Saturday brought our first mountain adventure. In the morning we headed to Leavenworth, a fun little Bavarian town in the Cascade Mountain Range, just 2.5 hours outside of Seattle. The drive took us through Stevens Pass. This mountain pass was an absolutely gorgeous drive. The snow began to build as we got further from Seattle, but the sun was out and the views were breath-taking. At the height of the pass the temperature got down to -2 on the car’s readout. We saw skiers on the Steven’s Pass Ski runs.
As we entered Leavenworth we realized everyone else had the same idea this weekend. The little city was packed with tourists. We decided to head a few minutes outside of town to a sleigh ride spot. The sleigh ride was fun, besides the screaming baby sitting behind us. The ride took us through snow covered fields, through pine trees and along an icy stream. Afterwards we warmed up from the 10ªF ride in an old canvas tent with a wood burning stove and hot chocolate.
From there we headed to Front Street to checkout all the shops and grab a bite to eat. The town was totally packed. We grabbed lunch at a little place called Cafe Mozart, were I had a very German plate of brats, sauerkraut and potato salad. We made our way through shops and snapped pics.
The sun went down and the Christmas lights in the city went on. It was so magical and so very cold. We got a few pictures together and then Kim quickly headed to a wine tasting room while I took pictures of the lights. After I had my fill of pictures (and my fingers were going numb) we headed for a Pub that had spiked hot chocolate.
It was a great day trip and we can’t wait to get back to more fluffy powdery snow!
To view more photos from Leavenworth, check out our flickr set.