The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1910-11-04
TRIP INTO THE MFTHOW VALLEY
Party of Newspaper Men Accept Invitation
of Steamboat and Land Com
panies I'D River

Its members were invited by the Co
lumbia and Okanogan Steamboat Com
pany and the Furey-Culver Land Com
pany to be their guests in a trip up the
Columbia river to Brewster and by
automobile from Pateros to Twisp and
return through the Methow valley.
OF the party to accept the invitation
were w. D. Cook and wife of Sequim,
representing the Tribune-Times of Port
Angeles; M. A. Ferguson Of the Frank
lin County Register, Cornell; H. E.
Marble of the News, Twisp, and F. w.
Fletcher, representing the Fuller Pub
fishing Company Of Seattle. F. H.
Furey, president of the land company,
accompanied the party as guide, coun-
%sellor, friend, host and chaperone.
The start up the river was made at
5 a. M, a few minutes after the close
of the final session and banquet of the
association, on the good ship Okanogan,
under the care of Captain E. E. Griggs;
Buck" the pilot; R. J. Watkins, the
engineer, and a crew of about twenty
men. The officers are all old steam
boat men and all own an interest in the
company, which operates a fleet of four
finely equipped boats.
The upper Columbia river run swift
in its race to the sea. There are many
rapids, some of them troublesome to
navigation. The Entiat rapids furnish
a good example. Here the water falls
several feet in making a distance of II
or IS rods, swings around a double
bend, like a letter S, and there is a
large sandbar. Going up stream the
boats are warped around the first bend
by aid OF a wire rope and niger.
Only one boat has ever been wrecked
on the Columbia between Wenatchee
and Brewster. This was at the Entiat
rapids some years ago at a time of high
water. No lives were lost, and little
property except the boat. The hull
drifted down stream and narrowly missed
carrying away the false work of the We
natchee bridge, then under construc-
ton. The iron inner works of the wheel
are still visible on a sandbar below the
rapids.
The scenery along the river is males
tic. Mountains on both sides rear their
rugged heads. Streams, small at this
season of the year, in times of melting
snow pour their floods down the precip-
itous canyons and slowly dig deeper
their channels. Slowly, man-reckoned;
rapidly from the viewpoint of Mother
Nature, to whom a thousand years is as
a day. Where the streams leave the
Businesses there have been deposited
GASES, of which man has taken advan-
tage. Every shelf from one acre to five
has become the shelter of a family. It's
members have raised a home, planted
fruit trees and a garden, and are living
in seeming comfort, content, prosperity
and happiness. Water for irrigation and
household use is obtained by conserving
the particular stream near the home. Its
location is picked out by the show of
green amid brown surroundings.
Arriving at Pateros at S p. M, where
the party was to have taken automobile
for the run to Twisp, it was found the
car was disabled, and teams were sub
stituted. The road back into the Met
how valley is primitive, except in two or
three stretches which have been built
by the state convict squad. The old
road crawls up almost impossible hills,
which the convict road skirts by rock
cuts and entertainments. This part OF
the journey was like going through
purgatpry to enter paradise.
The Methow valley has been called
the Switzerland of America. So have
other localities in the United States; but
there is no discount on the Methow.
Wherever could be found a block of
level land there has been planted an
orchard and a home. The valley grad
ually widens for twenty miles above
Pateros. At the village of Methow,
twelve miles from Pateros, there are
several good-sized apple ranches. One
of these produced last year the largest
apple ever grown, weighing 80 ounces.
At Methow the party put up for the
night. The presiding angel of the hotel
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