The Enchantments, and SO MANY Goats
Well it has certainly been a while since I wrote here! I took a backpacking trip recently, and wanted to recount my experience as it very well may be the last one I ever do.....
We left bright and early at 5:45am to get to the trail head, 2 hours away, before the sun was too high in the sky. The drive was nice. We got to watch the sun rise over various parts of Washington as we drove, and we made it to the trail head on schedule. It was a lovely cool morning, and the beginning of the trail was very flat, which gave me the opportunity to get used to having a heavy pack on my back. I have to say the worst part about that thing was unexpected. The grinding into my hip bones throughout the entire trip left bruises that took days to go away.
Eventually the elevation began to climb, and I started to get more and more anxious about what was coming: Aasgard Pass. I had not heard of Aasgard Pass before, but it is a well known feature of this particular trail. 2300ish feet in one mile. This is a quote from the Washington Trail Association about it:
"Thiis “shortcut” to the Enchantments Core Zone refers only to mileage. As far as miles per hour goes, Aasgard may be one of the slowest hikes you attempt. Achieving the pass is a thigh-burning, chest-bursting, eye-popping endeavor that offers as many extraordinary views as beads of sweat that will fall from your brow as you ascend nearly 2000 feet in just three-quarters of a mile." x
This mountain pass is what makes this hike so formidable...for the most part. There is some other stuff I will get to later that also made it very difficult.
We made it up to a beautiful lake, Colchuck Lake, and could see Aasgard pass on the other side. (Sorry for the crappy photo quality. I did not bring my nice camera on this trip as A) my brother high-jacked the battery for his camera and B) it was too heavy/bulky to take with.)
My brother thought it would be easy going around the lake to the pass....it was not. It was..interesting. There was a lot of up and down over little mounds and rocks, but right before the pass there was the remains of an avalanche. This resulted in us literally scrambling over MASSIVE boulders. It was unexpected, and turned out to be preparation for what awaited us on the pass.
After finally making out of the field of rocks, and briefly getting lost and winding up on a sandy beach, we made it to the bottom of the pass.
My strategy was to go my own pace, and not worry about trying to go the same speed as Matt and Emily. Matt told me if I fell, to scream loudly. Sage advice. On the Washington trail website, it recommends not doing this pass if you have a poor center of gravity and have a heavy pack on. This is for a good reason. It was basically another avalanche field with massive rocks and boulders, but at a 80 degree angle.
I started out pretty confident. Yea it was hard, but I felt I was doing well. I was pretty sure I was gonna make it through this without any problems. As long as I didn't look at how far we had to go, I would totally be fine.
Not to mention the scenery was INSANE. The mountains were being bathed in just the perfect light, and next to us was a ridge called "The Dragon's Tail". If I were to name mountains, they would all be dragon themed, but this one was particularly accurate.
It was shortly after this, and my over confident thoughts of making it through this okay, that we encountered our first mountain goats. I had never seen a mountain goat up close before, and had been warned that they could be aggressive for human urine because of the salt (They crave the mineral...vintage memeing), but no one warned me that they would just be wandering along the same paths that we used. This was my reaction to the first mother/kid pair we saw...
Our strategy for the goats was to group together and move to the side as much as possible so the goats could pass. They seemed to be pretty used to humans, and would just walk right on by like we weren't there. We ended up seeing 5 goats on Aasgard pass.
After the 5 goats, not gonna lie, I was fading fast. We were only half way up and I was exhausted. I had never climbed anything for this long in my life, and was not ready for the quick wall of exhaustion I hit. My brother took to shouting out how far we had left, but the last 500 feet every single step was a fight with myself. The last 200 feet, I could barely move. I would take two steps and had to rest. It was pretty awful. I was sweaty, my hips were on fire, and I felt like I had nothing left in the tank. Eventually, we made it to the top (Matt and Emily several minutes before I did, let's be honest). I was rewarded with this view:
And THIS is an expression to sum up how I felt about the view at the time:
So yea, that was...not fun. We stopped pretty shortly after that to have lunch. I have never tasted anything better than the Clif bar and peanut butter in a packet that I had for lunch that day. It hit the spot in a more satisfying way than any food ever has. It was during lunch that we spotted two more goats, and my brother snapped a photo that enabled me to make my very own meme about the aggressive urine drinking goats of the Cascades...
You can check out my brothers far superior photos at his Flickr HERE. I really recommend you do that, because my photos taken with my phone do not do the landscape justice.
At the top, it was pretty cool. If you think of the words alpine and tundra, that is pretty much what this was. Small snow lakes scattered in a granite wasteland with snow patches and very little vegetation. Throw in the glaring sun and I felt like an idiot for thinking I wouldn't need my sunglasses (or sunscreen for that matter, a choice I would deeply regret later that night).
Blissfully, this part was pretty flat, although the sun was really giving me a headache. We saw a lot of cool things. Water was flowing everywhere, and we had to scramble through snow a number of times.The coolest thing, and I still can't get over this, WE SAW A BADGER. An honest to God wild badger. I was so excited, the little dude was just sitting on top of a rock. I shouldn't say little, he/she was huge. Before I could snap a picture though, they ran off into a hole. A bit more camera shy than the goats...
Eventually we started to make our way down the other side of the mountain and upon a bunch of lakes with names like "Lake Perfection" and "Inspiration Lake". Yea someone was a little too literal with the naming here.
There started to be actual trees, and some shrubs, and lots of good old fashion mud. You can't tell in this picture, but the shallow water in this lake was crystal clear. It was actually kind of freaky how clear it was. I wanted to go into it so bad, but as we still had like 5 miles to go and the sun was not going to wait for us, that would have been a poor choice.
Just an FYI, we were hardly the only people on the trail. Even though you need a permit to camp in this area, it is completely open to day hikers. There was TONS of people. One group was headed to the same place we were, and we had the (dis)pleasure of following them almost all the way there, until we managed to pass them with a few miles to go.
This strip of the trail was actually quite lovely. We were walking on relatively flat land and there was the most gorgeous lakes and ponds in every direction. The bluest water you had ever seen, and the moon was shining over head.
We saw so many more goats, bringing the total to 10. Then we entered a fresh new hell, as we got to the other side of the mountain and had to head down to Snow Lake.
When I say down..I mean down. This part was actually kind of frightening. The "trail" was extremely steep down a cliff basically. We had to have complete concentration with every single tiny step we took, which was mentally and physically exhausting. It was very painful on my knees and my jaw because I was clenching in the entire time.
After to Aasgard pass, this is the part that took the longest. As Emily put it "There is no photo or way you can describe to people to make them understand how intense this is". She said this as I was trying to take pictures to do just that.
The sun was setting, so that added to the drama of it all, as we needed to set up camp before it got dark. Eventually we made it to the bottom, and the trail leveled out. We could walk like human beings again, and I was ready as heck to be off my feet.
After what felt like from here to eternity, we made it to the lake, and after hella more walking to find a camp site, we set up camp quickly, refilled our water, and SAT DOWN. We actually had a really nice campsite, minus something that I would discover later. It was a little piece of land that jutted out over looking the lake. We had gone 11 miles that day. It felt like a lot more.
After we had stopped moving and were digging into the burritos we had brought with us for dinner, I started to feel...off. Near the end of my burrito I started to feel really sick. Matt tried to force me to finish it, for obvious reasons. You don't want food smelling up your camp site and attracting animals, but after admitting to him it was making me sick, he let it go. I decided that maybe what I needed was to lay down, so I head into the tent.
Emily and I were sharing the tent while Matt was in his hammock a few feet away. Emily and I listened to podcasts on her phone for a few hours, and I did not feel better. I eventually decided I needed to walk it off a little (ironic since that is what I had been doing all day), and got up to wander around the camp in the dark.
That is when I saw them. MICE. MICE EVERYWHERE. We had unknowingly set up on top of a mice colony. They didn't go into our stuff, just were running around. They stared at me and I stared back. Little monsters.
Even though I felt awful, being out gave me the opportunity to see the stars. Emily, from inside the tent, asked me if there were "crazy stars". Well, there were not crazy stars, just a little bit more than I was used to back in upstate NY. The new additional stars were not super bright, they kind of looked like white twinkly mist with the closer ones. The mountain next to use was glowing white (presumably from the moon light although I could not see the moon anymore), and the lake was a perfect reflection pool. In the distance I saw a rotating search light from the nearby town of Leavenworth. (Something Emily looked up after, and was apparently for a man who had been missing for months. A man who's body they found a few days after our hike. ugh)
It was other worldly, and also ccoolldd, so I eventually went back into the tent. I got up two more times to try to walk off my misery. The last time I got up, Matt had woken up. He had fallen asleep quickly and easily hours beforehand, and was startled to see me wandering around. He scolded me for not drinking more water. So I went back to the tent to get more water, and then became 100% certain that I was about to vomit. I very quickly got my shoes back on, darted out of the tent, and walked briskly away from the camp behind a large rock to throw up, which I did...all over my shoes.
Yup kids, I had sun poisoning. Sun poisoning side affects (including vomiting), can sometimes take hours after you have left the sun to occur. After it was over I felt ssoo much better. Poor Matt walked by me with a little shovel in hand to bury it. Bless him. I stayed out in the dark for a little bit longer to make sure I was fine, then went to bed. I wish I could say I slept like a rock, but that did not happen. I was tossing and turning all night. Needless to say I was the first one awake in the morning. It was nice though, I got to see the sunrise...
DAY ONE
My brother's girlfriend (Emily) managed to win the lottery and get a one night pass to camp at Snow Lake in The Enchantments, a section of the Cascade Mountains (yes, there is an actual lottery for these passes that you have to enter). I was told over and over that this was one of the most remarkable hikes, and that many backpackers dream of getting this opportunity. I was excited, but very nervous. I was also told it was one of the most difficult hikes around. Because of reasons, I was not in the best shape going into this, so I knew it was going to be a challenge...We left bright and early at 5:45am to get to the trail head, 2 hours away, before the sun was too high in the sky. The drive was nice. We got to watch the sun rise over various parts of Washington as we drove, and we made it to the trail head on schedule. It was a lovely cool morning, and the beginning of the trail was very flat, which gave me the opportunity to get used to having a heavy pack on my back. I have to say the worst part about that thing was unexpected. The grinding into my hip bones throughout the entire trip left bruises that took days to go away.
Eventually the elevation began to climb, and I started to get more and more anxious about what was coming: Aasgard Pass. I had not heard of Aasgard Pass before, but it is a well known feature of this particular trail. 2300ish feet in one mile. This is a quote from the Washington Trail Association about it:
"Thiis “shortcut” to the Enchantments Core Zone refers only to mileage. As far as miles per hour goes, Aasgard may be one of the slowest hikes you attempt. Achieving the pass is a thigh-burning, chest-bursting, eye-popping endeavor that offers as many extraordinary views as beads of sweat that will fall from your brow as you ascend nearly 2000 feet in just three-quarters of a mile." x
This mountain pass is what makes this hike so formidable...for the most part. There is some other stuff I will get to later that also made it very difficult.
We made it up to a beautiful lake, Colchuck Lake, and could see Aasgard pass on the other side. (Sorry for the crappy photo quality. I did not bring my nice camera on this trip as A) my brother high-jacked the battery for his camera and B) it was too heavy/bulky to take with.)
My brother thought it would be easy going around the lake to the pass....it was not. It was..interesting. There was a lot of up and down over little mounds and rocks, but right before the pass there was the remains of an avalanche. This resulted in us literally scrambling over MASSIVE boulders. It was unexpected, and turned out to be preparation for what awaited us on the pass.
My strategy was to go my own pace, and not worry about trying to go the same speed as Matt and Emily. Matt told me if I fell, to scream loudly. Sage advice. On the Washington trail website, it recommends not doing this pass if you have a poor center of gravity and have a heavy pack on. This is for a good reason. It was basically another avalanche field with massive rocks and boulders, but at a 80 degree angle.
Not to mention the scenery was INSANE. The mountains were being bathed in just the perfect light, and next to us was a ridge called "The Dragon's Tail". If I were to name mountains, they would all be dragon themed, but this one was particularly accurate.
After the 5 goats, not gonna lie, I was fading fast. We were only half way up and I was exhausted. I had never climbed anything for this long in my life, and was not ready for the quick wall of exhaustion I hit. My brother took to shouting out how far we had left, but the last 500 feet every single step was a fight with myself. The last 200 feet, I could barely move. I would take two steps and had to rest. It was pretty awful. I was sweaty, my hips were on fire, and I felt like I had nothing left in the tank. Eventually, we made it to the top (Matt and Emily several minutes before I did, let's be honest). I was rewarded with this view:
So yea, that was...not fun. We stopped pretty shortly after that to have lunch. I have never tasted anything better than the Clif bar and peanut butter in a packet that I had for lunch that day. It hit the spot in a more satisfying way than any food ever has. It was during lunch that we spotted two more goats, and my brother snapped a photo that enabled me to make my very own meme about the aggressive urine drinking goats of the Cascades...
At the top, it was pretty cool. If you think of the words alpine and tundra, that is pretty much what this was. Small snow lakes scattered in a granite wasteland with snow patches and very little vegetation. Throw in the glaring sun and I felt like an idiot for thinking I wouldn't need my sunglasses (or sunscreen for that matter, a choice I would deeply regret later that night).
Blissfully, this part was pretty flat, although the sun was really giving me a headache. We saw a lot of cool things. Water was flowing everywhere, and we had to scramble through snow a number of times.The coolest thing, and I still can't get over this, WE SAW A BADGER. An honest to God wild badger. I was so excited, the little dude was just sitting on top of a rock. I shouldn't say little, he/she was huge. Before I could snap a picture though, they ran off into a hole. A bit more camera shy than the goats...
Eventually we started to make our way down the other side of the mountain and upon a bunch of lakes with names like "Lake Perfection" and "Inspiration Lake". Yea someone was a little too literal with the naming here.
Just an FYI, we were hardly the only people on the trail. Even though you need a permit to camp in this area, it is completely open to day hikers. There was TONS of people. One group was headed to the same place we were, and we had the (dis)pleasure of following them almost all the way there, until we managed to pass them with a few miles to go.
This strip of the trail was actually quite lovely. We were walking on relatively flat land and there was the most gorgeous lakes and ponds in every direction. The bluest water you had ever seen, and the moon was shining over head.
We saw so many more goats, bringing the total to 10. Then we entered a fresh new hell, as we got to the other side of the mountain and had to head down to Snow Lake.
When I say down..I mean down. This part was actually kind of frightening. The "trail" was extremely steep down a cliff basically. We had to have complete concentration with every single tiny step we took, which was mentally and physically exhausting. It was very painful on my knees and my jaw because I was clenching in the entire time.
After to Aasgard pass, this is the part that took the longest. As Emily put it "There is no photo or way you can describe to people to make them understand how intense this is". She said this as I was trying to take pictures to do just that.
The sun was setting, so that added to the drama of it all, as we needed to set up camp before it got dark. Eventually we made it to the bottom, and the trail leveled out. We could walk like human beings again, and I was ready as heck to be off my feet.
After what felt like from here to eternity, we made it to the lake, and after hella more walking to find a camp site, we set up camp quickly, refilled our water, and SAT DOWN. We actually had a really nice campsite, minus something that I would discover later. It was a little piece of land that jutted out over looking the lake. We had gone 11 miles that day. It felt like a lot more.
After we had stopped moving and were digging into the burritos we had brought with us for dinner, I started to feel...off. Near the end of my burrito I started to feel really sick. Matt tried to force me to finish it, for obvious reasons. You don't want food smelling up your camp site and attracting animals, but after admitting to him it was making me sick, he let it go. I decided that maybe what I needed was to lay down, so I head into the tent.
Emily and I were sharing the tent while Matt was in his hammock a few feet away. Emily and I listened to podcasts on her phone for a few hours, and I did not feel better. I eventually decided I needed to walk it off a little (ironic since that is what I had been doing all day), and got up to wander around the camp in the dark.
That is when I saw them. MICE. MICE EVERYWHERE. We had unknowingly set up on top of a mice colony. They didn't go into our stuff, just were running around. They stared at me and I stared back. Little monsters.
Even though I felt awful, being out gave me the opportunity to see the stars. Emily, from inside the tent, asked me if there were "crazy stars". Well, there were not crazy stars, just a little bit more than I was used to back in upstate NY. The new additional stars were not super bright, they kind of looked like white twinkly mist with the closer ones. The mountain next to use was glowing white (presumably from the moon light although I could not see the moon anymore), and the lake was a perfect reflection pool. In the distance I saw a rotating search light from the nearby town of Leavenworth. (Something Emily looked up after, and was apparently for a man who had been missing for months. A man who's body they found a few days after our hike. ugh)
It was other worldly, and also ccoolldd, so I eventually went back into the tent. I got up two more times to try to walk off my misery. The last time I got up, Matt had woken up. He had fallen asleep quickly and easily hours beforehand, and was startled to see me wandering around. He scolded me for not drinking more water. So I went back to the tent to get more water, and then became 100% certain that I was about to vomit. I very quickly got my shoes back on, darted out of the tent, and walked briskly away from the camp behind a large rock to throw up, which I did...all over my shoes.
Yup kids, I had sun poisoning. Sun poisoning side affects (including vomiting), can sometimes take hours after you have left the sun to occur. After it was over I felt ssoo much better. Poor Matt walked by me with a little shovel in hand to bury it. Bless him. I stayed out in the dark for a little bit longer to make sure I was fine, then went to bed. I wish I could say I slept like a rock, but that did not happen. I was tossing and turning all night. Needless to say I was the first one awake in the morning. It was nice though, I got to see the sunrise...
DAY TWO
We all eventually got up and around, and I was very excited to get food in my belly. The sun started to creep up over the mountain, but was being blocked from hitting us directly. The result that the mountain to the west of us was being hit with rose-gold colored light.
It was unbelievably beautiful. I discovered from Matt and Emily that I was the only one who did not sleep well, which was sad...for me. We quickly cleaned up camp and left it just how we found it. Heading off, we believed it would be a quick 6 miles around to the parking lot.
It was mostly downhill, and easy downhill compared to the CLIFF we had descended the day before. My pack was about the same weight as it had been the day before, but I didn't mind. I did mind how I smelled though. I don't care that everyone smelled. I couldn't smell everyone else. I could smell me though, and I smelled STANKY.
On the way down we saw more gorgeous lakes...
An immense pipe pumping water out of the mountain (we suspected from Snow Lake as the water level had been very low compared to the surrounding lakes)
And our final two goats! Bringing the goat total up to 12! This was the closest we got to any of the goats, as they were right on the same trail as us, and there was a wall of rocks to the left, and a cliff to the right. We just kind of tucked as far to the left as we could and let them pass.
We walked through a lot of really nice, pleasant forest. Matt was as dedicated to taking photos as ever..
That balance. The funny story about this picture though, is that while it was happening there was a squirrel death match going on next to us. Two squirrels were just going at it. Throwing each other out of trees, biting, viciously attacking. It was quite the sight.
Eventually we moved on from the murderous squirrels and headed off as quickly as we could. Honestly the rest wasn't that interesting. We power walked through the woods, down down the rest of the way into a valley. We believed it was 6 miles back, and because of my brother's fancy watch we knew how far we were going. It was not 6 miles. At 6 miles we clearly had quite a ways to go. I was tired and hungry at six miles, and was ready to be in a car. It turned out to be 8 miles back to the parking lot, and it was getting pretty hot by the time we got to the end. I was ready for it. I smelled, I still had vomit on my shoes, I was extremely hungry, it was time.
Roughly three hours later I was back at home, clean, and laying in my bed fast asleep. For a first backpacking trip, it was pretty intense. I am really glad I have that experience, and I got to see and do all the amazing things we did. I was very proud of myself for how well I did, and that no matter how tired I was I still managed to put one foot in front of the other. It was a good experience with Matt and Emily, and now I can say I have done it.
I am not sure I would ever do it again though. I think I have gotten backpacking out of my system for maybe a few years at least....we will see how I feel about it next year. If I ever do go backpacking again, I don't think I ever want to do it on such a challenging hike. Something gentler perhaps. Way...way gentler.
Well if you read this all the way through: Awesome! Thanks! I am glad I could take you through this journey with me, and I hoped you enjoyed reading it! Till next time!