Joined: 03 Jun 2003 Posts: 428 | TRs | Pics Location: Here
Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:13 pm Upper Enchantments
Saturday we hiked up over Aasguard Pass to the first couple of lakes in the Upper Enchantments Basin. Round trip was about 13 miles with roughly 4600' elevation gain. The climb to Aasguard Pass from Colchuck Lake is the hardest part with about 2200' gained in a little over a mile. It was a tough hike, but worth it for the view. As we came back down the storm started to move in. As we crossed back over Aasguard, cloud fingers were moving in between the peaks and snow began to fall softly. Looking down on Colchuck lake as the snow fell was beautiful.
Would you recommend ice axe or crampons for the upper parts of the enchantments? Not necessarily looking at climbing anything maybe just going from the colchuck trailhead to the snow lakes trailhead.
There's usually water running over this part which is on the way down to Snow lake, so if it's frozen you will need crampons, rope, a helicopter and a lot of praying. I aint never going up there if it's icy and if I get stuck up there when it's covered in ice I'll just wait till next summer. Sometimes I exagerate, a little.
Borrowed from Spotly's website/trip report.
There are a couple of other areas of sloping slickrock.
Coasty, once the snow melts out you don't need ax or crampons to hike thru any part of the trails for a through-hike. Of course, with all the new snow in the forecast coming down to Snow Lakes will be treacherous if wet; lots of down-sloping slabs, some with exposure.
Beginning of August '05 we were able to scramble Cannon, Enchantment, Little A and McClellan without encountering any snow. Only needed them for the remnant glacier on Dragontail. In fact, I did the entire trip in sneakers--gregor even did Enchantment Pk in tevas! This was the trip which made me a convert to swapping sneakers for boots for many trips since.
Thanks, yeah the weather is going to change a lot here soon.. Thinking about going up there once the permit season is over. Just want to have the right stuff when I head up.
Joined: 03 Jun 2003 Posts: 428 | TRs | Pics Location: Here
Mon Oct 01, 2007 9:22 pm
We didn't encounter any snow/ice that we couldn't avoid. We didn't have an ice axe or crampons. It started to snow as we were leaving, though, and the weather report had snow for the rest of the week. I'm sure the conditions have changed considerably these last couple of days.
There's usually water running over this part which is on the way down to Snow lake, so if it's frozen you will need crampons, rope, a helicopter and a lot of praying. I aint never going up there if it's icy and if I get stuck up there when it's covered in ice I'll just wait till next summer. Sometimes I exagerate, a little.
Borrowed from Spotly's website/trip report.
We came out of the the Enchantments yesterday. The rebar section shown was very sketchy while using our trekking poles and wearing full packs. The bottom six(?) bars were iced and slushed over forcing us to the side (right side of pic) on the bare wet rock to finish the stretch down. Had we had no poles I hate to imagine what our odds would have been. Given all the moisture moving through I wouldn't tackle that now this season unless you have proper equipment. The ranger we talked to earlier on our trip mentioned shore-scrambling the long way around Lake Viviane to avoid that section. It definitely looked like a big effort to do that.
Came out of the the Enchantments yesterday. The rebar section shown was very sketchy while using our trekking poles and wearing full packs. The bottom six(?) bars were iced and slushed over forcing us to the side (right side of pic) on the bare wet rock to finish the stretch down. Given all the moisture moving through I wouldn't tackle that now this season unless you have proper equipment. The ranger mentioned shore scrambling around Lake Viviane to avoid that section. It definitely looked like a big effort to do that.
Thanks for the update. We'll either turn around and head back down or take proper gear.
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