Did a one night backpacking trip through the Enchantments. Parked one car at the Snow lake trailhead. The road to this trailhead is totally fine. Any car can get here. But as you head to the Stuart lake trailhead the road turns into gravel at some point and is full of potholes and I would recommend a high clearance vehicle. That said there were normal clearance vehicles and even BMW sedans at the trailhead. So it's your call. We left the other car here and took a shuttle that we had reserved to get back to the Snow lake trailhead. One thing that I wish I had known was that the Stuart lake trailhead had parking spots reserved for people with an overnight backpacking permit. So even at 11 AM on Monday there were a couple of parking spots available at the Stuart lake trailhead if you had an overnight permit. The snow lake trailhead also had spots available at 11 AM, but I don't remember if those were also reserved for permit holders. Also saw a couple of cars parked along the road here and a lot of cars parked along the road at the Stuart lake trailhead.
We hiked from Snow lake trailhead to Stuart lake trailhead. The trail gets steep as soon as you begin. And the sun was burning us too as the trail was pretty much exposed the first 2-3 miles. We were glad to get to the first stream (2 something miles) because we were starting to run low on water. But after that we were mostly under tree cover until Nada lake and the hike was a breeze. I really like going up this way. It is a bunch of switchbacks to get your heart pumping fast and then some straight not so steep sections to let it calm down before you hit the next set of switchbacks.
There were two mountain goats blocking the trail at one point. One of them moved away as we approached. The other one did not. Maybe that was Frank? Or the goat version of Gandalf the White? You shall not pass! We moved very slowly towards the goat while making sounds and tapping our hiking poles on the ground and when we got close to like an arm distance, the goat finally let us pass.
After you cross Nada lake and start going up, make sure to look back and see the views of the lake from the top with the valley and mountains around it! Camped at the far end of Snow lake the first night. Mosquitoes were pretty bad in the evening despite the bug spray, but fortunately they left us alone after nightfall. Crossing the dam at snow lake was fun. We were glad we had waterproof shoes.
We woke up around sunrise, packed camp and started heading up to the core area. This was also steep enough to keep our heart rates up for the most part, but at least the sun wasn't too bad this early in the morning. Route finding was okay here with just the cairns and we didn't have to use the map in my phone. It was starting to get hot when lake Viviane came into view and then I just forgot everything else because it was the most beautiful place I had ever been to!
I am not going to describe too much about the core area and spoil the surprise. Route finding was fine if you even had a picture of the map from the forest service website. The trail is mostly flat, but we took our time here as it was so beautiful. Filled up our water right before Colchuck pass and headed to the top of Asgard. The view up here is also phenomenal.
Unfortunately the hike got much more difficult from here. The casual strolling quickly turned to trying to find footing with 40 pounds on the back. Hiking poles definitely helped here. The gravel is loose, but if you take your time and be careful, you should be okay. We were relying on cairns for route finding, but at some point realized that there are multiple routes marked by cairns. And some of them are not so doable with a bulky pack. If you have a map on your phone, it would be wise to follow the trail instead of just going by the cairns. We got ourselves a bit lost and ended up having to bushwack/make some risky jumps with our packs, but eventually got down to Colchuck lake.
There is a boulder field to cross before you can get to the other end of Colchuck lake and following the cairns was good enough here. But as it was getting dark, spotting the cairns was also starting to get harder. The trail also become a little confusing after that with side trails that lead to campsites and view points. So having a map on the phone helped. Once past Colchuck lake it was smooth sailing though. Just a moderate grade downhill walk. There are plenty of river crossings on the way to fill up water as well.
Overall a challenging hike but oh so worth it! We were left enchanted!
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