Enchantments- Colchuck Lake and Little Annapurna

20 miles of hiking • 5000' elevation gain • 3 nights

A friend had a permit for 3 nights at Colchuck and invited me to join. It's a long drive, almost 5 hours, but worth it for this gorgeous alpine area.

On the second day we went up Aasgard Pass to the Enchantment Lakes Basin. Since we only had day packs, it wasn't too difficult, we saw lots of goats, some gorgeous flowers, one fat marmot, a ptarmigan, and of course all the little lakes and surrounding granite peaks- Prussik, McClellan, Colchuck and Dragontail.

I took a side trip up Little Annapurna. This was easy travel, smearing on glacier scoured rock, with just a short steep kickstep path through snow to the flat meadowy summit. The top feels like Scotland, and gives amazing views to the south of Adams, Goat Rocks and Mt Rainer, plus a good look at Mt Stuart.

Going down Aasgard is not so fun. The last day, I grabbed my thermarest, a book, snacks and sunscreen and spent about 5 hours lounging around the little pond on the SW side of Colchuck Lake and followed this routine: Swim, read, nap, eat, repeat. Did some late afternoon scrambling below the Colchuck Glacier. Campsite in the trees was pretty buggy, so we would bring our food up to the nearby Heli-pad to enjoy the breeze and views of the lake and Dragontail Peak.