The Scenic Loop - NorthEast Washington

I haven’t been geocaching for very long but decided to jump in with both feet.   One thing I noticed is that near where we live there were very few geocaches that were “readily” accessible.   I also knew that part of the reason we built our house up here is for the scenic beauty.   Combine those two things and I decided to place caches along a Scenic Loop.

The loop starts/ends in Colville, WA (or anywhere else along the route since it is a loop) and will have you traveling north to near the Canadian border.  You will see classic mountain valley scenery, mountain lakes and streams, the beautiful and picturesque Columbia River, and along the way you might learn a little bit of history about the area.   The caches, with a couple of exceptions (noted in their listings) are all easy to get to and can be found by members of the entire family.

The loop should be able to be completed in a day depending on how much time you spend enjoying each of the locations along the way.  There are some caches that I have labeled as “side trips” because they take you a little way off of the main loop roads.   You will also find that if your time gets tight there are a couple of “shortcuts” that you can use to bypass many of the caches along the loop.

The caches are as follows:

    Colville Valley View

    Pinkney City

    Entering the Icebox

    Meadow Lake Overlook

    Spirit Junction

    Deep Lake Drive By

    Silver Creek Cedars

    Cedar Lake Viewpoint 

    Waneta ‘Eh

    The Black Sands

    Launch It!

    China Bend Overlook

    Marble Madness

    <not placed yet>

    Williams Lake Viewpoint

    <not placed yet>

    Kettle Falls Wayside

    395 on the Columbia Side (awaiting approvals)

    Happy Dell Park

    <not placed yet>

Shortcuts:

     At Spirit Junction head to Northport (West) on Aladdin Road.  This will eliminate Deep Lake, Silver Creek, Cedar Lake, Waneta ‘Eh and The Black Sands caches.

     China Bend Overlook – You can continue heading South and this road will connect to Highway 395 (there are a couple of miles of dirt road but it is in relatively good shape).  May not save time and will skip Marble Madness, cache 14, Williams Lake Viewpoint, cache 16 and the Kettle Falls Wayside.

    Near the Williams Lake Viewpoint is a cutoff on Williams Lake Road that will pickup Cache 16 and skip the remainder of the caches.

We hope you enjoy all of the caches in the scenic loop.  If you run into any problems please feel free to let us know.   Remember the goal here is not to make these things difficult but to rather share some of the incredible scenic beauty of the area.  20 caches in a day… sounds like a deal!!!

[photosmash]