Trip to the Enchantments

Emily and I had been talking about going to climb Prussik Peak in the fall for a couple of years now, and finally had the chance to head up into the Enchantments during the relativly quiet middle of the week.

We got lucky at the Levenworth ranger station and were actually able to get permits to camp. We were only half expecting ot be able to do this, and even mid-week, got the permits because somebody with reservations had just cancelled.

We had an amazing sunny day for the hike in, and throughly enjoyed the long approach. When we reached Snow Lakes, we ran into some surveyers who had been helecoptered in to survey the damn between the lakes. They had a pretty extravigant camp set up, and I made use of their fancy helicoptered-in toilet while Emily stood guard. At the time I didn't realise that it wasn't the forest service toilet that I was using, but Emily did, and failed to tell me until she saw a surveyer comming to use his facilities.

The water level was really low at the lower lakes

Arrival at lake Vivian was like stumbling into Eden. The sun was low in the sky and the granite rimmed lake was perfectly still and clear. We found an excellant camp spot and set up the tent. Tired from the hike in, we were happy to sit annd watch the sun dissapear behind the mountains.

Emily looking up at Prussik from Lake Vivian.

As we were preparing to sleep, we heard a noise outside. It's a pika, I told Emily. She didn't believe me and went out to look for herself. "No! It's a mountain lion!" She excitidly reported back, "A whole family!" A mountain lion?! Emily was so excited she mistook the work "lion" for "goat." We peed on the rocks and let the family lick it up. A good symbiosis.

Emily's hair could sense the bad weather approaching.

We had the intent of climbing Prussik the next morning, but instead woke to the patter of sprinkles and the roaring of wind on the tent. We hung around for a few hours peeing into the wind, trying to entice the goats and wait out the weather, but saw that it wasn't improoving so we decided to begin the long hike down.

Emily walking amidst trees charred from a past fire.

We were happy to know that we'd be forced to come back another time.