The Enchantments

The Enchantments are supposedly 'The Best Hike in Washington' and I can now say that aside from the stunning beauty of Rainier...I'm pretty sure I concur. There's still a lot out there I haven't seen, but it certainly was amazing. Because of how spectacular it is and the fragile high alpine environment, you have to have a permit to go there, which they do drawings for in February of each year. We got extremely lucky and got one for this summer!

It's more than a hike, its actually an 18 mile backpack where you gain 4000 feet and then lose 6000 feet. We went with our awesome friends Catherine + David. I feel like this blog is an ongoing saga of my camera mishaps, so I leave that story for the end and suffice it to say for now that this first chunk of pictures is all from Catherine.

The Enchantments are just outside Leavenworth, WA so the day started out with a drive to the land of Bavaria and then Matt trying to hitchhike so that we could make the trip a one one-way (start at one trailhead, come out at another) instead of an out and back. Once we were on the road (trail) we hiked for a couple hours through the forest and then emerged to Colchuck Lake. This lake is more of a day hike but it was beautiful. Check out the colors:

Just as we were sitting down for lunch we were hit with a sudden torrential downpour, accompanied by a bit of lightning, and the most thunder I have ever heard. Everything but the thunder cleared pretty quickly so we made our way up Aasgard Pass which is 2500ft of elevation gain in .9 miles. Steep. Really steep.

We emerged into the Upper Enchantments Basin which was beautiful and still very much snowed in. This included Isolation Lake & Tranquil Lake. We didn't spend too much time here since it was really snowy and we still had a ways to go, but the colors were neat.

Descending into the Lower Enchantments Basin was a whole different world. While there was still some snow in places it was mostly melted. One of the stunning things about the Enchantments area is the huge granite peaks everywhere. The boys scouted a killer camping spot that overlooked Perfection Lake and Inspiration Lake and had a great view of Prusik Peak. This is when my camera became functional. Yay.

Prusik Peak from our campsite

We settled in to a dinner of Mac & Cheese, and some Mountain House Blueberry Cheesecake for dessert. It was actually pretty good! Then we started a little baby fire to keep warm and keep away the hoards of mosquitoes (the one bad thing about the Enchantments). Fires are delightful while backpacking.

Dinner time

Dusk at the campsite

Campfire!

We woke to a gorgeous sunny day and spent a relaxing morning sitting around camp just enjoying the view, drinking coffee, and sunning ourselves.

Morning

We met lots of mountain goat friends. They were everywhere. Baby was my favorite! (For those of you who care, these are all taken with an 18-55mm lens, not a telephoto. They were not shy).

Matt & baby

We left all of our stuff at camp and spent the day just wandering the Basin. We were all a bit tired, relaxed, and blistered so we planned to only climb up to Prusik Pass which was really only a small hill. Once we got to the top Prusik Peak looked even neater, we didn't look so very far away, and our blisters were feeling better so we headed that direction. Most of the routes are diffucult rock climbs but some fun bouldering will actually get you most of the way. We didn't go to the top because well, we weren't ready to die yet (oh, and we're not experienced rock climbers), but we got pretty high and it was a great view of the whole area.

After spending a few hours sunning ourselves on some boulders by the lake we packed up camp and headed down to the Snow Lakes area. We decided 10 miles and 6000ft of decent was more than we wanted to do in one day (the next day) so wanted to get a head start. The trail was a little crazy and the five miles took something like three and a half hours, but we blazed past Upper and Lower Snow Lakes and made it all the way down to Nada which we had all to ourselves. Somebody decided that a dam that occasionally has 4-5" of water going over it is a good trail. David & I went barefoot. Matt & Cat in their big boots thought they could take it and ended up wet. Note to trailbuilders: dam does not equal trail.

The next day we hiked out to the trailhead, bathed in Icicle Creek and headed into Leavenworth for some well deserved burgers and a pitcher.

I highly recommend this trip. It was beautiful. We saw hardly anyone. Go! (With a permit of course...)



***If you care to read the next installment of: Mackenzie is a Moron When it Comes to Camera Packing here you go. An hour or so into the hike I turned my camera on (it had a battery this time), snapped a picture, and looked at the nice little message that popped up: No Card. So sad. Catherine had her point and shoot camera with her and I thought it might also have an SD card but no, it was an xD. What a sad sad day. When we got to our campsite (which was pretty far off the main trail) I looked down and low and behold...an SD card! I was ecstatic. Here is me being ecstatic: