Three day / two night traverse of The Enchantments starting at the Eightmile road and finishing at the Snow Lake trailhead.
While the Eightmile road is closed, the road was mainly melted out for ~1.5-2 miles necessitating a nice walk. About a mile shy of the Eightmile Lake TH we were able to don our skis and skin the rest of the way up to the Stuart/Colchuck TH. From there day 1 was completed by achieving camp at Lake Colchuck 4 miles later. Nighttime was a little breezy with wind gust into the mid-to-high 20s mph, but nothing major.
Day 2 started with crossing the lake and climbing Asgard with a combination of skinning and bootpacking various parts. Conditions varied from punching through thin crust to a thin base and wind-blown, icing covering. Avalanche condition was low due to earlier shedding of the above rocks during the recent heat wave and earlier slides.
After crossing the Asgard crest, we ripped skins and enjoyed a quick ski down to Lake Viviane. Getting down from Viviane to Snow Lake started out as a bit of a challenge as the normal ski route was so thin / melted out that we had to traverse a thin ledge (boot pack) to get to skiable terrain. It was afternoon so the snow was soft as well. I would recommend either staying to skier's right of the creek coming out of Viviane where there was more and better skiable terrain (though this would require a creek cross at the bottom) or possibly going up the small knoll to skier's left at the top and away from creek/traditional ski tour route. Once we were in better skiable terrain, we made our way down the through trees to the summer trail and Snow Lake. This was not without a couple times of getting cliffed-out and doing some minor navigational adjustments.
The edges of Snow Lake (and subsequently Nada Lake) were melted out requiring a small jump to get from the lake edge to the thick ice. This wasn't a problem, but it will only get more melted from here on out so skinning across the ice is soon over. Day 2 ended with camping near the Snow Lake dam with a calm night.
Day 3 was down to Nada Lake following the summer trail. Relatively uneventful. The snow was compact from other skiers and snowshoers and coverage sufficient most of the way down. The snow coverage continued down and past the bridge crossing Snow Creek (~1miles from Nada) but coverage on the bridge was over 50% less than it was this time last year. From the bridge we started hitting some open patches and avalanche slides. We skied and bootpacked down the avalanche slide located at switchback section ~.25-.5 miles from the bridge. After a short bootpack, we were able to ski for about another .5-1 mile before the coverage thinned out enough to where we would be transitioning way too much back and forth. We hiked in boots for ~1-1.5 miles and then were able to switch into approach shoes for the final 2+ miles down to the Snow Lake TH.
It was a fun trip despite the lower snow levels this year. Next time I hope to get out earlier in the year and/or do it with a bigger snow year. The heat wave the previous week, while it settled the snowpack, definitely took its toll on the snow volume.
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