Enchantments

[Colchuck Lake from halfway up Aasgard Pass]

We had a seriously intense weekend of hiking this weekend! Andrew (a former co-worker of Ryan's) invited us to join him on a trip through the Enchantment Lakes. It was a really breathtaking set of lakes and worth the trip, but it was also an extremely challenging trek to do in one weekend, especially for me.

We drove out almost to the trail head on Friday night and ended up camping in a drive up campsite off the road. Since it's been getting dark so early lately, we didn't have a whole lot to do once we got there other than set up the tents and get to bed. The site was right next to a river, so it was nice to have the sound of the rushing water put us to sleep. It also made for a nice view to wake up to in the morning! 

[Ryan, Me, and Andrew at Colchuck Lake]

Saturday was a perfect day for hiking, blue skies everywhere! We drove up to the trail head and got started. The first part of the hike was pretty easy going through some great woods and up to Colchuck Lake which was really beautiful. There were several people camped out around that from the day before it seemed. It would be a great place to wake up to as well. We walked around the lake to get to the foot of Aasgard Pass. This is where things got real dicey. I was certainly not prepared for this at all! In order to get to the upper basin of the Enchantments, we had to climb up and over the pass. This was a 2300 ft elevation gain over about a mile, all over granite rocks. It wouldn't have been too bad if we didn't have big packs on our backs and were in a bit of a time crunch to get up and over it before it got too late. Towards the top of the pass there was a good amount of snow and to make it worse, most of the path was covered in ice. Somehow or another I finally made it over, exhausted and frozen. Luckily the views from the top was worth the climb!  This was the first time I've really been on an alpine hike. There were several lakes, lots of snow, lots of rock, and very few plants since it was so high in elevation. We kept hiking around these lakes until it started getting dark. Even then we went for a little while with out head lamps on until we weren't quite sure if we were following the trail anymore and thought it would be better to set up camp and wait till daylight to continue on. It was sooooooo cold!! We found a little flat spot next to a river that would fit our two little tents and cooked up some dinner. As Ryan cooked up some food, I spent about 15 minutes guarding the rest of our food from all the little nice running around. They are relentless! After dinner we called it a night. It was so cold that night that I slept with nearly all of my clothes on.

[Aasgard Pass...I'm supposed to climb to the top of this?!?]

[We made it over the Pass!!! Completely frozen!]

[Campsite #2. Cold but beautiful!]

Since it was already dark when we got to our campsite, it was fascinating to wake up and see what we were camping around. It was so beautiful. We were right next to a river that connected two lakes. So many of the views were unreal, straight out of a fantasy book or something. Unfortunately it was also super cold, and we had to get moving pretty quickly because we had a lot of ground to cover in the second day. We kept on walking, again over a lot of rock and ice, so it was a pretty challenging hike. We passed several more lakes and rivers in the upper basin of the Enchantment before we descended down into the lower basin. The decent on this side was a lot slower of an elevation change than the ascent the day before. After a few hours we were back into the woods and it started to warm up a little bit more. By this time we were in the lower basin of the Enchantments. There were several more lakes and rivers to pass and be awed by. It would definitely be worth it to take a few more days and come back for a longer trip just to soak it all in. We spent the rest of the day at a pretty brisk pace trying to get to the trail head. We were originally planning on going about halfway into the trail and turning around to go back to our car. Instead we decided to hike all the way through to the other end of the trail. Unfortunately that put us about 10 miles away from the trailhead that our car was at. Luckily we were able to find a nice couple who was willing to give one of us a ride to the car to pick it up and come back for the rest of us. It was nice to get back into a nice warm plush car after such an intense weekend.

[What we woke up next to on Sunday]

[The river we slept next to]

[All bundled up!]

[unreal...so pretty.]

[Snow Lake in the lower basin of the Enchantments]

On the way back to Seattle we stopped in Leavenworth. It's a little german town (touristy) in the middle of Washington. It kind of reminded me of Frankemuth in Michigan. We stopped for a little dinner, but didn't walk around too much. It looked like it might be fun to come back for a night or something just to check it out a little more. It was super cheesy and over the top touristy, but looked like I could get a kick out of it for a day. When we finally made it back to Seattle, we were all exhausted and stinky, and it was nice to be home after a great weekend!

Play Time!

Liz and Andrew had stayed in Seattle all week, and this weekend was their last weekend there. Before they left I wanted to do a special dinner with them and our other Seattle Auburn Alumni friends! I had found a coupon in The Stranger (a seattle newspaper) for a little cabaret bar right in the Pike Place Market, Can Can Cabaret. After reading some reviews, I decided we should give it a try. It was a little underground eclectic bar that had a cabaret type show while you were eating. The show that we went to happened to be a bollywood spin on Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was definitely amusing. It reminded me of some shows I went to in Auburn. They have different shows every night and I'd really like to try one out that is more of a comedy or acrobatic thing. One of the best things about this place though was the food! Your ticket price comes with $25 worth of food/drinks included. They had about 6 different kinds of mac and cheese which were amazing. We tried a few different kinds, and I think that alone makes me want to go back to the place! It was sooooo good! I tried a little sample of the three cheese, the gorgonzola and pear, and the chipotle cheddar. AMAZING! It was also just a lot of fun to hang out with the awesome group of Auburnites! Liz and Andrew headed back to Atlanta the next morning, so it was good to see them one last time.

Saturday, after watching a disappointing Auburn football game (again!) we went to a game night birthday party which was a BLAST! I love game nights in general, and this was a really great group of people, mostly Ryan's coworkers. We played Scene-It, which I was pretty terrible at since I can rarely remember movies I've seen or actors' names and such. I think I redeemed myself playing Taboo though. That's definitely one of my favorites, and everyone got really into it. Girls won...of course!

Sunday we went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which I've been wanting to see ever since it came out! It was one of my favorite books when I was little. This was also the first 3D movie I've seen, and it was sooooooo cool! I am definitely a big advocate of seeing every 3D movie that comes out from now on. It was a great movie, especially since I have the sense of humor of a 5 year old, so I thought it was hilarious! It was made even better when the credits rolled and I found out that the monkey, who spoke a whole maybe 5 words, was played by Neil Patrick Harris...awesome. Highly recommended!

We're off like a herd of Canadian Turtles!

This was a very interesting weekend! Saturday morning, Ryan and I got on the ferry bright and early to head towards Victoria, BC. I love being able to do weekend trips to another country. So, it's just Canada, but I still needed to bust out the passport! The ferry was packed with people, mostly runners, heading to Victoria for the Royal Victoria Marathon. The name of the marathon itself just sounds cool! That's why we were heading there too...my first full marathon!! We spent most of the ferry ride consulting the iPhones to keep updated on the Auburn football game. About halfway there though we went into international roaming and it would have been really expensive to keep using it. After dropping off our bags though, we headed straight to a sports bar (the Sticky Wickett...hahaha only in Canada) to watch the rest of the very disappointing game.

A few hours later Liz (a good friend from college), her fiance, and two of her co-workers showed up to join us! The whole reason for this trip was because Liz and I decided back on our girls weekend on the beach that we should do a marathon together, so this was the one that we chose to do. We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening walking around the town, checking out the sights, then loaded up on carbs at a fabulous little italian place. It was getting pretty chilly out, and we ended up getting a table outside so we wouldn't have to wait too long, so the restaurant started handing out snuggies to anyone who wanted them outside. They also had heated toilet seats which I was thoroughly amused by. After dinner we called it a night to rest up for the big runs in the morning. Liz, Andrew, and I were running the full marathon, and Liz's co-workers were running the half marathon. I was planning on waking up around 7am to get ready for the race, but at about 5am I woke up and got really nervous about what I was about to do, and couldn't get anymore sleep. It was an early morning for sure! I think I got a little more energy when I got around all the other people ready to run. The hotel we were staying at (The Fairmont Empress, which was super posh) was close to everything, so we just had to walk around the corner to get to the starting line. After a little warm up run and downing some energy bars and gummies, we were ready to go! Before the race started they had someone sing the canadian national anthem which startled me a little at first as I had forgotten that we were in a different country! It made me giggle a little. Finally we were off...and 4 hours and 45 minutes later we were done! It was perfect weather for a run and the scenery was awesome. When we started, there was a blind lady right in front of us that was running with a guide. How awesome is that to blindly run a marathon?!? In order to entertain myself the whole time, I had downloaded 'The Lost Symbol' to listen to. I think it worked pretty well and kept me at a steady pace the whole time. It all went really well until about the last 6 miles that my legs decided they didn't really want to go any further. So after a painful and slow 6 miles, we were finally done. YAY!

Ryan met me at the finish line and helped me wobble back to the hotel. I've been really bad about cooling down after long runs which usually makes me sick, so this time I just stretched out and took of my shoes to let my tootsies breath and we went for a little walk around town to keep my muscles moving. The rest of the day we all kind of did our own thing to recover from the runs. Lots of resting, eating, and hot tubbing. It felt soooo good and relaxing!

After a good nights sleep Sunday night, we all 6 piled into Liz and Andrew's rental car and headed to the  Butchart Gardens (one of the big attractions around Victoria). It was huge and had a ton of different flowers and plants. Definitely worth a visit. We were all super sore from the day before, so it was a little embarrassing when we had to let significantly older people pass us because we were going to slow down the stairs.

Ryan and I headed back on the ferry Monday night, while the rest of the group stayed on one more night. Unfortunately Ryan had to go into work when we got back late that night and pretty much pulled an all nighter to get some stuff done for Tuesday. What an end to a vacation. I had taken Tuesday off as well, so I had a nice relaxing day to spend in Seattle before heading home. It was an awesome weekend, and it's nice to know that all my running lately finally paid off. We'll see if I get enough energy to try that again anytime soon!