Stehekin

"The Great Outdoors".  "Getting away from it all". "Mother Nature".

Those are clichés.  This...this is reality.

Accessible only by boat or seaplane (or by foot if you're up for a 50-mile hike), this hamlet nestled in the North Cascades at the headwaters of Lake Chelan boasts 95 full-time residents, blue-green water fed by glaciers, sub-alpine timber, deer outside your front door, and a kind of magic only found when absolutely lost in nature. 

From the moment you step off the seaplane or boat, all you see, all you hear (or more appropriately, don't hear), implores you to take a deep breath, look around, and slow...down. You're on nature's time clock now, and she doesn't believe in the word late, or hurry.

Words don't do this wonder justice, but we'll try. 9,000 foot peaks tower above your head, standing on the floor of a valley carved by glaciation eons ago. ***Those peaks may be some of Mother Nature's finest work, but make no mistake, she didn't spend much time cleaning up. These are some of the roughest mountain peaks anywhere in the world. *** Those rough peaks frame some of the most beautiful scenes on Earth you'll see. Green shoots and the raging Stehekin River in spring. Untamed life in full bloom in summer. Pyrotechnic foliage in autumn. Hushed footfalls along fresh snowfall in winter.  It's an area untouched by time that will touch a part of your soul you never knew you had.