Prussik and others.....

[Stefan]

James F., Alton W. and I headed out from the Colchuck lake trailhead at 7:30 under clear skies on Saturday and found ourselves atop Aasgard Pass 4 hours later. This was my first time to the Enchantment Lakes Basin and my first time up and down Aasgard Pass, and I have vowed to never come down Aasgard Pass again unless that route is filled with snow. We continued on from Aasgard Pass to Inspiration Lake and camped at the scenic north end with nobody around. Some of the smaller lakes along the way had frozen and there were sections of the trail that had snow drift accumulations. The larches had pasted their prime but they were still beautiful to see with their colors. Prussik Peak is quite impressive to see as you approach it from that angle.

Soon after camp was made we headed up Prussik Pass and to the base of the climb, under sunny conditions, hardly any wind, but still mildly cold. I lead the first pitch and we think we were off route due to its different complexities compared with the description. James lead the second and third pitches because I know how much he likes to lead-and he always does a great job. When James made it through the 5.7 slab he let out a hollor that startled me because at first I thought he was falling. The slab was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be, but I was really fascinated by the remaining pitch traverse on the direct ridge-awesome! The three of us then headed up on class 3 and class 4 to the sections to the highest ledge and did the final pitch as described in the guidebook. The part of my climb that was the most favorite was the lieback flake. This route was solid.

Soon after we made it to the top we did two double rope rappels and one single rope before we traversed back to our packs. Alton lost his disposable camera along one of the rappels, so next time you are out there, be on the lookout for a camera!

We made it back to camp sometime around 6:45 and went to bed around 8:30 under total clear skies.

The next morning we awoke to cloudy, windy conditions and my goal was to go off and do Cannon. Alton and I headed off at 7:30 up over Prussik Pass and did the traverse over to Cannon. Sometime around the lakes it started snowing lightly. From these lakes until we got below Aasgard Pass it was snowing lightly the whole time. Wind was blowing but not very hard and the cloud ceiling was around 7800 feet. We finally made it to the plateau below Cannon. Weird place. Really weird landscape. We couldn’t see the summit block from the clouds but it was eerie walking across that plateu. Alton and I scrambled to the top without any views and came down immediately through the snow patches and rock. Prussik Peak does not look as impressive from the north as from the south. We made it back to Prussik Pass without incident and now I headed up to do Enchantment while Alton went back to camp. I scrambled up Enchantment without incident without any views and made it back to a waiting Alton at camp at 11:45.

My bonus peak for the day was going to be Dragontail. However, the weather prohibited me from accomplishing that task. As we were coming up the basin back to Aasgard pass the wind was whipping hard and the snow felt like scree hitting my face at times. No one was in sight-but it wasn’t that terribly cold-just very windy and cloudy up higher. I have windburn on my face as I write this. Dragontail will have to wait for another day.

Down we came over Aasgard Pass and the wind became even stronger! There were whitecaps on Colchuck lake we could see from the pass and the whole time we were coming down. There was one time I was knocked down on my arse from the wind-but I was loving it! Except I was NOT loving coming down that pass. Ouch! My knees!

The remaining trip was uneventful out and we encountered sprinkling showers off and on. Back to the car at 4:30. Great trip, especially the climb of Prussik Peak!

[nolanr]

One year in mid-November I was descending from Aasgard Pass w/ a buddy. The air temp was around 10 degrees, wind of about 30 mph blowing straight up the pass from Colchuck Lake. That was pretty cold in my book (I know, not Alaska or Montana cold). First and only time I had ice starting to accumulate on my eyebrows and eyelashes. As much of a grunt as Aasgard Pass approach is, I prefer it over Snow Lakes entry, it's shorter and more interesting scenery.