We are now officially on the road! We left Seattle on Saturday August 15 around 9:30AM. We said good-bye to our wonderful friends Greg & Laura, who had so graciously let us stay with them for the past two weeks, and after doing a few last-minute errands, we headed out for three days of backpacking in the Enchantments, near Leavenworth, WA.Over the last two weeks we'd been saying our last good-byes to our favorite Seattle people and places. I have lived in Seattle since 1995 and will always love it.
We drove from Seattle to the Snow Lake trail head for our trip to the Enchantments. For those not familiar with this area, it's a Wilderness Area in central Washington encompassing several glacier lakes. We used upper Snow Lake as a base camp and spent two nights there with a day hike on the second day to Aasgard Pass. Here is a brief map of the area, showing the "zones" and rough geography of the area.
The hike to Snow Lake was about 7 miles with 4,000 feet of elevation gain, and the day hike to Aasgard Pass was roughly another 8 or 9 miles (one-way!) with 3,400 feet of elevation gain. It was a very tiring few days, but the scenery was amazing, including lots of mountain goats. I won't go so far as to say it's the most beautiful hiking in Washington, but it probably does rank right up there.Here's slideshow of the trip. (Although I will say these pictures do not do the place justice. See pictures from my friends Kyle and Daniel who did the whole loop last year).
Now we are resting up from our hike at Jaimee's Aunt and Uncle (and Mom now too)'s house in Kamiah, ID. On tap for this week is floating down the river, and getting ready for our future WWOOFing by helping out on the "farm" around here. Jaimee's Aunt has 34 chickens and a huge garden.
Hey guys - glad you had a good backpacking trip in the Enchantments. I think we are going to attempt to do essentially the same thing this weekend (if we can get a last minute permit)! Sounds like you pushed pretty hard on that rough terrain up there. It is an amazing area. How do you like goats now? Where the bugs horrible still??
ReplyDeleteThe goats were very well mannered. They kept their distance and didn't seem too interested in us. They let us get very close to them...and only once did one move toward me as I crossed his path of food. The bugs were biting in the morning as the sun came up and in the evening as it sank. We only used the bug spray on the last morning since the bugs were "swarming" as Asa described it. If you go this weekend, have lots of fun!
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