[TR] Enchantment Lakes - Car-to-Car Loop 3/18/2007

[zoroastr]

Trip: Enchantment Lakes - Car-to-Car Loop

 

Date: 3/18/2007

 

Trip Report:

On Friday, March 16, my usual climbing partner Erick Johnson, who happened to have the day off, did something that simultaneously impressed and annoyed me. First, the impressive part.

At 9:00 AM, after parking at the gated Eight Mile Road leading up to the Colchuck Lake trailhead, Johnson hiked the road, continued on to Colchuck Lake, booted up to Colchuck Col and somehow managed to traverse the summits of Colchcuk, Dragontail and Little Annapurna before finally heading down Aasgard Pass and back out after logging 20 miles and 10,000 feet of vertical gain. The annoying part is that I wasn't in on it.

Inspired by this act of lunacy, I decided to try something in the same area. On Sunday, leaving at 8:00AM from the same spot, I hiked the road, made my way to Colchuck Lake, headed up Aasgard--following Johnson's descent steps through an icy avalanche runnel--then moved from the Upper Enchantments to the Lowers, out to Snow Lake and beyond to complete a loop of the Echantment Lakes region.

Oringinally, I'd intended to duplicate Erick's traverse, but halfway to Leavenworth it dawned on me that the only crampons I'd packed were the ones on the bottoms of my snowshoes, and after nervously following a right-hand line through the polished, sun-shaded, icy avalanche runnel on Aasgard, I decided to finish the day with some relaxed mileage instead of altitude.

Here's the view that greeted me upon entering the Colchuck basin. The light was terrible, but you can see icy Aasgard, as well as Erick's ascent route up to Colchuck Col.

...heading up Aasgard in perfect weather conditions.

I saw no other tracks on the trek between the Upper and Lower Enchantments, making for an incredible sense of isolation and solitude...

The frozen state of the small Enchantment Lakes provided many opportunities for shortcutting. Familiarity with the terrain, gained through several previous summer hikes through the region helped me get from the top of Aasgard Pass all the way through the Lower Enchantments in just over an hour. I wanted to take my time, but I was anxious to get through the last few miles of the loop before dark.

Although I'd seen evidence of ski tracks a bit higher up, this was my first glimpse of recent ascent tracks from the Snow Lake side. Hooray! ...I'm saved! Having a good set of tracks to follow meant I could relax, listen to MP3's and generally enjoy a great descent back down the valley.

After taking this last shot of a semi-frozen Snow Lake, my MP3 player's battery died, forcing me to extract the camera batteries for use in the player. With six more miles of snow slogging and a miserable couple of miles of blowdowns to be followed by the road walk back to my car at Eight Mile campground, I needed tunes much more than I needed to snap snaps!

 

Gear Notes:

Running shoes, snowshoes, tunes, axe, poles, sunscreen, and some of those gas station strawberry newtons. Oh..and don't forget your 'pons, like I did.

 

Approach Notes:

Obviously, the whole loop is quite doable. The approaches from both sides are fine, but if you enter from the Snow Lake side, you'll quickly be met by an unbelievable number of trail-diverting blowdowns--it's going to take a lot of work to get this trail hikeable by summer. If you want to do the Enchantments, I'd definitely advise going in via Colchuck.

Edited March 19, 2007 by zoroastr

[NYC007]

hows the road? TC doesnt look all that good...

[Weekend_Climberz]

hows the road? TC doesnt look all that good...

 

Yeah, the runnels look bare and dry and the entrance to the hidden couloir looks pretty anemic, too.

[scottgg]

some spring freeze-thaw should do the trick on Triple Couloirs.

Thanks for the pics!

[altasnob]

I was up there that day too and think I ran into you on the way up to the Colchuck Lake.

 

The road up is 80% covered with snow but even after it melts out, there is some washout damage that needs to be repaired before you can drive up to the trail head.

 

Here's some more pics from the area.

 

Stuart

 

Dragontail and Colchuck

 

Hidden Couloir (start of TC)

 

Northeast Couloir

 

Looking down off Aasgard

 

Prusik and the Upper Enchantments

Edited March 20, 2007 by altasnob

[NYC007]

thanks for the photos!

[TeleRoss]

where is all the f'n snow?

 

[zoroastr]

The snow up high is nicely consolidated, but both approaches, including the entire Snow Lake valley are still quite "loaded."

 

[AlpineMonkey]

Edited March 20, 2007 by AlpineMonkey

[Bug]

Nice. Thanks for the pics.

[scottgg]

Wow, cool trip! How did Snow Creek Wall look?

[goatboy]

Anyone here ever climb the NE Couloir on Draqgin-tail?

 

That thing looks do-able and fun....

 

- Steve

[TeleRoss]

skied it a few years back...yeah it's cruiser and fun

[Billygoat]

Thanks for the great pics Zoroastr and altasnob

[Brianmoore]

Great pictures.

[Alpine_Tom]

Would it be worthwhile to drag a bicycle up there to bike up the road and stash it in the trees? Or is it all snowed in? (Not quite sure what "80%" means)