WHEN I FIRST started crossing the North Cascades highway to spend time in Okanogan County more than 20 years ago, the town of Winthrop struck me as heaven with a false front. The kitschy cowboy overlay was forgivable because the fantastically varied beauty of the Methow Valley lay spread out all around—Cascade foothills coming to rest in solemn pastures, fir trees speckling the seams of dry hills, rolling sagebrush to the east, and a pretty little river running through it all. Never mind the tourists browsing on the wooden sidewalks or the ever growing herd of second homes cropping up on river- and hillside, this was God’s country.
Then one visit I kept pushing east and north, and I realized that God had actually been living somewhere else all along. I left the Methow behind and, in the next valley over, picked up the Okanogan River and followed it north past white Grange halls and blue ridges, into shady cottonwood groves and out to the dazzle of grassland tanning in the sun. Around the funky little burg of Tonasket (venerable organic food co-op, vibrant community center, welcoming Tonasket Saloon) is where it starts getting really pretty. This is a country of big vistas, small lakes, and even smaller towns—so small, as you get up near the Canadian border, that some of them have shrunk down to memories. The term ghost town seems especially fitting in outposts like Molson and Chesaw—so lovely and sad in the spring sunshine that they’ll haunt you forever.
Twisp, nine miles past Winthrop, sets the mood for the dreamy hinterlands beyond. Just outside town is the studio and sculpture garden of local metal sculptor Bernard Hosey. “Most small rural communities have a monoculture,” he told me, “but here we’ve got a mix of ranchers, artists, hikers, and farmers with deep roots.” Hosey steered me toward his favorite hangout, the Twisp River Pub (good grub, live music on weekends, and nine different kinds of Methow Valley Brewing Company beer), suggested a day hike up to Twisp Pass at the upper end of the Twisp River Valley, and advised me to stock up on sweet rolls and scones at the Cinnamon Twisp Bakery the next morning. Not much in the gourmet way from here on.
My first couple of times in Okanogan, I beelined straight to Omak through the glary utilitarian strip along Route 97. But on a recent visit, I pulled off at the Okanogan County Historical Society in the north end of town to take in the wonderful Frank Matsura photo collection. Matsura, born in Tokyo, relocated to Okanogan County in 1903 and spent the next decade taking a series of vividly textured black-and-white photos. Fruit orchards in tender spring bloom, sad-eyed Native Americans on horseback, kids swimming in the river, men carving mines and roads into the gorgeous hills, grinning bachelors perched like crows on a rail—Matsura snapped the beautiful, transient, historic, festive, and odd. The 2,500-plus images held by the historical society (some on display, most preserved in binders) cover the county so thoroughly that you could easily plot your trip by browsing through them and making lists of what appeals.
Plotting is a good idea, because north of Omak (worth a stop for the Breadline Café) the possibilities abound. If I were a birder or a fisher, I would head out to Lost Lake, an amethyst teardrop deep in the woods east of Tonasket (follow the forest service roads north from Bonaparte Lake). Those with keener eyes than mine have spotted common loons, black terns, and Williamson’s sapsuckers. Anglers assure me that eastern brook trout abound. Absolute serenity is guaranteed.
But I’m more of a history and landscape guy, so I usually stay on the 97 north out of Tonasket and scour the lonely hills for the remains of old homesteads, mines, and pioneer towns from days gone by.
To me, this austere upcountry yields its deepest secrets along the paved but dinky Loomis-Oroville Road that loops west off 97 just past Tonasket and rejoins the highway 17 miles north at the lakeside town of Oroville. The Okanogan Highland, as this high semidesert is known, is a region of ancient mountains worn smooth by time and planted by nature with prairie grass, wildflowers, and scatterings of ponderosa and lodgepole pine.
Published: March 2010
For lodging in the Okanogan Highlands, please consider the beautiful Eden Valley Guest Ranch (5-miles south of Molson) as a location to stay in privacy and quiet. I am a board member for Molson Museums and actually went to grade school in the Molson Schoolhouse. If you would like to learn more about our local area please see an overview on our web site (www.edenvalleyranch.net) and go to “leisure activities” then “history and culture”. In addition to wildflower treks, a trail system and history tours we also provide narrated trail rides. Topics include local geology, native vegetation, local events, history, farming, timber management and more. There is much to explore in the Okanogan Highlands. Happy Trails.