East Wenatchee, on the east bank of the Columbia River, has the only indoor shopping mall in the region, Wenatchee Valley Mall. You’ll find Macy’s, Ross, Sears and more than 40 other stores and restaurants, including Olive Garden. Many more stores and fast food spots are nearby.
The eastside also has beautiful views (the best in the Wenatchee area) of the Cascade Mountains, from Mission Ridge Ski & Board Resort to the Wenatchee Foothills and beyond.
Get close to the Columbia River on the paved Apple Capital Recreation Loop Trail. Try the 19th Street Trailhead, near to town, for easy access to the shady Porter’s Pond Nature Area. For a quick thrill, catch the trail at 9th Street and walk on the trail’s Pipeline Bridge over the Columbia River.
East Wenatchee’s role in aviation history was made when the Miss Veedol made the first nonstop trans-Pacific flight from the sandy shores of Sabishiro Beach in Misawa, Japan, to the sandy hills above East Wenatchee in 1931.
The city commemorates the historical flight with a thriving sister-city relationship with Misawa and an annual festival — Wings & Wheels — when you can see a lovingly restored Miss Veedol replica fly again. Every October.
If the Apple Capital Recreation Loop Trail has a thrill spot — a point where hikers and bikers say, “Whoa, mama, this is cool!” — it´s gotta be the 103-year-old Pedestrian Pipeline Bridge. It´s just plain fun to be held aloft on the 1,000-foot-long steel truss span, the very first road bridge across the Columbia River. Sure, the wagons and Model-Ts have been replaced with swoop-helmeted cyclists and young moms pushing giant strollers. But the big irrigation pipe — a fixture on the bridge since its construction — still carries water to 4,000 acres of East Wenatchee fruit trees.
Clovis stone and bone tools were discovered near East Wenatchee and are more than 11,000 years old.
Ice Age floods shaped much of what you see in the valley, with some of the ancient deluges rising to 1,100 feet. And there were a lot of floods. Maybe 90 or so.
Publicly owned dams on the Columbia River provide the cheapest power in the United States, about a third of Seattle’s rates and a fifth of California’s.
The Bridge of Friendship Japanese Garden in East Wenatchee is so creatively designed — shade, breezes, flowing water — that visitors can find cool relief even on the hottest summer evenings. This eight-year-old pocket park is tucked only a dozen steps from the busy intersection of 9th Street N.E. and Eastmont Avenue, yet provides the unexpected paradox of stillness amid visual variety. No lie. Follow the park’s short trail to its cedar bridge, rest under its cover, listen to its waterfall’s gurgle, and you’ll agree this urban patch of perfection is a landscaping gem.
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