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!