I was first introduced to Holden Village in late August of 2021. It is a retreat located in “north-central Washington in a remote wilderness area on the north end of Lake Chelan.” We were in the last cohort, following their cohort model of having all guests coming Mondays and leaving Saturdays. The cohort model was developed after the Village was closed a little over a year due to the Covid pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, guests could choose the length of stay and when they come and leave.
Both Tom and Mary had been to Holden Village in their youth. Tom had told me about Holden Village a few times in the past. I eagerly said yes when he wanted to plan a few days there. Both Mary and I had some reservations when we learned that we would have to spend five days without Internet connection. At the end, we were glad we went, and we were glad it was for five days.Holden Village was a wonderful experience for all four of us, for Dave and Mary and for Tom and me. We loved the tranquility, the beauty, the walks, the program, the food, the sense of belonging, the sense of safety. I was impressed with the progressive vision and ideas of Holden Village. We were ready to come back this year.
We signed up for the last cohort of 2022. Due to staff shortage at the last minute, Holden Village could not keep our reservation for the time we signed up for. We had the reservation changed to a shorter stay later in the same week. Thus, we did not have the summer program that we liked so much in the previous year.
Dave could not join us this year. I was sad because he loved the sessions of the program so much. But then it worked out because we didn’t have the program this year. He attended his high school reunion instead, which was something Mary did not care to join him for.
As Tom wished, we left for Holden Village Bed and Breakfast early in the morning, taking a longer route on Highway 20 through the North Cascades National Park. Our first stop was at the Park’s visitor center, where we were told about the smoke as we were about to proceed east, due to a fire somewhere in Canada. Our second stop was at Ross Lake Dam Trail. We took the trail down to the dam and ate our lunch there. We started to experience the smoke after this stop. We could smell it. The sky darkened. The sun glowed red. We did not think we would be able to see any views, but we stopped at the Washington Pass overlook anyway. Tom had been here when he was on a bicycle trip with Peter in 1978. We walked to the overlook and indeed could not see the view that we imagined would be spectacular based on Tom’s memory and on the plaques posted there. I was surprised to learn that the highway is fairly new. It was finished in 1972. I am grateful for the vision for its existence.
Our last stop before our final destination was Winthrop, a town operated on a Western theme. We poked around town for a while. I bought two coasters with cowboy pictures. The scenery was beautiful from Winthrop to Holden Village B&B. The Methow River was with us for a long while, showing its beautiful curvy shores and exposed white pebbles.
We arrived at the B&B after 4pm. As we walked in, we entered a short hallway with a whiteboard hanging on the wall. The room assignments were written on it, but my name was botched next to Tom’s name and I was not sure if that was intended for me, until we saw Mary’s name underneath our names. There is a door at the end of the hallway with the sign that says “Welcome to the Holden Village Bed & Breakfast. We’ve been expecting you!” For some reason, even without calling me by name, I felt that it was speaking to me and I felt a warm welcome. We opened the door and walked in and found our rooms. We were in Holden Lake and Mary was in Hart Lake. It’s interesting to note that after the trip, Tom and I have taken hikes to both lakes.
Our hosts Peter and Joanne came out and greeted us and showed us around. We were the first guests to arrive that day. I took pictures of the red sun before it went down. Then we ate the rest of our sandwiches for dinner. Tom and I retired to bed early.
Before we left for Fields Point Landing to take the boat to Lucerne, Joanne gave us some muffins to take with us. While waiting for our boat, I chatted with Lan and told her about the smoke. The sky was still not clear of smoke. We had no idea what the air quality of Holden Village would be. Our hosts had said they did not hear from Holden Village and assured us they would receive news if things were bad there. It was sweet that they came to see their B&B guests board the boat and waved goodbye to us as the boat pulled away.
Our bus driver who took us from Lucerne to Holden Village told us the smoke was bad in the morning, but he hoped things would clear up in the afternoon. We were lucky that things did clear up. We started to see blue sky again as we approached the Village.
We were cheered and welcomed by the Holden Village staff. Lunch was ready for us. We ate and checked in. We stayed at Chalet 2 this time. We took a walk to the covered bridge and made a loop, taking the nature trail back, passing the place where Mary and I did our watercolor paintings the year before. We stopped at the Hiker House to plan our hikes for the next two days.
Back at our lodge, we had some Bailey’s. Then it was time for dinner. After dinner, all three of us went to the sauna. Afterwards, Tom and Mary went to the Prayer Service. I stayed back and did some stretching with the tennis ball. When Tom and Mary got back, we opened a Costco Napa Valley red wine and played two rounds of Mastermind.
The next day marked one year since the death of my beloved teacher Cô Nga. Later in the day, I felt her presence in my life.
We had planned to attend a session of Shibashi before going on our hike to Hart Lake, but the time got changed without us knowing about it in advance. We decided to go on with our hike instead of waiting. It was a 9-mile hike. It was strenuous enough that my legs got tired, and I was happy to rest at the end. About halfway, there was a water crossing where we either had to take a single-log bridge or use the horse trail. We took the bridge.
We saw a beautiful waterfall on the trail before we saw the lake. After seeing the lake, we had to go for quite a while before we found a place to sit at the lake shore, near a camp site. We ate our lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and apples there. We dipped our feet into the water. A chipmunk came and went a few times but didn’t stay for long. I took the first selfie of the three of us on my phone with a little tripod.
We got back to Holden Village in the early afternoon. We had time for sauna and shower before a dinner of pizza. The sun turned red and the smoke came back this evening, but it was not as bad as when we were driving the day before. We could still see the mountain shapes.
We took it easy the next morning. We had breakfast a little later and did Shibashi before our walk. It was raining lightly, so Shibashi was held on the covered porch of Lodge 4 instead of on the lawn. Our hike to Monkey Bear Falls was shorter today. However, the hike was a little harder than we expected, with three water crossings and a steep hill with many switchbacks and stairs near the end. Mary and I scooted ourselves over logs at one water crossing. The hike was nice because there were beautiful sections of the trail with mountain views and colorful wildflowers. Also, the view of the waterfall at the end was totally worth the effort.
On the way back, we joined up with Donna who was hiking with Linda and Carol, but got separated from them. We took another route to go up to the TenMile Falls. It was beautiful.
After the hike, I took a short nap. Mary and I attended a yoga class taught by Linda, a fellow guest of the Village. We had some wine before dinner of vegetable lasagna. We played a round of Quiddler, a game I just learned from playing with George and Tom at home. Tom and I went to our last sauna while Mary decided to stay back to rest and pack.
On our departure morning, I had meant to attend the Shibashi session, but I got the time mixed up and missed it. While waiting for the bus transportation to Lucerne, I picked up the book on the history of Holden Village written by Charles Lutz. I read about how a man named Holden found the copper mine. I was surprised to learn that he was not a very nice person. He staked the claim of the mine all to himself, cut off the people who had helped him, and somehow was successful at winning a lawsuit against him. The mine was not successful until twenty years after his death, but he was the original owner of the mine and the mine did well financially for his family. The mine stopped operating the year I was born because the price of copper dropped and the mine started to be depleted. It was sold/given to the Lutheran Bible Church and Holden Village retreat was developed from there. I did not get to finish reading the book before the bus departure.
The bus took us to Lucerne early and the boat came, but it headed for Skehekin. We had to wait for two hours for it to come back from Stehekin before taking us to Fields Point Landing. We spent our time checking out the A frame, reading more about Lucerne and the copper mine, walking to the town of Lucerne, eating, chatting, and napping.
It happened that there were several fires in Washington State at this time. We had planned to take Highway 2 home, but it was closed due to Bolt Creek Fire. We were further delayed by accidents on Interstate 90 and did not get home early as we had hoped. We were happy to be home safe and sound. Tom and I had a plane to catch early in the morning.
Holden Village still holds a special place in my heart, but there are things missing this year for me. I missed the hot breakfasts and lunches, the hot soup, the spread of multitude of bread and cheese and berries and nuts, the ice cream, the ping pong match with Tom, the nature walks with a naturalist,…
I plan to write more about my first experience with Holden Village someday. My notes are somewhere in the storage. I hope to pull them out soon.
