Enchantments - October 18-19, 2008

What better remedy for obsessive refreshing of FiveThirtyEight.com than a weekend in the mountains with good friends and too much alcohol?  With pre-election chicanery driving me slowly mad, we finally managed to pull together our long-planned weekend in the Enchantments, a series of alpine lakes and peaks in the Stuart Range outside of Leavenworth.

The trip had gone through a couple of transformations.  At first we'd planned it as a climbing trip.  Jen and Anastasia would head up Prussik's West ridge, while BJ and I (fresh off the Colchuck Balanced Rock fiesta) would climb the South face and meet them on the top.  As mid-October rolled around and early cold weather set in, it morphed into a backpacking trip, which quickly became a backpacking party.  Or even a rave, though we lacked Ecstasy.  We had a glow stick though, so that must count for something.

The Northgate liquor store and the nearby QFC supplied the following:  one bottle of Rioja, one fifth of Jack Daniels, three Cokes, one jumbo Fosters, three 20 ounce Young's Double Chocolate Stout.  The Jack was pared down to about 1/3 of a liter.  Our party plans were ambitious!  Go big or go home, as they say.

We climbed to Colchuck Lake and into the Enchantments in perfect fall weather.  Cool enough to hike comfortably in a t-shirt, but not so cold that we couldn't enjoy the slow unfolding of autumn along the way.  As the sun dipped down behind Dragontail, what little warmth the day had held dissipated quickly into the clear sky above and we dropped our packs on a small isthmus between two lakes, just below Little Annapurna.

The rest of the evening was a wonderful swing between eating, drinking and laughing.  A round of hot drinks and lots of warm clothes kept us outside in the stars while we ate our dinner, but we soon retreated to the Lunar Landing Module (LLM), Jen and BJ's enormous, hermetically-sealed Moss tent.  Once all four of us were inside, the bartender served up beverages while crafting speakers for his iPod earbuds out of shot glasses and flask funnels... at least until the iPod's battery froze.  Forced to recline for maximum comfort, we soon began to drift to sleep.  Except for BJ, who kept working on the wine and rocking out to Jen's 80s greatest hits.

As hoped, the morning was clear and windless and the early sun washed the valley with orange light.  Our little lake had a half inch ice crust, which I peppered with stones while my tentmates crawled like sandworms onto the rocks, to warm themselves for the day.  We took our time breaking camp, walking down toward Prussik over the rolling granite slabs -- it really is like a moonscape.  I've got plans to come back and do a ski tour up here sometime soon.   What a treat that would be!

[singlepic=584,320,240,,]After a close encounter with a mountain goat (and a failed attempt by Anastasia to stuff it in her jacket), we pounded down Aasgard to Colchuck Lake.  It would be a lot more fun on skis, but it was over eventually and the long stroll to the car went by in good time.  We had a leisurely meal at Gustav's before rolling home.  Great weekend.

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