The weekend before last, Matt and Adam and I headed into the Enchantments for another ski traverse. We had been toying with the notion for skiing in the North Cascades, but with unsettled weather forecast for Sunday, we pivoted at the last minute to the east side in the hope of more sun, and I’m sure glad we did, because we ended up getting caught in a surprise storm. I’m glad we weren’t in a committed spot up high on a glacier!
After some faffing in the morning, we drove to Eightmile Campground and started walking up the bare road for a few miles until we hit snow and started skinning. We reached the summer trailhead at 10:00 and headed up into the woods.
Adam balancing on the Mountaineer’s Creek bridge.
Travel conditions in the forest were a little unpleasant, with very firm refrozen chunder. It was however pretty easy to follow the trail, which had a good amount of traffic on it, and we reached the turnoff for Colchuck Lake by lunch time. It was a beautiful, warm, and calm day, so we enjoyed a bit of sunbathing on some nice rocks at the lakeshore. After lunch we skinned across the lake and started heading up towards Asgard Pass. It was a slog breaking trail through variable snow up to the pass, and ski crampons were helpful.
Matt with some heavy snow glopping on his skins.
Adam on the skin track nearing Aasgard Pass.
At the pass we soaked up the views of the upper Enchantments, and decided to head towards Dragontail to camp. We skinned up towards the saddle on the SE ridge and booted the last 50 feet which was quite firm. It was windy at the saddle, so we spent a while digging a nice tent platform and wind wall before heading out for an evening ski lap.
Skinning towards Dragontail.
Matt in a particularly deep posthole near our campsite.
At 18:00 we headed out for an evening ski of the Witches Tower Couloir. We skinned below the ridge towards the SE Peak of Dragontail. We continued until just before the SE Peak then transitioned at a spot on the ridge where it was easy to drop east, then skied 50 degree steep firm crust to the top of the couloir. The couloir is pretty short, but it skied quite nicely and was beautiful with evening light. We then retraced our skin track and bootpack back to camp at 19:00 and continued booting the short ways to the summit of Dragontail to watch the sunset. We had stunning views all the way from Adams to Baker, and it was also neat to be able to see out of the mountains down to Wenatchee and Cle Elum, even if we didn’t get much color in the sunset. We skied down very firm crust back to camp as it was getting dark.
Adam skiing the Witches Tower Couloir above Aasgard Pass.
Group photo at sunset on top of Dragontail.
I left the boys in the tent when I got up at dawn to go back up Dragontail for sunrise. Some clouds had come in overnight and were blowing just a few hundred feet above the summit. When the sun rose, I was treated to a few minutes of gorgeous backlit light above Prusik Peak, but the light didn't last long as the sun rose above the cloud deck. By 7:00 a few flurries came in and I skied back to camp. It was snowing decently hard by now, and with Adam and Matt still in their sleeping bags, I decided to climb back in to the tent, too. I thought the showers would pass, so we hunkered down to see if weather would improve. We made breakfast and coffee cozy in the tent with snow pattering on the fly.
Sunrise behind the Temple.
Beautiful morning light in the Enchantments, from high on Dragontail.
Daniel in the stormy morning light.
We hung out in the tent for a while, but the weather didn’t get much better, so we decided to head on out. Our plan was to ski Pandora’s Box to access the Colchuck Glacier, but the total white-out meant shit visibility, and it was hard to find the entrance to couloir. We skinned across the basin and then booted up to the entrance following old tracks. We found the entrance without too much trouble, and dropped in under very flat light. It was too bad not to have awesome views of Stuart right in front of us, but the whiteout was pretty neat in its own right. We cut right at the bottom of the couloir and side stepped through some rocks to get to Banshee Pass around 10:00. None of us seemed particularly excited about climbing Colchuck, so we skied extraordinarily heavy glop down the Colchuck Glacier to the lake, descending out of the clouds as we did so. We skated across the lake as more clouds came in.
Adam and Matt hunting for the entrance to Pandora’s Box.
Matt in the gut of Pandora’s Box in a total whiteout.
Adam skiing the Colchuck Glacier as we dropped below the clouds.
The ski down to the valley bottom was entertaining, except I took a pretty good tumble in one spot—a good reminder to be careful skiing in the trees! We reached the Stuart Lake trail junction in short order and continued down the trail to the summer trailhead at 12:10 with occasional deproach skiing shenanigans. With the exception of the one short uphill near Eightmile trailhead, it was pleasant cruising down the road to our boots, and we walked down the road to the car at 13:15.
