link to photos
Becky had to study this weekend, so I was solo for mountain activities. Although I figured there'd be big crowds hiking through the Enchantments to gawk at the fall color of the larch trees, I still wanted to get up there.
Without a car or bike shuttle set up to do the usual Enchantments through-hike from Stuart Lake to Snow Creek, I opted to just hike up and back down via Aasgard Pass & the Stuart Lake trailhead. Drove out Saturday night and car camped- then got hiking at 5am. Made it to Colchuck Lake by 7am, just as there started to be enough light to turn off the headlamp. Colchuck Lake is so low right now that the usual scrambling over boulders on the west side of the lake can be skipped and one can just walk the freshly exposed shoreline beach that I'd never seen before as its usually under water.
Got to Aasgard Pass by 9am and then across the upper Enchantments and topped out on Little Annapurna by 10am. Surprisingly, I had a strong cell phone signal, so since I had the summit all to myself and I wasn't going to ruin anyone's wilderness experience by firing up my phone, I gave Becky a call and we had a video chat, showing her the view with my phone camera.
Started back down around 10:30, took a few long breaks to enjoy the views. Got to Colchuck Lake at 3:00 and put the headphones on and started running....figured I was by myself, so why not try to get a bit of exercise out of the return trip. Made it to the trailhead less than an hour later and was heading home by 4. Usually the goal for an Enchantments trip is to get back to the car before dark- this time around, I was home before sunset- not a bad day.
