enchantment

I took an epic hike over Labor Day Weekend up to the legendary Enchantments. I haven't been able to tell you about it though, since I've been attending a lot of late night pajama parties at work. You know, music, sweat pants, pizza and CAD. Fun, fun, fun!

The short story about the hike: steep. 4100 feet of elevation gain the first day. 1700 feet the next day. Whew! We (Melissa, Claire, Jeff) camped at these high lakes, which were beautiful. Then we spent day 2 hiking up to higher lakes, and I mean higher. Up and over a massive ridge, and into a wonderland of tiny larch trees, granite domes and cascading lakes.

The Enchantments were one of the most striking places I have ever seen. And they are 20 minutes outside of Leavenworth. Plus a giant hike. It was sunny, it snowed, it blew wind and it was hot. Everything was extreme. The perfect end to a hiking season that for me, never really started up in the first place. Some years are like that.

The interesting part of the hike, was me getting dehydrated and worn out. I forgot to drink, since it was cold most of the time. I wasn't feeling well either, so I didn't eat enough towards the end of the trip. I woke up the 2nd morning, feeling like someone had let the air out of my tires. I took my sleeping bag to go and drug it out of the tent into the sun to lay down for a while. When we had to pack up, I got it all together and started off, slowly the way we came. I wondered how I was going to make the 6.5 miles, feeling mostly like I wanted to nap. Things got progressively worse until I was stopping my crawl every half mile to curl up alongside the trail and cry. Everybody demanded that I take everything out of my bag and they put it all in their bags. It was like auctioning off my dirty laundry. Somehow, through positive thinking and pumping my arms like I learned to do when training for the 400m, I made it back. I sucked down a milkshake in town, and lay catatonic in the car until I got home and went to bed.



Can you see the tent in this photo?