Back to School, Soccer, Football, Family Pictures, and THE ENCHANTMENTS

 The kids went back to school the day after labor day so we got some pictures of them

Mason finished another Lego build

Kim took the kids to a bike track and they had lots of fun

Nixon watched Cooper and had lots of fun with him. There weren't any pictures with Nixon though, so here is one with Mason

Nixon had his first soccer game of the season and his first ever game in goal

It was quite stressful

For Henry's soccer game he was the only defender that waited back instead of swarming the ball

Mason had a football game and played center

Henry helped make some lemon pancakes

A beautiful rainbow

We got family pictures taken

Grandma and Grandpa came for Henry's baptism

While Grandma and Grandpa were here Kim planned a trip for her and I to Leavenworth, WA so we could go on a bucket list hike. Leavenworth is Bavarian themed so it is a cool tourist town.

A big pretzel with cheese

Look at all those flowers

This is where we had dinner

Some schnitzel for dinner

And German chocolate cake for dessert

This is where we stayed 

We woke up at 4 am the next morning so we could get ready for the day and get to the trailhead to catch our shuttle to the starting point trail head.

When we started our hike around 5:30 am it was still dark and we had to hike with headlamps for 45 minutes

We set off that morning to hike The Enchantments. This is what they are: Widely regarded as the crown jewel of hiking in Washington, the Enchantment Lakes are an alpine wonderland of pristine lakes set among polished granite, soaring peaks, blazing larches and ambling mountain goats.

The hike is 22 miles long and took us 14 hours.

The first 4.5 miles is a hike to Colchuk Lake, one of the busiest and most visited lakes in the whole state

The terrain is quite rough with large boulders and rocks throughout

Our first view of the lake

We were feeling pretty good at this point

Hiking around the lake

This is Little Colchuk Lake, which is a small seemingly separate portion of the main lake

This is where we decided to rest and get a snack

The lake was beautiful even though the time of day (i.e. lighting) when we were there was not ideal. It was fairly early and the lighting was kind of dim.

behind me and just to the right you can see the pass that we will have to climb to get out from this lake, called Aasgard Pass

Catching our breath and eating some food

After our rest it was more hiking, this time through an enormous boulder field around the lake. It was hard to tell where to go, guided only by camouflaged cairns and climbing on, over, and through the boulders was exhausting.

This is a view from the far end of the lake

More boulders

Someone had to get in that cave

A view of the lake from the end

You can see Aasgard's Pass

Crossing a stream

After hiking 6.1. miles already we had to start Aasgard Pass. The pass is only 0.8 miles but it has about 2,000 feet of elevation gain. It is really steep, the trail is difficult to find/follow, and it is a brutal climb.

The only good part about the pass is that we were able to get increasingly beautiful views of Colchuk Lake

This is Dragontail Peak right next to Aasgard Pass

Don't let the smile fool you

We made it up into the snow. There was actually a snow storm with up to 2 feet of snow here only four days earlier. A 45 year old woman died because she and her husband got stuck on this pass. By the time search and rescue got to them she had passed and he had severe hypothermia. We found this out the day we arrived in Leavenworth 😕

Onward and upward

What a view

The snow only made things more difficult

Eventually we made it to the top of the pass in just under 2 hours and we were greeted by beautiful vistas and pristine lakes

We even saw some mountain goats

The views were breath taking. Honestly, one of the more disappointing parts of this hike is that we didn't have enough time to sit and enjoy the views because we had some many miles to cover and we had to keep moving

We did stop and get a bite to eat because we were starving and lunch sounded amazing

The goats were down at a lake getting a drink

There were so many lakes. There are about a dozen primary named lakes and dozens more smaller unnamed tarns.

This goat was right along the trail licking that huge boulder

We had to leave the trail and hike in the snow to keep some distance

This lake looked really cool

We stopped at this stream to filter some drinking water (although it probably didn't really need much filtration)

Kim soaked her feet

Then it was more hiking. 

The total elevation gain to get to the top of Aasgard Pass is 5,000 feet. However, after that you need to descend 7,000 feet over the next 14 miles.

The descent wasn't too bad though while we were still in the midst of these amazing lakes

Eventually though you get past the numerous lakes and then you have to lose elevation fast. This includes hiking down steep smooth pieces of granite. The granite fortunately has lots of grip. However, there are some parts where rebar has been glued down and drilled in, presumably to give something to grip to if the rock is wet.

The descent is very technical, whether it is the steep granite, large boulders, huge rocks, steep ledges, or exposed tree roots. Going down was very slow and very taxing on our bodies. It was also very difficult for long stretches to know exactly where the trail was so on top of the physical challenge, we were always unsure of where to go next, which was mentally exhausting. Luckily we had a premium Alltrails account with a downloaded offline map that we could reference to get us back on the trail when we strayed.

This is a toilet?

By this part of the hike we were past the most beautiful parts and just trying to get it done. We were exhausted. This picture was taken at 3:37 pm, which was almost 10 hours into the hike. To make matters worse, for whatever reason, the Alltrails App was not accurate in telling us how much time we had remaining so it was telling us we were not going to finish until after 10 pm (over 17 hours of hiking). That was really messing with me. Luckily I eventually figured out that estimate was wrong and once the terrain allowed us to speed up a little that estimate keep shortening and I realized that we just had to keep a good pace and it was all going to work out.

Even the ugliest parts of the hike were still impressive, but 10+ hours into the hike it was hard to keep that perspective

There was this massive moving water in the distance that seemed like a horizontal waterfall

We were so tired at this point (4:23 pm)

This is the last picture I took (5:30 pm)

We finished the hike 2 hours later (14 total hours, with only about 1 hour of cumulative breaks).

Here is a video of our 22 mile, 14 hour, hike

So what do I think about the hike now that I have had almost a week to recover?

It was beautiful. The scenery was unmatched. The lakes were amazing. The mountain goats were a treat. The snow, while making things more difficult, added an extra touch of beauty, like icing on a cake.

The hike was LONG and HARD. I had heard that the hike was hard. Everyone talked about how hard Aasgard Pass was. It was hard. Steep climbs up are always hard. But they are an expected hard. What was the most difficult was the steep descents. Many people say hiking down is harder than hiking up. Often they are speaking about joint pain and strain and the constant pounding on your knees when you are hiking down faster than you are hiking up. This hike was different. Rarely were we hiking down quickly. Instead, the hike down was painfully slow. It required methodical steps to ensure footing was adequate and constant stretching to reach down the boulder or ledge to the next. That is what I didn't expect. It was not only slow but also very technical and difficult. That made it very hard mentally as well because we were constantly watching the clock and the mileage, concerned about getting done before it turned dark or got cold (we literally got to the end as it was getting dark).

The hike to Colchuk Lake was worth it. The hike up Aasgard Pass was worth it because the next 2 miles (roughly from the top of the pass to Perfection Lake) was filled with beautiful lakes and breath taking views, while not being too difficult to navigate. The next 10 or so miles are not as enjoyable. That is where almost all of the elevation is lost and it is so hard.

I don't regret doing the hike. It was a good experience and it was fun to be there with Kim. I am not in a rush to get back though.

If I go back, I would at least consider hiking in the same way but eventually turning around and going back out the same way. That isn't really talked about for this hike, mostly because no one wants to have to hike down Aasgard Pass. However, while that would be a really steep descent, it would be much shorter than descending the way we did over 10 miles with more elevation loss. Who knows though, maybe when it comes time to do it again I will have a different memory of the hike and won't mind going through all the pain and misery all over again.

Take care