It's not that my brother-in-law Bellevue businessman Rich Favaro doesn't like Christmas. "Uncle Rich" just wants a "real" Christmas. Rather than our annual, same-as-last-year, boring, suburban Christmas Eve, exchanging gifts and sipping hot spiced wines, Rich wondered if we wouldn't prefer a three day getaway to a mountain cabin?
"Think about it. For what we could spend in time and effort looking for gifts for each other - not to mention the cost of the gifts themselves - we could rent a mountain cabin. Let's don't do a commercialized Christmas, for once. Let's do an old fashioned Christmas."
"The kids could go sledding. The adults could go cross country skiing. We could make a snowman, or a snowwoman, whatever we prefer. (Uncle Rich is very liberated) Maybe even a sleigh ride. A snowy hot tub."
"Bill, you're a travel writer. Find us a mountain cabin."
Place called Plain
As of last weekend, I'm happy to report: mission accomplished. Plain, Wash., may have the best selection of rentable getaway cabins and B&Bs in all of Washington. What makes Plain even more appealing is the fact that it's an easy two hour drive from the Eastside (of Western WA), just off of one of Washington's best maintained roads.
No wonder Plain was new to me. It's one of those lazy, scenic backroads that I rarely seem to have time to take. Only once had I ever turned off HWY 2, the Stevens Pass Highway, at the Coles Corner, Lake Wenatchee turnoff, and that was to go camping at the state park on the shores of Lake Wenatchee.
Too often we had rocketed by en route to Lake Chelan, Sun Mountain, Leavenworth, or the Grand Coulee country. The countryside between pristine Lake Wenatchee and Leavenworth is just what Uncle Rich had in mind for an old fashioned Christmas. Ponderosa pine trees and high-plains aspen, sliced by glacier fed lakes and rivers. Secret meadows dotted with ranch houses with lazy curls floating from their chimneys. Cows and horses in the pastures, and lots of deer, too.
And the sun shines 300 days a year. Lately some excellent properties have been developed for weekend-ing Eastside families as well as for retreating corporate sales meetings. Mountain Springs Lodge on Chiwawa Loop Road is a fantastic place.
Last weekend, a marriage encounter group had taken over the main lodge while I enjoyed one of the smaller (but not small) cabins across the meadow. The Mountain Springs Lodge can handle groups as large as 60.
Mountain Springs is the most complete corporate retreat in the Lake Wenatchee/Plain area. Sleigh rides, hayrides, chuck wagon barbeques, fishing, hot tubbing and more, all arranged by friendly Bill Newell, the owner and grandson of the ranch's original homesteader.
Another winner The cabins all have bright, cheery, modern kitchens with dishwashers. Each offers a good sized deck with a barbeque and a hot tub - perfect for high mountain star studded nights. Natapoc's cabins are amazing. Each of the seven are remote from the others, giving a proper, spread-out feel to the experience. And every cabin affords in-you-face river views. Several of the larger cabins sleep up to 20 in flexible combinations of singles, doubles, queens and kings. Each individual cabin was crafted with and aesthetic eye to classic log designs. Each is appointed with fun antiques, TVs with VCRs and in-cabin videos for enjoyment, and plenty of living room, dining, cooking and deck space. Natapoc doesn't scrimp on bathrooms or showers, either. For cabin get-aways, this is not roughing it.
Natapoc Lodging on Bretz Road, just a couple of miles up the Wenatchee River from Plain, offers more cabins, and like Mountain Springs, these all rate A+ in design and setting. I stayed in Stuchin cabin, a spanking-clean charmer with Native American inspired stained glass that matched the antique quilted wedding-ring design bedspread.
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