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We woke up to a cold morning. The sun was hidden behind the mountains and we were nestled in the tall trees. We made some hot coffee and tea and I fixed some oatmeal for myself while others munched on snack bars. After breaking down camp, we warmed up for our hike by kicking around the hacky sack. It was lots of fun and we improved our skills while having a good time readying our muscles for the long day ahead. We finally peeled ourselves away from the circle, loaded up our packs and started our hike up to Snow Lake. We came across an interesting water spray along the way. It turned out to be a pipe for regulating the water levels of the lakes to encourage life in the trout stocked areas. We hiked through the Snow Lakes are and then made our way up to the edge of the Enchantment Lakes. These were wonderful alpine lakes that ranged in altitude from 5000 to 8000 ft. We continued up and reached the beautiful Enchantment Lakes. The surrounding larch trees had turned a golden color and the bright sun lit up the sharp granite peaks around us. Eric decided to peel off and climb a side of Prusik Peak and Misty and I pulled ahead of Jason and Nicky. We stopped for a rest at a nice meadow surrounded by golden larch trees and flat calm water. I practiced my hacky sack skills and Misty basked in the sun. After waiting about half an hour for Jason and Nicky, we got a little nervous thinking that something might have happened to them. Just as Misty was about to head back on the trail, they showed up. It turned out they had taken a wrong turn but eventually got back on track. We started up towards Aasgard Pass. We met up with a couple friends of theirs named Coly and Juna who were on their way down from the pass. We chatted for a bit and then headed up, as we were worried about it getting dark on us during the steep decline on the other side. Up at the top of the pass there were more lakes but less trees and the granite rocks were whiter making the whole place look like a different planet, especially when the low clouds rolled in quickly. Eric joined back up with us after his climb up Prusik Peak and we all hiked up Aasgard pass through a bit of snow but mostly around rocks, meeting with a strong wind at the top. We peered over to the other side of the mountains and saw Colchuck Lake far below in the early evening light. We had a steep decline of about 2000 ft ahead of us. We slowly moved our way down, carefully stepping on a mixture of switchbacky trail, loose granite, and around large boulders. I had to take an emergency detour off to the side of the trail to lighten the load a bit. We made it down to the lake just as it got dark. It felt great to be on the nice sand beach after a full day on the trail and grueling decline. We set up camp and started cooking our well-earned grub. After chowing down, we told more stories and drank tea until the sky opened up to reveal stars galore. We had a nice toke and then set up our sleeping pads outside on the sand. We laid down in our sleeping bags and fell asleep under the huge starry night. I woke up a few hours later and moved into my tent to warm up.

Peace

Dave

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Pic: Nada Lake

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Pic: Nada Lake.

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Pic: The Crew
From Left to Right: Nicky, Jason, Misty and Eric.
Yours truly on the camera

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Pic: Snow Lakes area

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Pic: Making our way up to the Enchantment Lakes

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Pic: Looking back on the Snow Lakes

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Pic: A Knarly Tree hanging on to rock

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Pic: Appreciating the golden color of the turning Larch trees

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Pic: Echantment Lakes (Oops, dark photo...I guess you just had to be there!)

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Pic: Enchantment Lakes

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Pic: Enchantment Lakes.

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Pic: Enchantment Lakes. Getting up to Aasgard Pass. This was one of the last few lakes to the top.

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Pic: Looking back at the great view as we climbed up to ~8000 ft of elevation.

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Pic: Looking down at Colchuck Lake from Aasgard Pass.

urban_assault

The natural beauty of this land never ceases to amaze me. Thanks for the pics.