[Jack's Mom]

Yeah but we were younger then and it didn't seem steep at all! Ha ha....

[Kim Brown]

They allowed helicopters too; and horses at Snow Lakes & Colchuck. And fires so abundant there was a smokey haze across the plateau and the larches were hacked up. And tents so plentiful the heather has not yet recovered from the trampling. And the weirs and the dam! O what a time it was! I remember air raid drills back in the day too. Nostalgia: I love it.

[jasonracey]

I'm a wilderness landscape photographer. I've been trying to get permits for as long as the lottery existed and have never succeeded. A couple of years ago I met a college kid from Oregon at Colchuck Lake who bragged about getting permits by having his non-hiking friends submit applications for him. No wonder long-time Cascade hikers like me can't get up there!

[HitTheTrail]

I was listing to the local KOHO radio station in Wenatchee yesterday when the DJ came on to announce the outdoor report that was upcoming in a few minutes. With a level of excitement and anxiety in his voice he said, “Enchantment permit applications have increased 10 fold and they are going fast”. WAT? Of course I had to stayed tuned to listen to that report. A spokesman from the FS came on and in a calm collected voice stated that permit applications were currently being accepted and a random draw would be held in March to select the winners. Yeah, they are really going fast all right. Now they are even sensationalizing hiking permits. Give me a break!

[joker]

The next story they ran after that probably had a title along the lines of "Ten Things In Your Kitchen That Can Kill You!!!"

[joker]

[Randito]

[Malachai Constant]

I was talking about the US particularly Seattle.

[Randito]

[Malachai Constant]

At the time none of these people would be considered "cool" eccentric, odd, radical, crazy, or stupid. Cool would be someone like The Great Gatsby Besides all the cool kids know Asgard Pass is the classy and sassy way to the Chants.

[Randito]

[Malachai Constant]

Do you know the meaning of cool? Especially in the 1920's of course it is self destructive, nihilistic, and excess. 1950s and 60's Jack Kerouac, Miles Davis, and Andy Warhol. Frequently addicted to something. Cool is dangerous James Bond, Jack Nicholson, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, and Jean Paul Belmondo. Yes I read Gatsby he was a fraud and a bit of a crook obsessed by a woman who was no good and he could not have.his death was a mistake based upon the thoughtlessness of others he was trying to impress. He did give great parties so it goes.

[Randito]

It is funny how popular culture can redefine the meaning of a word in to the opposite.

[kbatku]

I have a climber friend who was going up to the Enchantments back in the early 70's - he says the vegetation has changed radically since then due to the large number of goats eating everything in sight.

[HitTheTrail]

This guest opinion by Phil Cibicki was in the Wenatchee World paper today. In response to the Feb. 16 article, “Thousands applying for Enchantments overnight permits,” I am deeply saddened and outraged by the current situation in that area. As an experienced hiker and backpacker of almost 20 years now, I enjoyed my very first backpack trip at Colchuck Lake when I was 14. I will never forget the utter solitude I experienced while hiking up the trail to the lake. I will never forget the pristine turquoise-blue waters of the lake itself. And I will never forget the pure bliss I enjoyed with my friends there as we discovered what it meant to be free. Unfortunately, times have changed. I recently spoke to a co-worker who had a permit to camp overnight in the Enchantments last fall. What he described was utterly disgusting. Because there were so many vehicles in and around the parking area, he had to hike almost a half mile from where he parked his car just to begin his hike from the actual trailhead. On his way up to Colchuck Lake, he encountered well over a 100 people (he counted) coming down. Upon arriving at the lake, he noticed grocery bags floating within its waters. He even found beer cans and cigarette butts littering various campsites. What an absolute shame. I used to think the Alpine Lakes Wilderness was an actual wilderness. Now, I’m not so sure. In the Wilderness Act of 1964, the definition of wilderness is “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man” (Section 2c). It is also “an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence” (2c). It “generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable” (2c). And, it “has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive unconfined type of recreation” (2c). I can guarantee you that what is currently happening in the Enchantments area is not what the Wilderness Act’s authors had in mind. On a similar note, my entire family has been trying to apply for an Enchantments permit for the last three years. We have been unsuccessful. It was our hope that we would be able to experience such a beautiful place together. Regrettably, we have altogether given up, choosing not to apply this year. And for good reason: As the article that ran in The World last weeke explained, “over the last six years, applications have risen 647 percent, from 2,802 in 2011 to 20,920 in 2017”. I have some ideas about how to begin fixing some of these problems. For one, overnight permit lotteries should be divided into two groups: locals and non-locals. In this way, those who actually live in this area can be guaranteed a certain number of permits that are set aside for them only. As Mason Schuur, a recreation manager with the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest admitted in the article, “The population of Seattle — and Washington, in general — has been skyrocketing.” Also, overnight permit lotteries should utilize a point system that progressively weights those who have continuously and unsuccessfully applied over the years so that these “unlucky” people have a much better advantage at actually winning the lottery one of these days. It makes no sense to hand out permits to the same people that win them year after year. Finally, and it breaks my heart to suggest this, but something needs to be done about the excessive amount of day hikers in this area. I would suggest that even day use at the Colchuck/Stuart Trailhead be permitted. This would lower the astronomically high trail usage, the trash the people carelessly leave behind, and lessen the frequent encounters that occur on the trail and at the lake as well. Phil Cibicki grew up in Cashmere and lives in Wenatchee. He has loved the outdoors since childhood. In the summer, he is an avid hiker, backpacker and mountain biker. In the winter, he enjoys skate skiing, classic skiing and alpine skiing.