[John Morrow]

We were one of three parties able to find an all snow line off the summit of Colchuck yesterday back through the Col and down to the lake, for a nice 3000 feet descent. Note: unfortunately all my pics for the day were with a foggy lens that I never picked up on. We were sure "talking the talk" on Thursday night about an Enchantment trip, but our crack of 9:15AM departure from the Stuart Lake trailhead had us wondering about our true level of ambition. Dave, bless his heart, chose to try it out on an ankle he rolled in a basketball game earlier this week. All went well for him in his tennis shoe approach to Colchuck Lake. FYI: almost no snow all the way to the 5000 foot mark on the Colchuck Lake trail, then 2/3 well compacted snow coverage for the final 1/2 mile to the lake. We found dozen or so blowdowns to negotiate on the way in that the USFS trails folks or a wilderness ranger must have come in and logged out (bucked and removed) while we were up on the snow! That made for a much pleasant hike out with the skis on our packs. Back to the trip: once at the lake, Dave threw his ski boots on and quickly realized there was no way he could handle the boot pressure on the swollen ankle. So he opted to head back. Usual laborsome booting around the lake shore, then able to ski from the base of the slope. Skinning went well on less than an inch of thaw at around noon---precisely when we should have been descending, not ascending! With ski crampons we were able to comfortably skin the entire glacier to the Col.

getting started

long way to go

above the moraine

Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA

IMG_4050

arriving at col; Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA

From the col we followed a nice boot pack through the steep roll over and then continued on skis to the summit. Days of a complete line off the summit are seriously numbered--like tomorrow or the next day could be it. Not that it isn't still worth a couple brief carry-overs for lots of great skiing.

Dragontail sw gully--another time

peek at Argonaut

Pete Townsend air guitar

Jake arrives

Hi Jack and Eightmile

The south side steep step above the col was absolute mush that we were able to easily send hissing down. Still turnable though, we quickly arrived back at the col.

sending the growlers

steep, soft, and heavy

back to the col

The run from here was absolutely awesome on smooth corn, even if we were a couple hours late! From 8000 to 6500 ski penetration was a couple to three inches, increasing to up to 4 inches from the 6500 foot moraine area to the lake.

First turns

great snow!

into the roll over; Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA

Colchuck Col, Alpine Lakes Wilderness. WA

dropping down

middle part, moraine bowl

it keeps on going

big moraine

Dragontail face

looking back up

Ready to hike out

For a couple of lazies, overstuffed on a big slow-cooked breakfast, Jake and I did OK to make a summit out of the day. Incidentally, it was also my 100th Trip Report next door on TAY!

[polarbear]

Great photos! Looks like a fun trip. The melting progress of Colchuck can be measured againts Magellan's report five days previous.