Remote Wash. Community To Get Phone Service [Stehekin]

WSBTV.com ^ | July 23, 2009 | staff reporter

[Daffynition]

YAKIMA, Wash. -- One of the most remote communities in the lower 48 states is finally set to get phone service.

The National Park Service is allowing a small telephone company to use public land to bring service to Stehekin, about 100 miles northeast of Seattle in the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area.

Stehekin has about 80 year-round residents and is reachable only by boat, float plane or a several-day hike through the wilderness.

The phone company, WeavTel, has been pursuing a chance to install telephone service there for years, despite opposition from some residents who don't want it. A few residents own satellite phones.

[snip]

[Daffynition]

About Stehekin

Stehekin is a remote community in the North Cascades in north-central Washington State accessible only by trail, boat, or float plane. It is surrounded by North Cascades National Park and almost two million acres of federally designated Wilderness (Glacier Peak Wilderness Ares 576, 865 acres, Paysayten 520, 000 acres, Stephen Mather Wilderness 634,000 acres and Chelan/Sawtooth). About a hundred people live here year-round. They get several hundred-degree days each summer and an average of a hundred inches of snow each winter. They have no grocery stores, movie theaters, taverns or churches, but they do have an outstanding bakery....

[Sherman Logan]

Absolutely beautiful place.

[Daffynition]

I hope, in spite of this invasive technology, Stehekin can remain wild, remote and charming.

[JoeProBono]

Stehekin on Lake Chelan

[Daffynition]

Sigh.

[libertarian27]

*ring*ring*ring*ring*ring*

Yes, that ruins it

[Daffynition]

LOL ... exactly. Once they have a cable laid, there will be wifi and the end of the wilderness as we know it. Meh.

[libertarian27]

What an interesting place. Found the town’s website and some great writings about one of the ‘old timers’ that had passed away ‘Wally Winkel’
http://www.stehekinchoice.com/

Thanks for posting this article, walking around town on the net was great. Would have missed the journey otherwise.

[camle]

bump for later

[Daffynition]

Stehekin is one of those special places ...but like anywhere else, once it gets "discovered" it changes rapidly. Like Chelan, mcmansions on the shoreline and "progress" everywhere. Yuck.

Tiny towns always have their ‘Wally Winkel’s and I love these curmudgeons ... alcohol, cigarettes and broken pasts seem to be a common thread. Neat stuff.

Truck at Stehekin Bakery ( Still runs)
Stehekin , Washington

Old trucks are hard to come by at head of lake and " Creative" locals do a good job keeping them running!! This is an old forest service truck.

[libertarian27]

What to you bet that was Wally’s truck.....:)

[Daffynition]

Rugged, rusty and redneck-ed .........LOL.......it could be!

Wonder what you could get in the "junker-trade-in" program?

Morning on Lake Chelan ( Sunrise At " Refrigerator Harbor")

[The SISU kid]

WA ping....

[zlala]

Many years ago we took our boat up there from Manson. It was beautiful and well worth the very long trip!

[Daffynition]

I'd love to make the run in the winter. The goats come down to forage.

[Daffynition]

Stehekin School 1907 Stehekin Valley, Washington

[sionnsar]

Thanks to The SISU kid for the ping.

Say WA? Evergreen State ping

Quick link: WA State Board

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.

Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.

[Ramius]

Ah... I love Stehekin. It’s a darn shame they’re putting in phone lines.

I’ve been by boat and by float plane. Wonderful place. It’s he isolation that keeps it special. I stayed for a week in a cabin at a bed & breakfast there. Almost killed myself hiking up to Trapper Lake and back. Yikes, what a scary miserable climb that was.

Lake Chelan is a really cool lake. Very clear, and very deep— something like 1500ft deep. One of my best friends named his daughter Chelan, as she was (reportedly) conceived there. The word is a local indian word for “Deep still water”.

/memory lane.

[Daffynition]

Third deepest in the US from what I'm told. Fed by glacier ice and dozens of creeks off the Cascades.

Wilderness places, only a few hours from the big cities, are being developed and their unique beauty gone forever. Sadly, the east coast has some places left ... but fewer and fewer.

I wish Stehekin could be frozen in time.

Long Jim , "Last Chief of the Chelans."

He was not happy with Chief Joseph as he thought Joseph " Sold Out " and bartered away the Chelans land. (White man speak with fork tongue, and we still do today, or you would never make a politician ... or lawyer.)

[Ramius]

Third deepest in the US from what I'm told. Fed by glacier ice and dozens of creeks off the Cascades.

Interesting little factoid: The town of Chelan, and the lake, are at about 1200ft+ in elevation. The lake is 1486ft deep... making the deepest parts of the lake actually well below sea level.