In and around Leavenworth, a Bavarian-style town in central Washington state, names related to "winter" abound. Icicle Creek and Icicle Ridge are located to the south of the town, and the town itself grew out of a settlement called Icicle Flats.
The creek, ridge and town of Leavenworth are clearly visible in this image acquired by Landsat8's OLI (Ocean Land Imager) on October 28, 2023. The ridges and nearby peaks are covered in snow, while the green vegetation of the lower valleys is still clearly visible. By December, more snowfall transformed Leavenworth's landscape. During the winter, the town averages more than an inch of snowfall per day. The snow provides a wintery backdrop for the town's "Village of Lights" and other holiday celebrations, which last until much of December.
The image also shows several landforms named after icicles. Icicle Creek originates from an outlet at Lake Josephine (northwest of this map), just east of the North Cascades Peaks. From here, Icicle Creek flows south-southeast through a narrow glacier-carved valley, bordering Icicle Ridge to the north. It then turns north and winds its way through the ever-widening valley floor, approaching the Leavenworth and Wenatchee rivers. Boulders and deposits from the last ice age dot the valley. These "moraine" are traces of icicle glaciers that scoured the ground here more than 15,000 years ago.
However, "Icicle" is a relatively new naming convention and has nothing to do with the frozen water spears of winter. According to a 1943 study of place names in the American Northwest, "Icicle Creek" is a mispronunciation of the similar-sounding Native American word "nasikelt," meaning narrow-bottomed canyon or canyon. In the early 20th century, icicles began to appear on U.S. Geological Survey maps.
For centuries, the creek's confluence with the Wenatchee River provided fertile hunting and fishing grounds for Native people. The development of Icicle Flats, a small community south of the Winnatchee River, was spurred by the arrival of non-native settlers during the gold rush of the 1860s. Following the completion of the Great Northern Railway in 1892, Leavenworth was established on the north side of the river and developed into a sawmill and timber center until 1929 when trains were rerouted. In the 1960s, the town launched a Bavarian-themed revitalization effort to encourage tourism.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Compiled source: ScitechDaily