[Go Jo]

I had all sorts of fun ideas for the TR theme of this trip, it seemed so easy with a place full of gnomes & druids & goats. Then our adventure had some unexpected road bumps of it's own that lent well to a 'He Said/She Said' trip telling reminiscent of A Blistered Kind of Love. But in the end it felt wrong to add any embellishment to our first visit into the Enchantments, it was so inherently amazing that it didn't need a costume to head out onto the NWHikers stage. I'll rely on my less geographically challenged trip mates** to provide the details of our routes, until then please enjoy the visual journey ~Jo Highlights: Colchuck Lake, Aasgard Pass, Enchantment Lakes, Cannon Mountain, Gnome Tarn, Druid's Plateau, Prusik Pass, Little Annapurna

Solitary Squishy since Scooter went back to the Bend

Always bring a camera when going to filter water, even the chores had eye popping views here.

3 in a tent? Drama ensued.

Be very, very afraid.

Boulder fields blow. Little did I know what it would be like on the way home - in the rain.

Camo in Effect

We resided on the cliffs above Crystal Lake.

Camera Man

Watching You Watching Me

Beginner Horns

There's an awful lot of giggling in there, time to settle down.

Sleep tight, don't let the martens bite.

Good thing we knew sunrise was somewhere between 5am and 7am.

Breaking Dawn

Crazy Clouds

Forgive me for the abundance of sunrise pics, it was hard to cut down from the nearly 100 shots!

At least I know the mountain's name.

Gnome Tarn ~ like the name, love the reflection.

The Enchantments are not for the faint of goat.

Product Placement

Life's Highlights

There wasn't a bad seat in the house, but the wind sheltered spots were preferable.

They were awfully polite considering we were in their hood.

This place is simply gorgeous.

Get UP! Get UP!

Cue Ominous Music

Photo for my family in case I didn't make it down Aasgard with limbs intact

Walk this way... or maybe that way. Picking a path was a matter of watching where the person in front of you slipped and fell.

Drip drip drop but it was still pretty

Still want more eye candy? While there were over 800+ photos on my memory card when I got home, I promise I pared them down for Flickr: Enchanted Adventure 9~2010 **Special thanks to GeoTom for being the BIG WINNER in this year's permit lottery, to Ingunn for acting as a tour guide to all things beautiful on the map and to ZeusDaddy for training on Mailbox Peak all season so he would have the legs to rectify his tent poles oversight. I had the absolute time of my life!

[zeusdaddy]

"The Mailman is of course climbing the BOX. But when he gets back his pics and story can go here." -Jo EDIT: Here's the GPS track that shows our route up Cannon and Little Annapurna:

Here's some of my pics. The rest can be found at: flickr

Colchuck Squishy

Mid-Morning Reflections

There was much of this

Isolation Lake

Watch Out!

Pano of Inspiration Lake

... I'd live here too.

They were such posers

at Inspiration Lake

Little Annapurna

Ahhh.

It's that way

North Side of the Enchantment Peaks

Pano of the Druid Plateau

Our scramble route up Cannon

Quite the perch

Colchuck Peak and Mt Stuart

Prusik Peak

Gnome Tarn Reflections

from LIttle Annapurna

Josie on Little Annapurna

Tom is terrified!

Best seat in the house!

Pano from Little Annapurna

More bars in the weirdest places

Nighttime in camp

Awesome colors

Morning light on Dragontail

Morning Goat

I wish I had that kind of traction

Ingunn already misses the tent

You ready for this?

Steep

[GeoTom]

I'll come back later and post a few photos. Here are links to my flickr sets for the trip: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Thanks for a fun trip guys and gals. And thanks Ingunn for being a last minute subsitutution when Dani's work wouldn't grant her the time off.

[David¹]

Reserved for a sarcastic comment - I'll come back later when I think of one

[Ingunn]

I make a great second wife! My parents just arrived from Norway, but I'll post some pictures when they pass out from jetlag. EDIT: Ok, they're safely asnooze now, so here are my photos. Day one: We hiked up to Colchuck in a mild drizzle and decided to stay there for the night...which was fortunate since Scott realized that his tent poles were still back in North Bend. Eep! It would really have sucked if we had made it all the way up to the Enchantments before we found out. Now "all" Scott had to do was run back out, drive to the Bend and hike back in the next morning. Meanwhile, Josie and I spent a cozy night with Tom in his two-person tent (spooning, no forking).

Peeping Tom

Devil on my shoulder

Day two: Scott (avec poles) made it back, and we hiked up Aasgard. I choose to not remember this part of the trip. Safely up in the Enchantments basin, we enjoyed lunch by Brynhild and Reginleif, then mosied on down the string of lakes and eventually snagged the excellent campsite by the Crystal Lake overlook. Huzzah! After setting up the tents, we wandered down to the Magic Meadow. I had promised Jo lots of goats, so I was relieved to see a family of four posing for us in front of Prusik Peak. After the photo session we had dinner and a less cramped night's sleep.

Scott made it back safely with the ring, I mean the tent poles.

The views *almost* made up for the fact that my Pringles tube rolled off the lunch rock and the chips landed in a pile of goat poop.

Tpretty Ptarmigan

The Turning of the Larch

Tom and Talisman

Panorama in progress

Prusik goats

This is what we do

Handsome

They followed us, hoping for a taste of our salty fluids.

Larch grove

Good night, tent!

Day three: Josie and I got up at the crack of way-before-sunrise to freeze our hindquarters off for the sake of photography. We were rewarded with some redonkulous alpenglow, but next time I'll check sunrise times beforehand. After breakfast, the mens sped off to conquer Cannon while the wimmins explored Rune Lake and Gnome Tarn. Both genders reunited for an afternoon ascent of Little Annapurna (my new favorite peak ).

Temple sunrise

Enchanted Ninja

Alpenglow is better than coffee.

Upside down

Our objective for the afternoon.

Some Enchanted Marmot

Lots of views but no gnomes

Crystal Lake overlook

The Man Who Stares at Goats

Oh sorry, are we in your camp?

My second Top 100 peak, I'm closing in! ;^)

Josie rocks

I lurve this place

Day four: We woke up to a light dusting of snow on the last morning. I was content to sleep in, but suddenly Josie started yelling at me to get out of the tent. I stuck my head out and could see why - the alpenglow was so intense that the peaks looked like they were on fire. Many clicks later, we packed up (boo) and hiked out (boo). The top of Aasgard Pass was icy and interesting, and the boulder field was good and slippery in the pouring rain. Somewhere along the way I tweaked something in my knee/quad that made the last couple of miles absolute agony (and it still hurts like all hell, boo), but even that was worth it for this fantastic trip. Special thanks to Tom for letting me tag along!

Gadzooks!

Chilly camp

Goats enjoying the sunrise

Goats gots traction

...and the white-shouldered mountains they pointed above ♫

[twodogdad]

Amazing sunrise photos: those are harder to catch than alpenglow N

[Get Out and Go]

It looks very nice up there. Great sunrise (I like the tent too...I'm a long-time Sierra Designs gear fan )

[the Zachster]

Beautiful stuff! Those goats are a bunch of posers aren't they? Great shots!

[raising3hikers]

Thanks for sharing your great pics

[huron]

Looks like you all had fun. So many goats. We didn't see a single one on McClellan. They must know where to find the campers.

[kite]

Amazing photos

[Go Jo]

Scott gives his opinion on forgetting the tent poles and the solution of hiking out and driving home to get them.

ZDaddy, we demand photos and maps. Time to download the GPS... remember I know where you live!

Some things are better left in the dark.

GeoT, pics and Cannon route description or I start searching through the 'embarrassing moments' archives of the trip

[Dani]

Wish I had been there but, am enjoying your pictures! Darn work anyway..

[Karen²]

What do you get when you gather a bunch of photography minded geeks together to go on a hike? An outstanding collection of photos, that’s what! Go Jo, you have such a unique eye and perspective on things; I could never tire of looking at your compositions. And for the record I have nightmares that look exactly like photo #4. I love the baby goat photo, it is soooo sweet! Glad to hear zeusdaddy has caught the photo bug too, makes upgrades more fun when the whole family is involved. Ingunn, you always bring home stunning photos, nothing new there! And no one captions photos better than you. And that Tom guy, he’s just strange…but he does take the occasional good photo. Thank you all for enduring the cold and nasty weather to treat us with this visual feast!

[BarbE]

Just when you think you've seen all the great pictures of the "Chants" you guys come up with even better ones. Fun and entertaining TR, looking forward to more!