I can't recommend this ride enough. Now is the time to go, while there's snow on the tops of the mountains. If you've never been here, go tell your boss you're taking tomorrow off.

I'd heard that Icicle Road is closed at mile 11 (it's snowed out at around 12.5 - as of Saturday), and I wanted to get more than 22 miles in. So I parked on US 2, about 7 miles west of Leavenworth, and rode down through the Tumwater Canyon. If you go ride the Icicle, find an appropriate starting point based on the length you'd like to ride.

I hike in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area, so this ride was especially wonderful for me.

This was about 7 miles into my ride, coming out of Canyon, almost immediately before Leavenworth:



The rest of these photos are from Icicle Creek Road.



















^ I think this last one is my favorite.

This is what the tops of the ridges looked like:



If you look close, you can see a dangerous cornice on the top of the mountain:

Nice pics SF!

It's a great ride almost any time of the year. A good stop is O'Grady's at the Sleeping Lady Resort approximately two miles up the Icicle River Road from Highway 2. You can get salads, sandwiches, ice cream, coffee, scones or beer. Take time to wander through SLR to see the sculptures and the organic garden.

Gotta give you credit SF, you really go find and document some nice spots.

Nice to have dry weekends in April, eh.

Definitely nice to have a dry April! I think it's been unusually warm this spring, but my friend says I'm smoking crack. My lilies are already making flower buds. If you buy lily bulbs, the box will say to plant them in April.

I've been riding in Seattle for years, doing loops around Lake Washington, etc. This is a beautiful place to ride, but I got tired of it. And I had this weird conflict where I love mountains, but I also love finally having a nice bike, and the second one was keeping me from the first one. Turns out you can solve that if you're willing to sit in the car for several hours...

I'm thinking about riding Mount Baker tomorrow, but not sure about the weather. The west and middle forks of the Teanaway might be a good backup plan. Will probably hike the Fourth of July trail in Icicle Creek on Sunday.

Family is vacationing to Florida soon so I'm hoping to drive to some mountain rides - maybe a couple of 2 day-ers. You've convinced me Leavenworth should be a good starting point for one of 'em.

amazing pics

I'm thinking about buying a mountain or cross bike to take trails like this. On Sunday I went hiking in the Teanaway, and the trail I wound up on (the one I'd hoped to do was inaccessible due to snow) allows bikes, too. It looked much less deathly than this one.

wow, looks like a wonderful area

Buy a Mountain Bike SF, it will open up a much wider range of trails and will be more comfortable to ride.

Someone told me a mountain bike will be safer for that kind of riding than a CX bike. Is there any truth to that? The only reason I can think of is that if I've got wider tires, I have a lot more contact with the ground, so I can stop more quickly.

Awesome ride reports Forrest... Keep them coming. I suppose you do these rides solo?