Tuesday, August 06, 2013

The Enchantments

The Enchantments are beautiful and magnificent and very, very enchanting. Living in the middle of them for a day or two is another situation in which photos and words fall short, but of course you take 500 pictures anyway and try to describe what you've seen because adventures like this are meant to be remembered and shared.

Something else about the Enchantments is this: it's a ton of work getting there! I pitched quite a fit as we were marching back down to civilization - one might think, as I did, that going down would be so much easier than going up, but hahaha! think again! - and told Jan Michael I was done messing around in the Enchantments forever, but then... he fed me ice cream in Leavenworth and I rested for a few days and saw pictures of what it looks like up there in the fall, with all of the trees turning the most brilliant shade of yellow, and... I changed my mind :)

But back to the beast mode it requires to get to the top: we climbed 6.5 miles and 4100 feet to get to Snow Lake, which is where we set up camp for two nights, but we climbed another 1400 feet on a day hike to reach Lake Viviane, which is still only the lower end! If we do decide to go back another time, we'll hike in from the other side, which means we'll be able to explore much more of the Core Zone; as it was, there wasn't enough time (or energy, really) to get any higher up.

Anyway, let's get to the pictures! The first few were taken bright and early, right before we started - because bright and early is the only sane way to start, believe us - and also before we looked like something the cat dragged in.
This is, I think, about 1/4 of the way up, and can you even handle the handsome?! Me neither!
Here we were almost to Snow Lake, but not quite, and at this point any spryness we'd felt at the beginning had long flown out the window. But!! Look at the view! 
And then, finally, we arrived! Home, sweet home :)
As Derek says, "To go from barely alive to Superman in 30 seconds, apply alpine lake!"
Derek has most of the rest of the pictures, so once he hands over the goods, we'll get to our time with the lovely Lake Viviane and the trek back down.  

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