The Wenatchee Valley is the Apple Capital of the World. Here you’ll find restaurants, shopping, outdoors sports, entertainment and lots of places to stay.
You’ll find a charming downtown right next to gorgeous riverfront parks — including the big, new Pybus Public Market with its shops and farmers market — and a 10-mile paved trail that is the envy of the Pacific Northwest.
There are fruit stands in nearby orchards of apples, pears and cherries.
In the warm months, there are water sports and outdoors adventures.
In winter, Mission Ridge Ski & Board Resort offers deep powder, short lines, lessons and challenging runs just 11.5 miles from the city.
The Wenatchee Valley is part of a growing wine region, with many area wineries producing award-winning vintages. Tasting rooms are throughout the valley.
On Wenatchee Avenue, there are antiques stores, speciality shops and interesting restaurants. On First Street, near the Wenatchee Convention Center and Performing Arts Center of Wenatchee, there’s a pedestrian bridge to parks along the Columbia River and the Apple Capital Recreation Loop Trail.
You’ll find restaurants, hotels, stores and services along North Wenatchee Avenue. East Wenatchee has the Wenatchee Valley Mall, stores and restaurants.
The Apple Capital Recreation Loop Trail is where to go to get away from it all without leaving the city. You can bike the wide, friendly paved trail in about an hour.
Always protected from traffic, the trail crosses the Columbia River twice and the Wenatchee River once. It passes through groomed parks on the Wenatchee side and shrubbe-steppe on the east side.
You’ll see wildlife, kids and adults, bikes, joggers and a gorgeous view of the Wenatchee foothills.
If you have a few minutes or an afternoon, stretch your legs on trails in the Wenatchee foothills. (Trail guide info: justgetout.net/wenatchee) The well-marked paths will give you great views of the city, Columbia River and surrounding hills and mountains.
Round and round we roll — woo! woo! — as engineers on the Wenatchee Riverfront Railway’s mini-train toot their own horns. And rightly so. The 10-inch gauge railway has to be some of the cheapest fun (kids $2) in Wenatchee as it makes tracks on tracks laid in Riverfront Park near the Columbia River. Train buffs affiliated with the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center keep it chugging on a spare schedule of only 15 days a year, and its infrequent operation is definitely part of its must-ride appeal. Plus, the diminutive railway has a cute little train station with a real caboose to clamber over.
Wenatchee First Fridays ArtsWalk is a great way to have fun downtown checking out the work of artists in shops, galleries and restaurants. The afternoon-early evening lineup changes each month, so there’s always something new to see and experience.
Sculpture, painting, music ... and much more. 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. the first Friday of each month.
For info and a list of artists and businesses for the current month’s lineup: Wenatchee First Fridays on Facebook or at their blog: http://tinyurl.com/bbvbb2q
Talk all you want about your favorite swimming holes in mountain lakes and lowland creeks. (Yeah, yeah, they’re all glorious.) Truth is, few dipping spots are as easy to reach and, some would say, more fun than the swimming lagoon at Wenatchee’s Walla Walla Point Park. Perfect for kids, the 225-foot long float-lined area (with beach) is a wading and dog-paddler´s paradise. Parking lot nearby. Restrooms nearby. Snack stand open nearby during softball games. Plus, the slowly moving water, fed by the Columbia River, warms by midday to ... well, not toasty but comfortable. That means the lagoon’s only goosebumps will be on the geese at water’s edge, not your kids. Honk.
Young squirts love Wenatchee’s Rotary Park Splash Pad because it does just that — squirts and splashes. Locally, a more squeal-inducing water experience simply isn’t available at the rock-bottom price of free. About half the size of a basketball court, the Splash Pad is dotted with spray nozzles, shower heads, water cannons and other kinds of slooshing devices. Sure, wear a swimsuit if you like, but many folks, urged by summery heat, take the leap in shorts, T-shirts and big grins. Hint: Watch out for nerdy teens on the water cannons who’ve been trained on video war games. They’re crackerjack shots.
Bomber Bowl, one of the most popular runs at Mission Ridge Ski & Board Resort, gets its name from the 1944 crash of a B-24 bomber. It crashed about 500 feet below the summit, killing all six crewmen. A monument — a wing of the plane and marker — are mounted at the site.
That big hulking choo-choo at the center of Locomotive Park should definitely chug to the top of your whistle-stop tour of Wenatchee´s must-see sights. The Great Northern 1147 steam locomotive, 110 years old this year, and its accompanying tender car weigh 129 tons, stretch nearly 70 feet long and lug a boxcar-full of history. It woo-woo´ed through the Leavenworth-Wenatchee areas up till the mid-1940s, when diesel engines replaced steam, and even ran the Wenatchee-Oroville route for awhile. Legend says Ol´ 1147 set a record on that route by hauling the longest train ever for its class. Now, the Wenatchee Riverfront Railway group and other community organizations help keep it on-track as a favorite attraction.
North of Wenatchee, Entiat High School graduates paint their class year on Numeral Mountain, just across the Entiat River from town. The tradition began in the 1920s.
Here’s all the dirt, just three words, on how to raise the most lush and colorful gardens possible in our arid area — Community Education Garden. Dig it? Designed and planted by our local WSU Master Gardeners, the one-and-a-half acre plot at the Washington State University Tree Fruit Research Center (Springwater and Western avenues) features flowers, grasses, trees and various turfs that actually thrive on climatic extremes of hot summers, cold winters and, for some of us, lukewarm cultivation skills. The project’s goal is nothing short of providing you the know-how for a colorful garden year-round, say the Masters themselves. Visit soon — it’s bloomin’ terrific.
Grab a blanket and a picnic and head to Ohme Garden, an alpine retreat overlooking the Columbia River on the north edge of Wenatchee. You’ll find paths, lots of shade from high-country trees transplanted to the scenic spot. The ridgetop oasis, maturing for 82 years into an alpine wonderland, offers multiple water features — ponds, streams, waterfalls — surrounded by towering firs and cedars. Heck, it’s so shady in some groves that frequent visitors often bring sweaters (even in July) to ward off the noontime chill. Our favorite: the Sylvan Pool, where hand-crafted stone benches deliver additional cool comfort. And don’t forget, flower lovers, that out in the sunny meadows alpine blooms last well into summer.