There’s always been a certain grit required to survive in the North Cascades.
In lieu of the railroad, timber and agricultural industries that saw a boom and subsequent decline in the early 20th century, Leavenworth was revived as a Bavarian-themed town in the 1960s, and has thrived as a bustling tourist spot since.
Business is highly seasonal. While the area’s natural beauty and warmer temperatures draw visitors in the summer, and the town’s Oktoberfest and changing leaves have an allure in the fall, the town relies on December. Not only for businesses to make their yearly sales quota — the Christmas lights and festivities often bring in visitor foot traffic above 100,000 throughout most of the month — but also to ensure they can survive the shoulder months that begin in the new year and last until the weather warms.
But last year brought a trio of disruptive events, each occurring during an important time for the town. In June, a months-long manhunt for a father suspected of murdering his daughters ensued, causing unrest among a grieving community and periodic closures of popular trails and outdoor recreation areas. In the fall, wildfires burned in the areas surrounding Leavenworth, culminating in an integral highway being closed during the first weekend of the town’s Oktoberfest.
Locals set their sights on December — the month when most businesses make a significant portion of their revenue for the year — with hopes of balancing out earlier losses. But an atmospheric river that caused flooding across the state, damaged Highway 2 to Leavenworth and knocked out power in the town for three days, only deepened the wound. Confusion about the state of Leavenworth, and the roads required to get there, further added to the problems.Despite Highway 2 and Tumwater Canyon having since reopened, the damage had already been done.
Now, business owners who operate in the town's popular downtown corridor say there won’t be an opportunity to make up for what has been lost. They’re focused on moving forward and trying to get through the quieter shoulder monthsof winter and springto open this year.
But each business faces a different level of threat after Leavenworth’s winter tourist tradition has been disrupted. Newer businesses might not survive another bad year. Older businesses, while not ideal, can lean on reserves — for some time. Despite their individual challenges, they face 2026 with a shared attitude of steely determination, as few are willing to entertain the question of what happens if they fail.
A broken tradition
Part of what makes Leavenworth unique is that it's a repeat seasonal vacation for families that will come back year after year, explained Coco Hopkins, a Leavenworth resident and owner of a walking tour company. They book hotel rooms in advance, visit their favorite restaurants and do their holiday shopping in their favorite local stores.
The potential domino effect from one break in a yearly tradition is alarming to Glory Mackenna, a longtime Leavenworth resident and new business owner.
“Even though we were back and ready, if your family decided they had to pivot and go to Fort Lauderdale for Christmas and they don’t come back from that new plan, we won't get that customer ever again,” Mackenna said. “They derail their tradition to something new.”
Tradition pivots happen locally, too. Nancy West, the marketing director of the Leavenworth Adventure Park, said the town has worked for decades to be a place where traditions and memories are rooted for those who come to visit, but it’s faced growing competition throughout the years.
“When we started, we were one of just a few destinations,” West said. “The competition is great (now) in the Pacific Northwest. More people are doing lights. There are more displays and parades.”
And without customers to support the local stores, there’s a risk those businesses won’t survive in town. When that happens, it threatens the consistency many repeat visitors crave.
“When we miss that, it can almost have the attempt of changing a culture for us, and that’s crazy,” West said.
Varying impacts
Businesses face differing threat levels heading into the new year. In town, the common sentiment was that newer businesses were the most vulnerable, while older ones had the foundation to endure a year like 2025.
The Bavarian Lodge, one of the largest hotels in Leavenworth, faced financial losses due to cancellations and refunds issued after the December power outage. But the lodge, a family-owned hotel that opened in 2005, has reserves and patrons who are likely to return.
Just before dinnertime on a snowy Tuesday in January, a few groups of guests gathered in the hotel’s rustic pub, complete with a wood-paneled ceiling and cozy design. Jesse Boyd, the proprietor of the 90-room lodge, explained the hotel books out for each December almost a full year in advance. By January, he was seeing reservation numbers pick up again.
“We are going to be just fine,” Boyd said, acknowledging that other businesses in town are facing a different reality.
From his desk at Der Sportsmann, an outdoor goods store located in the center of town since 1972, owner Ethan Burnett looked out at the store’s two sales floors. The store’s mannequins wore down jackets and beanies, and the shoe display predominantly offered various waterproof winter boots.
He explained that the longstanding sporting goods store will be fine this coming year, but he’s had to make adjustments. He won’t be able to give his younger staff members hours through the shoulder season.
Burnett also had to send back some inventory. He gestured to a stack of winter boot boxes piled high in the hallway leading to his office. He tried to cancel the order, placed more than a year ago, but the cancellation didn’t process in time.
Burnett said the store was down at least $250,000 from the loss of sales in December alone. Business was also hit hard last year when the search for Travis Decker closed outdoor recreation areas, including the Enchantments, and wildfire smoke further deterred hiking and bouldering activity in the fall.
“We could take another year exactly like last year, but it would be rough,” Burnett said of the store's outlook if it made no changes to its current operations and inventory. A third year like that, and you’d be going deep into debt,” he added.
Alissa Autenreith is the owner of multiple clothing stores in town. All four storefronts are within about 1,000 feet of each other and in prime real estate locations on Front Street, where the Christmas light display is set up each winter. Autenreith said her stores' sales were already down going into December. That made the additional loss of revenue during the biggest sales month of the year even more devastating.
“There’s no making up any of those funds because we’re so low already,” Autenreith said.
Still, Autenreith has been operating retail stores in town since 2013, which makes a year like 2025 more manageable.
“I have been in business a lot longer and we have our reserves for these times,” she said. “We prep our whole lives to have these reserves so that we can let (expletive) hit the fan at one point and be able to recover from it, but it's devastating to someone that hasn't been through a full year cycle and been able to save up.”
Such was the case for Mackenna, who opened her store, Glory Days Vintage, in November 2024. She sells clothes, records, comics and more, including lederhosen from Bavaria.
Without the reserves of a longtime business and with the loss of substantial December revenue, she's had to accept 2025's losses and focus on finding ways to draw business into her store in the upcoming months.
While Leavenworth’s businesses almost entirely rely on tourism, Mackenna knows visitation is slow in the first several calendar months of each year. She also believes the ripple effect of the power outage, road closures and media coverage will further suppress visitation. So, in the next few months she’s thinking of ways to appeal to a less common customer base — locals.
“I’m already working on planning a whole calendar of events because at least people can attend,” Mackenna said. “It’s different than shopping, and you can get more locals to do that kind of thing and support each other that way.”
Mackenna knew what she signed up for when she opened a business in the competitive seasonal town. But years like 2025 cannot be endured on repeat.
“We can’t do it if we don’t get back to the right cycle of life,” she said. “The appropriate ebbs and flows have to happen.”
A determined ‘village’
As tourists walked down Front Street, which began to thaw under the January afternoon sun despite chilly temperatures, a group of six business owners gathered around a table at Water From Wine.
The group at the nonprofit winery included Hopkins, West, Autenreith, Mackenna and two others who are in the town’s vacation rental industry. They were invited to the conversation to discuss the hardships they faced in 2025. But rather than complaints, the group voiced a determination to get their businesses and community through the hardships without further losses.
“Our job now is to work harder for our guests and do more for our town,” West said as the rest of the group nodded and echoed their agreement.
While Autenreith and Mackenna face different challenges, they have the same message for the public: to come visit now and to return next year. While business owners are trying to get creative, like Autenreith turning to social media to promote her businesses, the bottom line is that Leavenworth can’t survive without the tourism that transformed it from a dying town to an international destination decades ago.
“We can’t make up for the financial losses in December,” Hopkins said as she looked out at a quiet Front Street. “We can only move forward. But it’s a testament to the village.”
Hopkins said she has seen locals pick each other up. From sharing a shoulder in grief to cutting up downed trees that blocked neighborhood roads after the windstorm — “that is the power of our community.”
“Going forward we want to be extremely positive and get people to come here,” Autenreith said. “That’s what we all care about.”
Leavenworth is a region and town that will always come with challenges. But those hardships have bred resolve, rather than resentment among its loyal residents.
“It’s not easy to live here for business or just as a resident because of these crazy dynamics and these highs and lows,” Mackenna said. “But it’s wonderful to live here, and that’s why we put up with it.”
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