…beyond nice.

Oi! My laziness knows no bounds! What is the point of my going to these magical backpacking destination and taking hundreds of pictures if I can’t be bothered to share them with others!?
Enchantments is often considered one of the most beautiful backpacking destination in Washington and if you’ve ever been there you’d probably agree. It’s so beautiful that it got too packed at some point and now there is a permit system in place to save this place from being over-used. Permit season ends October 15th so my friends and I have decided we’ll go there once a year when it’s open to everyone.
When we were there last year, we had clear blue skies every day and there was hardly a breeze in the air. It was the best weather one could hope for. In order to get to Lower Enchantment, we had to scramble up a steep section with large granite slabs, this section also known as “the wall”. While we scrambled up and down the “the wall” we talked about how suicidal it would be to attempt that same wall with snow on it. There was even a small spot where metal bars were attached to the granite slabs to reduce risk of injury.

This year, we knew we were in for some shitty weather. We expected some snow and knew that we might have to turn back at the wall (when we called the ranger station to check on conditions, they highly advised against going near the wall). There were four of us planning to go, Daniel, Fraser, Jason and me. Our fifth, Sto, dropped out because he didn’t have enough vacation days to cover this trip. The trip spans Friday October 19th to Monday the 22nd.
On Friday morning, we met at Fraser’s house at 8 and were down one Daniel because he caught the company flu. The three of us got to the trailhead by 11 and made our way toward our first destination 7 miles in, Snow Lakes.

The day started out nice and dry just like the trail, and then about 4 miles in, it started snowing HARD. By the time we got to our first camp, there was a good layer of snow everywhere. We set up camp, had some dinner and drinks and wandered around for a bit before bedding down for the night.

It was such good sleep to listen to snow softly fall on my tent.
The next day, we packed up and made our way to “the wall”. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit scared that my buddies would drag us into stuff that was way over our heads. I had horrific images of us being rescued from boulder ledges which made for sugary entertainment for the head while we slogged through the flat part of the hike. When we got to the wall, we found much of it covered in a good foot of snow which made finding the trial a bit more difficult, but at the same time, because the snow was so deep, it kept us in place just fine so we didn’t have to worry about sliding to our doom down various boulder fields.

We could tell we were the only foolhardy idiots to attempt this trip because we had to stamp down our trail through fresh snow. The hike up was grueling and mentally draining but god damned was it ever worth it.
Howling wind pushed us around once we got to the top, but we managed to drag ourselves over to Leprechaun Lake. We wandered around to ensure we had the best camp spot for view and wind shelter. Since we were the only ones there, we had all of Enchantments to choose from. We found a nice spot, set up camp and proceeded to eat and get drunk off our asses warm ourselves up. Because we had the place to ourselves, we shameless did our loud drunk talk until well past 1 in the morning.
The next morning we woke up and set off to check out all the lakes in Lower Enchantment. It snowed on and off all day.
To be continued…

Slide of hike here.

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