavenworth sits at the mouth of Icicle Creek Canyon — thousands of feet of clean granite, world-class bouldering, and the Enchantments stacked up behind it like a fever dream of larches and goat-patrolled lakes.
I climb after work from April to October — the canyon is ten minutes out — and when the rock season closes, Stevens Pass is forty minutes up Highway 2 and the canyon turns into an ice venue. The Wenatchee runs big and bouncy through town all spring for the boaters.
It's a small working town behind the festival crowds — guiding outfits, gear shops, orchards, cider. Most of my friends here built a patchwork: guide in summer, code in winter, never miss a good Tuesday.
Come on a Wednesday in October when the tourists thin out and the larches go off. The accordion stops. The granite doesn't.
— Mark