This year, I won permits to the Enchantments. I entered 4 lottery tickets and won 2 sets of permits. One set of Snow Lakes zone permits and a one set of core permits. Unfortunately at the time I applied, I had forgotten that I would be in California at the Muir Trail Ranch during the time of the core permits. Needless to say, I was pretty irritated with myself over this. I ended up selling the core permit to a friend whom I had listed as an alternate.
My friends Cheryl and Mike joined me on this trip. There were a couple other spots on the permit that I sold to someone on NWHikers that were going to join us but we never saw them. I later learned that they came in late and couldn't find us so they camped a few sites away. Thankfully a ranger didn't give them a ticket for camping without a permit.
This was my second trip to the Enchantments. My first trip resulted in me only going as far as Lake Viviane. I intended to go further this time, and we did indeed make it further. I really wanted to go as far as Aasgard Pass (or Ass-gard as my friends call it) but due to the heat and being in not the best shape of my life I only went as far as Inspiration Lake. Mike went on to do the whole thing though.
Our camp spot at Nada Lake was the same one I had used on the trip the previous year. For some reason, the bugs have seemed to be more tolerable at this lower elevation lake than up higher. The bugs in the core zone were pretty horrible when we hiked through and seemed to really like Cheryl. They were all over her and she ended up hiking with her bug net on for most of the second day while we were hiking up to the core.
There are several great write-ups and descriptions of the Enchantments online. I will dispense with further narrative except to say, this was another fine trip with a couple great folks to a beautiful area of my state. Instead, I leave you with a short video and some pictures of the trip.
With the exceptions of the first 7 or 8 pictures, the following images are all taken from the second day of the trip when we went to the upper core zone.
gorgeous photos, Jay!
Thanks Jane!