Holden Village, Washington
Holden Village is a year-round Lutheran[1] Christian center in the North Cascade mountains of the U.S. state of Washington.
Holden Village is the largest retreat center in the nation operating under a special use permit from the United States Department of Agriculture - Forest Service.
[3][4][5] Inaccessible by car, visitors (volunteers, guests, and through-hikers) generally take a ferry up Lake Chelan from Chelan or Fields Point Landing to Lucerne where they board a Village bus which takes them up an 11-mile (18 km) gravel road through a set of 12 switchbacks, and into Holden Village.
The townsite, Holden, Washington, consisted of a number of dormitories, a gymnasium, bowling alley, mess hall, school, and hospital, among other things.
With the transfer of the mine and buildings came a multitude of problems for the Lutheran Bible Institute: The structures were old and suffering from several years of neglect.
Originally, the Lutheran Bible Institute imagined a summer-only center and maintained limited staff on hand for the first few winters.
However, both the infrastructure needs of the community and the natural beauty of Holden Village in the winter led to the creation of a year-round retreat center.
[8] The Howe Sound Company's Holden Mine was profitable in part by making few outlays for the impacts of its on-site operations.
Federal and state agencies have also sought solutions to mineral contamination of the water flowing from the mine into the Railroad Creek watershed.
The process of finding a mutually agreeable solution to these problems was a long and onerous one, but an agreement was eventually reached.
During this phase, Holden Village made creative changes to its program as it housed and fed 200+ construction people working in shifts 24/7 on the project.
Holden Village runs a variety of programming in the summers, with classes focusing on science, theology, art and philosophy for all age levels.
Holden Village receives large amounts of snow in the winter (averaging over 260 inches (6.6 m)) making snowshoeing and cross-country skiing favorite activities.
The landing on Lake Chelan associated with Holden Village is called Lucerne, and it is here that the buses meet the daily boats coming and going.
These boats ferry people up and down the lake, making stops at the resort town of Stehekin, trailheads, personal properties, and at Lucerne for visitors of Holden Village.
A small crew of 4-5 Villagers remained behind to tend the fire defense sprinklers (which operated 24 hours a day using water from Railroad Creek), serve meals to the hotshot firefighter crews working in the nearby mountains, protect the wooden structures from falling embers, and assist with cutting and clearing a protective burn ring around the Village and mine remediation site.
