Notes
Enchantments day 1: Toffer, Ryan and I, sad to be missing Bonnie but excited and wary for the adventures ahead, set out on the Stuart Lake trailhead, after a long drive to Leavenworth in the wee hours of the morning (marked by a delicious stop at the Sultan bakery with its giant cinnamon rolls and pizza-sized pancakes ). Our packs were stuffed with more gear than usual due to our healthy fear of the cold ahead... I even naively attached snowshoes to my pack--wanting the option of SOME sort of traction if needed, but not willing to fork over $60 for fancy mini-crampons for one trip. As it turns out the snowshoes were quite useless, but just made me get a better workout (by carrying the extra weight).
Anyways, run-on sentences aside, it was only slightly nippy as we started the trek towards Colchuck lake. It was a pretty trail, with some nice fall colors, though fairly unremarkable until we started to climb and get some views. I was surprised at the sunny blue skies instead of the forecasted morning snow, a good sign. My throat hurt, but I disregarded it as being due to the chocolate I had the night before, or perhaps slight allergies to Algernon. Looking back, I wasn't feeling 100%, but it was so exciting to be heading towards the Enchantments, I was clearly in denial. The trail got steeper and more treacherous--climbing up big boulders and such, which surprised me. A thin layer of snow appeared from a dumping the night before and we were truly in fall-winter wonderland. Eventually we reached Colchuck lake, quite the sparkling beauty, with Aasgard pass towering up across the lake. Instead of the standard Powerbar for lunch, we ate summer sausage-on-mini-bagels, hydrated, meanwhile staring at the gorgeous lake in the warm-ish sun. Nice.
Not before long the 'trail' became very tough-- we scrambled across a snow covered slippery boulder field, VERY slowly. It was the same thing I'd say over and over the rest of the trip: 'this would still be challenging, but much more doable without this HEAVY pack!'. While my shoes (I chose rubber over my failing gortex boots this time) kept my feet dry and warm, they did not provide the best traction, so I very carefully picked my way through this flat obstacle course. At the end of it, we took a break on the snow covered lake shore, something I'd never seen before. The epitome of a 'white-sand' beach!
Then came the Aasgard pass challenge, over 2000 feet of elevation gain in 0.9 miles, much of it scrambling on rocks rather than walking on a trail. It wasn't so bad, actually quite fun, plodding up this thing you could always see the top of. I got into a groove, a runner's high mode, and chugged on up--until within a couple hundred feet of the top I got stuck behind two guys struggling to get over a huge slippery snowy boulder, one ripping his pants in the process. It was insane. This wasn't hiking, this was rock climbing! In the snow! With 50lb+ packs and no ropes! I wanted to wait for Toffer, and Ryan caught up and heaved himself over it with the help of his traction crampons. I handed him my poles and struggled, squirmed, slipped, growled, as my shoes wouldn't stick to the rock, and my heavy pack didn't want to let me make it. Ryan sort of pulled at my pack and eventually I got over, quite embarrassed, as 4 climbers were watching behind me, and proceeded to pull themselves over fairly effortlessly. Hrumph. When Toffer arrived, we instructed him a different way that we hadn't noticed from below, which wasn't 'easy' either, but he seemed to have no problems with it. Toffer probably could have gotten over the obstacle more eloquently than those climbers, but why make him? After that my energy plummeted. I had foolishly let myself get cold, let the fact that those climbers were so much better get to me, and not had enough water; it was a battle to make it the rest of the way. It didn't help that there were several more places where you had to 'climb' and crawl, and that the temperature had drastically dropped. But the views stunned me beyond belief, every time I took a moment to look up at my surroundings, I was blown away.
At the top we all layered up against the frigid air, and walked a little bit on the surface of the moon-- SO beautiful up there. So simple. Just rocks, snow and lakes. No plants, no trees, just rocks. As it was near 5 pm and we were all cold, tired, and hungry, we set up camp at Isolation Lake, not too far from the pass, wearing every item of clothing we had brought. As I cleaned up the dishes (taking on a bit of the stereotypical female role) chunks of ice kept forming and it was hard to tell if I was scraping off food or ice at some points. Our water bottles started freezing too, and after a brief glimpse of the full moon, we jumped into our tents. The temperatures were probably in the low 20s-- so not THAT cold by most standards, but cold for me in my first night of snow camping. Hand warmers in my socks, wearing a wool sweater and hat, I was able to stay plenty warm as long as I didn't move.
What a wonderful day!