July 23-25 2011
On the weekend that I was supposed to hike the Chinook Pass to White Pass portion of the Pacific Crest Trail, I instead took advantage of space on a fellow Peninsula Wilderness Club member’s Enchantments permit. This year the snow has been excruciatingly slow to melt off and I figured it would be a safer bet to go to the Enchantments than to try and route find my way through 30 miles of snowy terrain. Joining me on the trip as my hiking partner was Craig Mecklenburg. The permit holder was Megan Thompson (no relation) and her father Russ Childers. The Enchantments are a set of high alpine lakes located in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness just SW of Leavenworth Washington. They are often called the most beautiful of Washington’s high mountain lakes. Obtaining permits for the Enchantments involves a lottery system and they can be hard to get. The best permits are for the core Enchantments, but anything is better than nothing. The permits we had were for the Snow Lakes zone.
