Me and three of my friends decided on hiking into the Enchanted Valley over our weekend, unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts two of us would have to do an overnighter. I was one of the ones who had to hike out the next night, and this was my first overnight/backpacking trip ever. I was excited, but nervous. WTA says the trail is 13 miles and 1800ft elevation, however, my Alltrails app clocked it at 14.5 and 2500ft. I definitely felt like I was doing more than 1800, but I had also never traveled this far, let alone with a pack on.
The road to the trailhead does turn to gravel for some miles, but we didn't see any potholes. Low clearance vehicles were all over the parking lot so any car should be fine.
The trail itself is absolutely stunning, unlike any other trail I had ever been to in the sense that it was so open. We kept walking in these huge meadows with the sound of the river to our right. It was magical. There are also many beautiful bridges along your journey, the last one will have your heart racing. You'll not only see an amazing array of greens but a surprising amount of orange covers the tree. The colors and the sounds of this trip are something I don't think i'll ever forget.
When we arrived to the valley, after admiring the views, we ran into our first black bear. It was the craziest thing ever, to be standing in the same area as a bear, but it was completely content far away eating. As we continued onto the valley we noticed there were also two cubs with the bear. We blew past the chalet in order to get a campsite and get our packs off. The campsite was perfect. We set up tent and that's when we heard our first "Hey, Bear!". We turned around to see another big black bear strolling through the middle of the camp sites, he had no intention of going near anyone and just strolled right through. Stressful, but beautiful.
I stayed up late wandering around with my headlamp and doing some night photography, I really didn't want to sleep even though I was so exhausted. Finally went to bed around 1am, only to wake up at 7am to get everything packed up again to head out. We ended up hanging out for a bit and were back on trail at 10:30am. There was a bear in the same spot as the first on our way out, was just as mindblowing.
The hike out was pretty great, my shoulders felt much better and the incline was only 1100 according to the app. The enchanted valley was definitely one for to cross off the bucket list, but it was extremely long for an overnighter. I wish more than anything I could have stayed an extra day to explore the valley. I know i'll go back.
Stats(Roundtrip):
28.8 Miles
3,615 ft. Elevation
13:46:22 Moving Time
7,297 Calories
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