Cascade Range – Lee Rentz Photography Journal

A PLACE APART: Views from a Fire Lookout

We give our lives meaning and weight by the stories we remember. This has become more difficult with scattered families and friends, and with the blizzard of media that is available every waking second. It has become hard to hear ourselves think and to remember that we have stories to tell that make up the fabric of our lives.

One of the few places of respite is hiking, where the mind is able to focus outward instead of re-exploring the details of frustrating work lives and relationships and politics. Even better is to spend time living in a fire lookout, where the focus is on looking at the vast panorama visible from a peak. Working as a professional lookout is a scarce job these days, but there are opportunities to visit lookouts. There are lookouts that people can rent just to enjoy the sensations of observation and isolation. There are also lookouts where people can volunteer to spend days looking for smokes and greeting hikers. Either opportunity gives people time to experience the solitude and wonder of being in a place apart.

*Twilight at Evergreen Mountain Lookout*

When we rented the Evergreen Mountain Lookout in August of 2022, we experienced the quiet and intimate setting we so desired. Life was simple there for two nights, with watching the stars and clouds, and waking up to the lookout hidden deep within fog. It was wondrous.

But we weren’t the only ones to have a profound experience here. In looking at the visitor register kept in the lookout, we found that people often wrote poetic passages about their experience with nature in this place. I transcribed some of them here, without names so privacy can be assured, to show how the solitude of an individual or the intimate experience of a small group can be so enthralling.

5 October 2006
“Dinner of steak, rice, and broccoli about 9 p.m. then to bed. By this time the wind was blowing hard. The shutters along the south side of the lookout were bouncing loudly, making a grating noise. Cold out and it was seeking a way inside through every small crack so we tore a towel in strips and chinked the larger cracks. Settle in around 10 p.m. hoping for some sleep.
Extremely strong winds blasted the lookout around 1:30 a.m. and the center support holding the shutters on the south side gave way. The heavy shutters bounced wildly. We worried that all the shutters would fall in and smash the glass down upon us. We got up and placed a tarp and air mattress across the inside of the glass and tried to settle down. Sleep was almost impossible.
Sunrise was around 6:30 and we rose to clear, very cold skies. The wind had not abated and the shutters still bounce in the daylight. We saw that the center support had thrown its top bolt and we were able to replace it. The wind keeps blowing. Two hawks are braving the wind and hunting in the southern meadow.
Wind somewhat easier at noon. Time for a last walk east along the ridge and then out.”

18 September 2009
“Came up to fix a few things reported broken. Unfortunately it was worse than reported. Locks and windows broken, garbage and stuff everywhere. So sad. But we did what we could so hopefully it will last.
Weather was absolutely perfect! Could not have been better. No fog, not too hot, cool wind constantly blowing. The sky was so clear we could see forever in every direction. I can’t believe how many peaks there are!
Thanks so much for allowing me to come up here. It was a perfect trip. And please, please show respect for this place and take care of it.”

9 August 2013
“Lightning and thunder started in the south at about 10:30 p.m. By 12 a.m. all of us were awake from the wind and by about 1:30 a.m. the storm was right above us and lasted until about 3:30 a.m. when the wind picked up again. Very beautiful and terrifying. A once in a lifetime experience.”

*Visitor register for making comments about the experience on Evergreen Mountain Lookout*

2 October 2017
“This is my third time at the lookout, but the first time without human companions. Just me and the dog, seeking solitude and some healing after a death in the family.
I woke up to a stunning sunrise, mountain peaks visible all around but a magical cloud cover down below. Cold though! Icicles on the lookout–glad I had the dog to keep me warm through the night.
Although not healed, the mountains and solo time did me good. Focus on enduring beauty, on the things that knock us breathless and senseless. This helps.”

13 August 2018
“The red sun sits still in the haze of smoke, like an ember burning in a sea of ashes. It is hot outside. The world sits and waits as the earth is changed forever by fire. Brave men and women will risk lives to stop the fire, but we didn’t start it. We have only accelerated this changing world. Water is as pure as gold. Nature is more pure than the love that many have for it. Love and kindness will save the world from fire.”

15 August 2018
“A beautiful smoky day of repairs at the ol’ fire lookout. Met a wonderful woman hiker who used to live in this very lookout almost 40 years ago! The magic of this place is still alive and well!”

15 August 2018
“Smoky. Still a lovely hike, tho seems a lot harder than in the summer of 1976, when I was the lookout here.”

5 September 2018
“Simply beautiful up here. Mountains in every direction, too many to name. Wonderful artwork of nature. Had fun picking huckleberries. Wish we would have stayed the night. Next time. Our 3rd anniversary activity of choice.”

16 September 2018
“A rainy, snowy, cloudy trip and we couldn’t ask for anything more. Had a fantastic time hanging out in the cabin watching the weather. Can’t wait to come back and do it again.”

*Stories written in the vistor register*

10 August 2019
“On this day 5 years ago I stayed overnight in 3 Fingers [another lookout]. After going home on the 10th I had a heart attack. Was great to be able to spend the night and celebrate life. If you go to 3 Fingers check out the lightning stool I made for my first year anniversary of the heart attack!”

11 August 2019
“It felt like something out of a storybook to hike up and up into the clouds where you couldn’t see thirty feet ahead or behind you. Wildflowers that I thought I wouldn’t see again this late in the year bloomed along the trailside. It was magical finally seeing the lookout appear out of the mist. Then to wake up surrounded by it just makes me feel like I’m in another world.”

*Interior of Evergreen Mountain Lookout*

Hikers are not the only people who have found the fire lookout to be an inspiring muse. There is a long tradition of writers who have spent summers working for the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service perched in their mountaintop retreats, looking for smokes while simultaneously thinking and taking notes and working on poems and novels. Without a boss looking over their shoulders, the thoughts could rise from the depths like columns of smoke on a distant ridge.

Gary Snyder, a poet who has written a lifetime of poems of depth, infused with Zen Buddhism and nature, watched the landscape atop Sourdough Mountain Lookout in the North Cascades of Washington in the summer of 1953. His meditative book Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems begins with this gem from that time:

Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout

“Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.

I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.“

Decades later Tim McNulty, a writer from the Olympic Peninsula, also stayed in Sourdough Mountain Lookout for a season. He found it a profound experience, and wrote evocative poems about his time there. These are included in his book of poetry called Ascendence; here is a wonderful excerpt from one poem

Night, Sourdough Mountain Lookout

“I light a candle with the coming dark.
Its reflection in the window glass
flickers over mountains and
shadowed valleys
seventeen miles north to Canada.

Not another light.

The lookout is a dim star
anchored to a rib of the planet
like a skiff to a shoal
in a wheeling sea of stars.

Night sky at full flood.

Wildly awake.“

*Smoke from Irving Peak and White River Fires (2022) viewed from Evergreen Mountain Lookout*

Jack Kerouac, writer of the cultural phenomenon On the Road, a vibrating-with-life contrast to the staid and conforming 1950s and early 1960s, worked on Washington’s Desolation Peak Lookout in 1956, a time that inspired some of his work on the books Desolation Angels, The Dharma Bums, and Lonesome Traveler.

“Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize ‘The stars are words’ and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too. And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it’s all in my mind.” from Lonesome Traveler

Norman Maclean worked on Elk Summit Lookout in Idaho, and later went on to pen Young Men and Fire and A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. These stories captured tragedies in the American West where he made his home.

“In the late afternoon, of course, the mountains meant all business for the lookouts. The big winds were veering from the valleys toward the peaks, and smoke from little fires that had been secretly burning for several days might show up for the first time. New fires sprang out of thunder before it sounded. By three-thirty or four, the lightning would be flexing itself on the distant ridges like a fancy prizefighter, skipping sideways, ducking, showing off but not hitting anything. But four-thirty or five, it was another game. You could feel the difference in the air that had become hard to breath. The lightning now came walking into you, delivering short smashing punches.” from A River Runs Through it and Other Stories

*Historic Evergreen Mountain Lookout in sunset light*

Edward Abbey wrote Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness which became one of my personal guiding lights since the time I first read it as a college freshman over 50 years ago. Abbey writes of his adventures in the old days of Moab, Utah, before it became a recreation mecca. Abbey’s book helped turn Moab into the “industrial tourism” machine that he detested, but I’ll save that rant for another time. Abbey needed to make ends meet, like all of us, so he worked at the Bright Angel Point Lookout on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for four seasons, where he stationed his typewriter near the Osborne Fire Finder.

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”

“No more cars in national parks. Let the people walk. Or ride horses, bicycles, mules, wild pigs–anything–but keep the automobiles and the motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out. We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and the other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy places.” both quotes from Desert Solitaire

Fire lookouts, and hikes, and long bike rides, and long road trips: times and places that are apart from the rest of life. Places and times to think deeply, to breathe in the subterranean thoughts swirling up from our brains and the soil and the landscape.

Good Links:

Art on High: Beat Poets on the Fire Lookouts about Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac and others

LOOKING OUT, LOOKING IN: GARY SNYDER AND SOURDOUGH MOUNTAIN LOOKOUT an excellent blog about Snyder and his writing

Poems from Sourdough Mountain Lookout by Tim McNulty, a prominent Olympic Peninsula writer

Climbing a Peak That Stirred Kerouac by a New York Times writer

Fire Tower at Bright Angel Point the tower where Edward Abbey stayed above the Grand Canyon

A Fire Lookout On What’s Lost In A Transition to Technology an NPR interview with Philip Connors, author of Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout

*Dramatic sunset viewed from Evergreen Mountain Lookout*

MY LAST HIKE IN THE ENCHANTMENTS

Sunlit Alpine Larches with the cloud-shrouded flanks of Mt. Stuart in the distance

The place is profoundly inspiring. Ragged ridges slice the sky. A pale sun dances off aquamarine tarns. Golden larch needles tickle my arm. Towering Mt. Stuart creates its own clouds. Mountain Goats greet us like long-lost friends. Is there anywhere as enchanting?

We drove from the Seattle area to Leavenworth, in the heart of the Cascade Mountains, on an early October day. Our backpacking permit from the Okanogan–Wenatchee National Forest allowed us four nights in a lesser-visited part of The Enchantments that included Lake Stuart and Horseshoe Lake. Our goal was to hike to Lake Stuart, camp one night, then hike the unofficial route up to the real high country of Horseshoe Lake, then spend three nights there among the golden Alpine Larches.

We drove up the steep access road to the trailhead, which wound through patches of scarred trees where forest fires had raged in recent years. In fact, two years previously, we had been blocked from this access road by a big wildfire.

At the trailhead, we joined scores of other cars in a big parking lot. When I got out of the warm car, I was immediately struck by the chill in the air. We were used to warmer weather all summer for our hikes, and this was a change. Even so, I started the hike wearing shorts and a nylon shirt, knowing that I would heat up immediately as we climbed the trail toward Horseshoe Lake. After eating a trail lunch of crackers, cheese, cookies, and dried mango at the trailhead, I donned my 47 lb. pack and we headed up the trail.

Crossing Mountaineer Creek on a high bridge on the way to The Enchantments

It was a long slog upward through the evergreen forest and along Mountaineer Creek. Hikes ascending through dense forest are never my favorites, but they are almost always necessary to get to the more desirable high country. And let’s face it, the long trek through the forest makes the high meadows seem even sweeter by comparison.

The afternoon went by quickly as we climbed the five mile trail toward Lake Stuart. Eventually we reached the shores of the lake. Swaths of bright green horsetails in the lake’s shallows were glowing in the late afternoon light, against the mountainsides in deep shade. I was immediately inspired by the scene, grabbed my camera, and asked Karen if she could set up the tent while I photographed. The downside was that I was chilled in the cold and windy mountain air after the sweaty hike up the trail. This is a time when I should have immediately changed into warmer clothes and ingested some calories but, no, I just HAD to get those photographs! As a result, I was really cold when I eventually got back to camp. Too cold to even fix a tripod that needed repair. In these circumstances I get the symptoms of Raynaud’s Disease, which cuts off blood flow to the fingers and leaves them ghostly white and unable to work properly.

Horsetails at the edge of Lake Stuart, with snowy Mt. Stuart in the distance

The Swamp Horsetail colony had an incredibly bright yellow-green color

After a good backpacking dinner of dehydrated Pad Thai, I felt revived, but was still a bit chilled, and that’s how I would feel all night. To cut weight on this trip, we brought our lightest weight tent; unfortunately, the tent achieves much of its weight savings by using insect netting instead of solid nylon walls, so the wind on this breezy night blew right through the tent. We also skimped on sleeping bags to save weight, given the favorable forecast, but ended up wearing nearly all our clothing inside the summer-weight sleeping bags. Oh well, the first night was to be the coldest.

Storm light on Mt. Stuart that first evening; the mountain is so high that it makes its own clouds, which dissipate just downwind from the mountain

The next morning, we awoke early, knowing we had a difficult day ahead. Lake Stuart was still. We discovered that our latest technology–a UV blasting Steripen for sterilizing drinking water–had stopped working. Fortunately we had a backup plan: using iodine tablets and an iodine neutralizer that we carry for just such situations. It worked just fine.

After the tumultuous weather of the previous evening, morning dawned cold, clear, and windless

After packing up, we walked to the end of the lake, then started following a route throught the woods. This is not an officially maintained trail, so the hiking was difficult, with lots of fallen trees to climb over or crawl under. Eventually we came to a big open wetland filled with cottongrass and Wet meadow along the route from Lake Stuart to Horseshoe Lake, with Mt. Stuart towering above

other boggy plants. Skirting the side of it, we began searching for a horseshoe tacked to a tree that would signal the place to start climbing the mountain. We ran into two older (well, older than me!) guys crashing through the woods behind us. One knew exactly where the horseshoe was located, and told us how to get there. He said that he first came to The Enchantments with his older brother (the guy with him) in 1959, when he was 12 years old, so he had a long love of the place.

The horseshoe marking the start of the rough route up the mountain to Horseshoe Lake

Upon reaching the horseshoe, we celebrated; after all, some people get lost at this point and never make it up to Horseshoe Lake. The trail ascended. Steeply. Over and under endless fallen trees. Some steps up onto granite were so steep that we had to help pull each other up.

We reached our first golden larch. Then another. The path rose into a huckleberry meadow glowing with red leaves. Sparkle off distant water. We were there!

Approaching Horseshoe Lake through an autumn huckleberry meadow

The view from our campsite across the narrow lake to Mt. Stuart

After a brief break, we split up to search for a campsite. The lake was small, and we chose an established campsite on a peninsula jutting into the lake where there were two flat spots for our tents. We set up our tents, established a line to hang our food from a tree branch, and soaked in our good fortune at having an entire high country lake to ourselves. The Alpine Larches were at their peak of color and the granite spires soared above us. No place on earth could be better.

Last light on one of the mountains surrounding Horseshoe Lake

Alpenglow on the flanks of Mt. Stuart

I stayed up well beyond dark watching the fading light, then photographed the scene using my headlamp to illuminate the larches against the deep twilight blue of the sky. A 60% waxing moon gave light to the landscape.

A granite knoll next to our campsite; it had Whitebark Pines and Alpine Larches growing from cracks in the stone. We watched the stars blink on as twilight turned into night.

A waxing moon appeared over Mt. Stuart. On our last night, we saw the headlamps of a pair of climbers high on a cliff below the summit; the climbers were bivouacking high on the mountain for a morning attempt to summit the peak.

The next morning we were again up early; after all, who wants to remain in a cozy sleeping bag in the presence of such beauty? Well, it depends how cold it is outside; fortunately the morning was chilly but not frigid. Karen and I have a typical trail breakfast of dried bean soup spiked with PB2, a powdered peanut butter product, and ground almonds. It is good and gives enough energy for the day of exploring. I don’t function without my morning coffee, and little tubes of freeze-dried work just fine in the wilderness. My companions preferred tea.

Our campsite, which may have been the prettiest campsite we’ve ever had–and that’s saying a lot!

Junko filtering water along the shore

We made our plan for the day: we would hike along the lake shore as far as we could, then explore toward the base of the ridges surrounding this big glacial cirque. We hiked for a while, then had an early lunch atop a granite outcrop overlooking the lake and Mt. Stuart.

After lunch, we wandered down to a wet meadow that had recently melted out, though first we had to negotiate a boulder field that included a lot of scrambling and climbing over big rocks. When we reached the meadow, we found a beautiful meandering stream, with its banks bordered by a few summer subalpine wildflowers that we didn’t expect to see in October. The Shooting Stars and Red Bell Heathers and White Bell Heathers and Yellow Arnicas brightened the day.

The wet meadow and snowfield where we saw summer wildflowers in October, as well as our first Mountain Goat of the trip

This stream meandering through the wet meadow flowed down into Horseshoe Lake

Karen and Junko picked a handful of late season huckleberries in the rock field just above the meadow; this rocky area was also home to numerous Pikas

Summer wildflowers still bloomed in the high meadow, which had melted out late–probably in September

Karen exploring a high heather meadow

Karen and alpine color

I found that the stream flowed down under a small remnant snowfield. I knew what this meant: there would be a scalloped ice cave where the stream flowed through. I found and photographed the cave. Then we set about building a great little snowman atop the snowfield.

We built our traditional snowman atop the remnant snowfield, accessorizing with chartreuse Wolfia lichen and Whitebark Pine twigs–all locally sourced from sustainable and recyclable sources

The sculpted, scalloped interior of an ice cave in the high meadow

After playtime was over, we walked along the edge of the meadow, at least until I layed down to photograph a vivid magenta Shooting Star. After three shutter clicks, I noticed a white shape moving toward me from the mountainside. It was a female Mountain Goat, and she came down the mountain just to be with me. How sweet! Her presence consumed most ot the rest of the day, but I’ll get to all that in another blog entry.

This Mountain Goat came straight down the mountain to join us in the meadow, where it quietly fed as we watched nearby

It was getting late in the day, so we started hiking back to camp, with the Mountain Goat tagging behind like a kid sister. We enjoyed a hot dinner, and repeated the activities of the night before. We watched the stars and planets poke one by one from the deep twilight sky, and the now 70% moon washing the landscape in pale silvery light.

Horseshoe Lake was lovely as we hiked back to camp from the high meadow

That night, I again photographed the lakeshore with the aid of light from my headlamp

The moon was at about 70% full above us

We slept well, then awoke the next morning to a cloudless sky. During breakfast, we suddenly spotted a group of four Mountain Goats running and bouncing (really!) along the shoreline toward us. They seemed overjoyed to see us. But, again, more on that experience in an upcoming blog entry.

One of a group of four Mountain Goats that came to our campsite early the next morning. There was an adult mother, her kid of the year, and two yearlings; all four constantly challenged other members of the small family for dominance. One time, I even saw the tiny kid try to stand up to one of the yearlings. She had to back down.

One of the goats stood atop a granite outcrop in our campsite, with Mt. Stuart in the distance

Hundreds of photographs later, we left camp to search for Jack Lake, the mythological body of water that we thought we had found the day before, but were mistaken. It turned out to be a real lake, small and lovely, ringed with golden sedges and golden larches. We ate our trail lunch on a granite bluff overlooking the lake, where we saw the four Mountain Goats and realized that they had wandered over to the hills where we were exploring. We also saw a couple of groups of hikers enjoying the larch-covered terrain.

Tiny Jack Lake basked in the color around it–the golds of sedges and Alpine Larches

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, going back to the wet meadow of yesterday to check on our snowman–it had fallen into scattered dirty snowballs–and to photographs the Pikas living in the boulder field above the meadow.

That evening brought a return of the wind and the unsettled weather that can be so glorious in the mountains

The waxing moon behind a larch at night

That night the weather was unsettled, with some winds and clouds that made it less desirable for night photography, though I did manage to squeeze off a few shots.

The next morning was our last morning on Horseshoe Lake. As happened yesterday, the gang of four Mountain Goats showed up and demanded our attention, so we were late in leaving the lake for our hike out. When the goats lay down to chew their cuds, I finally decided that it was time to give it up, after having taken about 500 photos of the goats over three days.

The next morning dawned clear, still, and stunningly beautiful

The gang of four returned that morning for another photo session

The kid often fed at its mother’s feet, keeping an eye on the photographer while using its mother’s legs as a barrier from that guy with the camera

One last look at the loveliest of all mountain lakes

Karen and Junko starting the hike out on our last morning

We hoisted our packs for the seven mile hike out. We knew that the infomal trail back to Lake Stuart was going to be difficult, even though it was all downhill. I asked Karen and Junko to count the logs crossing the trail that we had to climb over, step over, or shimmy under. That gave us something other than the physical difficulty to think about and, by the time we reached Lake Stuart, the total was 137 downed trees over the path!

Climbing over and limboing under some of the 137 logs that lay across the “trail”

Beyond Lake Stuart, the forest started smelling like mushrooms, so our attention changed to searching for edibles. We didn’t find any of the Golden Chanterelles like we find in the Puget Sound lowland forests, but we did find some midnight blue-colored relatives of the chanterelles, as well as a few Hedgehog Mushrooms. The former weren’t very good to our palates, but the Hedgehogs were terrific when fried in butter.

One of the Blue Chanterelles that grew in dense clumps on the forest floor

We were tired and sore, but the parking lot came into view earlier than I expected. We encountered a lot of day hikers on our hike out, and the parking lot was still overflowing when we arrived. The drive home was long, but we stopped to get boxes of excellent apples fresh from the orchards.

When I titled this blog post “My Last Hike in the Enchantments,” I was thinking of Karen’s repeated statement that entering The Enchantments is always a hard hike, and she has now done it four times, and that is enough. However, my title also refers to what was simply my most recent hike to The Enchantments. And it was so enchanting, I prefer to think that I might return in the next few years.

A fond look back from the wet meadow just above Lake Stuart toward the high and stunning Enchantments

The Enchantments is a stunning landscape of sharp granite peaks and open country studded with small glacial lakes. With the explosion of backpacking in the 1970s, The Enchantments became overrun with hikers. Hundreds of hikers would be in the high country at one time, trampling the fragile heather meadows and lighting campfires fueled by fallen larch and pine boughs. The area was being loved to death. Eventually the U.S. Forest Service stepped in and established a permit system that controls the number of backpackers. Some freedom was lost in the process, but the beauty of the area was maintained.

We received a permit for our third visit in three years. A lottery is held in the early part of the year to determine who receives most of the permits, although some permits are available every day to hikers who show up at the last minute and a few permits are available immediately after the lottery for days that have not met their quota. This was my third trip here, and I would love to return.

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INTIMATE LANDSCAPES OF THE ENCHANTMENTS

Huckleberry leaves glowed scarlet against the glacier-rounded granite

When I backpacked to Horseshoe Lake and Lake Stuart in The Enchantments in early October, I knew that I would be photographing lovely landscapes filled with rugged mountains, serene lakes, golden larches, and (hopefully) Mountain Goats. All of those scenes came vividly to life in a landscape so breathtaking, I could hardly bear to leave. I took hundreds of photographs of the Mountain Goats that joyously greeted us, and hundreds of photographs of Alpine Larches and dramatic mountainscapes.

But when I’m out in the wilderness, Big Landscapes are only part of what I seek. I also like the sun on my face, the scent of forest mushrooms in the air, the way scarlet autumn leaves play along a granite surface, the perfect reflections of golden sedges at the edge of a pond. In short, I love the intimate landscapes as much as I love the Big Landscapes, perhaps more. This blog post is a visual celebration of the intimate landscapes that caught my eye. Think of these as haiku, in comparison with the epic poetry of the vast and breathtaking scenes.

Swamp Horsetails thrived in dense colonies along the shore of Stuart Lake; I was astounded at the brilliant yellow-green color when they caught the late afternoon and early evening light

At the edge of our campsite, I photographed the reflections of the blue sky, mountains, and horsetails on the small waves lapping the shore (while I left Karen to set up the tent on her own)

Late in the afternoon of the first day, the sun broke out across Lake Stuart; here the waves reflect the sunlit cliffs and forests in a bright abstract pattern

Early the next morning, before the sun rose, Lake Stuart was perfectly quiet, with the mountains across the lake reflecting among the horsetails

In a wetland farther up the valley, along the way trail leading to Horseshoe Lake, the clumps of autumn sedges glowed a rich gold among the cottongrass

We are familiar with Cottongrass from sphagnum bogs in the midwest and vast stretches of Alaskan tundra; it was good to see it again here in the wetland. It actually is a sedge rather than a grass, and the seeds float in the air to new destinations much like dandelion or milkweed seeds.

We climbed the steep trail to Horseshoe Lake, then broke into small huckleberry meadows with granite outcrops and views of the mountains above the lake

There were numerous large mushrooms, about four to six inches in diameter, that live in association with the Alpine Larch roots; these relatives of boletes MAY be edible and excellent, but there are two species with similar habits and one is less edible than the other, and we weren’t able to identify them in the field

Autumn sedges in a wet meadow, in a photograph with an impressionistic feel

Many of the Alpine Larches were at their peak of color; they stand with the Whitebark Pines as the last bastion of trees at timberline

Alpine Larches have exquisitely soft needles that turn golden in the fall, then drop off when October winds scour the basin

We camped along Horseshoe Lake; the next morning I photographed the granite outcrops and quiet lake before the sun awakened the scene

Most trees reach to the sky; this larch bowed down to the granite, apparently in response to heavy winter snows that piled on top of it

It is rare that I see such photogenic sedges in the mountains, and I loved the pattern of the autumn-tinged clumps against a tarn reflecting the blue sky

Chartreuse Wolfia lichen growing abundantly on a branch, with a selfie of my wrist

In a glacial cirque above Horseshoe Lake, a stream winds gracefully through a meadow that just lost its snows from last winter in the last month or so; this stream flows into Horseshoe Lake

In the cirque, a couple of remnant snow fields remained and, where the tiny creek flowed under the snow, an ice cave formed. Such caves can collapse, so I just crawled into the entrance to take a series of photographs.

The scalloped patterns inside the cave were typical of others I’ve entered … other worldly!

Here it was October, and there were still some wildflowers blooming because the snow had melted out so recently. Shooting Star is among my favorite mountain flowers; it thrives in wet meadows, and I inevitably get soaked when I lay down to photograph it.

Gentians are more typical of late season wildflowers, but October is even late for them

The talus slope above the wet meadow was alive with Pikas, those small rabbit-relatives who live among the rocks and put away cut greens in order to get through the long winter under the snow. They don’t hibernate, so they need plenty of food.

The stream through the meadow took a very meandering course; beyond the stream you can see the talus slope where the Pika live, as well as some young Alpine Larches growing among the boulders.

Golden Alpine Larches and golden autumn sedges at Jack Lake; the richness of color is the last gasp before the high country is deep in snow

Clumps of sedges grace the edge of Jack Lake, as if carefully placed by a landscape artist

One of the sedge clumps gracefully reflecting in Jack Lake

Just prior to our hike, a fierce windstorm apparently blasted through The Enchantments, because there were numerous fallen fresh Alpine Larch branches wherever we went

When the granite cracks and weathers, soil accumulates in the cracks, giving huckleberries a habitat to explore

Alpine Larches and Whitebark Pines live to a hearty old age in the high country. When they eventually fall, the weathered wood shows one of the secrets of their strength: spiraling twisted grain that can withstand high winds and heavy snows better than perfectly straight grain

Such patterns also look good in black-and-white photography

I love photographing these fallen warriors, with their tough bones

Lichens on the granite can be ancient and colorful; this pattern looked like it was left by an ancient civilization

Horseshoe Lake is ringed with smooth granite outcrops; the perfect place for a human to dip water for breakfast or a Mountain Goat to take a sip

One windy night the moon was bright behind the trees; I photographed the shadow of one Alpine Larch with the moon glow dancing off the waves around it and got this ethereal result

An impressionistic view of huckleberry leaves and distant larches

A cloud catching alpenglow at sunset

The Alpine Larches were awe-inspiring; the equivalent of Vermont’s Sugar Maples or Colorado’s Trembling Aspens

Speaking of aspens: on the hike out, we came upon a couple of Trembling Aspen groves trying to compete with the Alpine Larches for the camera’s attention; aspens are not nearly as common in the Cascade Mountains as they are in the Rocky Mountain West

We found these blue-black clumps of mushrooms on the way out; it turns out that they are relatives of the chanterelles, but didn’t taste nearly as good, at least to our palates

I would like to thank my wife, Karen Rentz, and our companion, Junko Waibel, for all their patience during my epic time spent making photographs on this trip.

I LOST MY NANNY!: The True Story of a Baby Mountain Goat

Playing with my best friend Zy

I had just laid down on a fluffy bed of soil near Nanny. We had spent a long summer day eating wildflowers and licking salt near the campsites of those two-legged things, and Nanny decided it was time to chew our cud. I thought we were going to spend the night there, though it was really close to one of those colorful caves that the two-legged things crawl into when it gets dark. Their snoring sometimes scares me in the middle of the night, so I wish we could have been farther away.

I was ready for bed; but then my friend Zy came along with his mother

So I got up and joined Zy

I was quietly chewing, with my eyelids getting heavy, when suddenly my friend Zy came walking down the trail and sees me. He broke into a run toward me with a big goaty grin on his face. He’s about my age, because we were born just a couple of days apart back in April. We have played together lots of times, especially “king of the castle.” We each gallop to the top of a rock and try to shove each other off. Sometimes I win; sometimes he wins; but it is always fun. Nanny said that these games help us to be good Mountain Goats, so she tolerates all the rough play. I think she’s keeping an eye on us most of the time, even though it looks to me like she’s just stuffing her four stomachs.

We had the most fun ever–trying to push each other off this rock

My name is Tee, and my mommy’s real name is Nanny, but she’s not a real nanny because she doesn’t work for rich old goats. Zy’s mom is also named Nanny. I don’t know who my daddy is, but it could be some big guy named Billy who sometimes comes around and acts all bossy and mean. I want to be just like him someday.

When Zy ran over to me, we both zoomed around together until we found a big rock that was nearly as high as those two-legged things. Then we spent a long time jumping up on the rock and butting each other off. I’ve never had so much fun.

Then we crossed the river with Zy’s mom and started dashing around in the meadow until we got tired. Then we grazed side by side for a while. After a couple of minutes, we scampered around again and went ’round and ’round the meadow until we got tired again. Then we had fun dashing down a big snow field. I love running downhill on the snow; my legs get all floppy and I jump along for joy.

After we crossed the river, we enjoyed some grass together (not THAT kind, we’re too young, even in Washington State!)

Running to catch up with Zy and his Nanny

Then I remembered my Nanny. Where could she be? I don’t remember her crossing the stream with me and Zy and his mom. I looked around and she was nowhere to be found. I started bleating like I always do when I’m scared and apart from Nanny, but she didn’t bleat back like she normally does, so I couldn’t find her. Maybe the stream was too loud for me to hear her.

When I realized that my Nanny was nowhere to be found, I left Zy and his Nanny and ran over snow fields and cliffs looking for her

I crossed the raging river on some precarious logs and rocks and headed up the other side

I ran to the top of a cliff and looked back across the river. She wasn’t there. I bleated. Nothing. I ran down from the cliff and ran back and forth along the river bank, trying to find a way to get across. It was hard, and I finally found a place to cross on the rocks while a couple of those two-legged things watched but didn’t help. I was glad when Billy nearly pushed the one with the camera-thingy off a big rock and into the river.

I climbed high atop a granite cliff so that I could look down the whole valley below

When I got to the other side, I looked around but still didn’t see anybody from my band. So I ran uphill and climbed to the top of a ridge, so that I could look down. When I reached the top I bleated as loudly as I could. Still no answer. I nervously paced back and forth. Finally, I spotted one of the band down below. I thought it was my Nanny, and ran down to her as fast as I could. But it wasn’t her. Then I ran farther down the meadow toward another one of my band members that I could see in the distance. This time it WAS my mom and I was so glad to see her.

I wanted to nurse to get some comfort food, but she didn’t want any part of that and kicked me away. Sometimes Nanny is like that. She calls it “tough love,” but I love her anyway. I started grazing alongside her and all was well with the world after my little adventure. I’ll try to remember to stay closer next time I play with Zy.

For more information about hiking in The Enchantments, go to Washington Trails Association and Recreation.gov. To read my other blogs about The Enchantments, go to The Long Ascent, Mountain Goats, Forests of Gold, Aasgard Pass and the Upper Enchantments, and Lower Enchantment Lakes. There is also a good web site that is based upon the autumn experiences of the Starks and another couple called 50 Years in the Enchantments.

To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com (just ask to email you a small version of a particular photograph you like if you can’t find it on the site; my website is not up to date)

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

THE ENCHANTMENTS IN AUGUST Part 2: Lower Enchantment Lakes

Wildflower meadow with Little Annapurna towering above

After two nights in the Upper Enchantments, we descended along a stream that ducked in and out of a steep snowfield, eventually reaching Talisman Lake, and then descended further to Perfection Lake (aka Rune Lake). We passed the campsite where we had camped last fall, and the tent area was flooded to perhaps 4″ deep with recent snowmelt. From the placement of the rocks in the campsite, it looked like our camp last fall was the last time it had been occupied (we had used rocks to secure several of the tents).

The_Enchantments_Summer-936 Taking a long drink of cool water

A lone Alpine Larch with Little Annapurna in the distance

Beautiful aquamarine Talisman Lake, ringed with granite outcrops and Alpine Larches, with Prusik Peak and The Temple in the distance

Then we hiked around the lake toward a campsite on Sprite Lakelet that we hoped would be vacant. Karen had noticed this site last year, and thought it would be a wonderful place to camp. It was indeed vacant, and we set up camp in this beautiful site among the Alpine Larches.

Our campsite among the larches along Sprite Lakelet

As a precaution against possible raids by bears and other hungry creatures, we hung our food each night; on the first night, it took two of us to lift the bags, but they got progressively lighter every day.

My Lapsang Souchong tea, which Karen says smells like dirty socks, and her Tazo Passion tea; together, they catch the low evening sun

Phil enjoying a quiet moment along Sprite Lakelet

Larches gracing a point in Perfection Lake

We birthed a snowman on the granite above Sprite Lakelet; the snowman was necessarily created with watermelon snow, since the algae-stained snow was all that was available

The snowman then proceeded to preach to the snowy choir

Heather blooming near a small waterfall where Perfection Lake empties into Sprite Lakelet

Small Cutthroat Trout thrived in the lakes of the Lower Enchantments; I wish I could have carried fishing gear along with all my camera gear

Sprite Lakelet sits just below an extensive snowfield, but we decided to go swimming, and it sure felt good, or at least really, really cold. It was a “one yelp” dive before I was ready to climb out and dry off.

Thinking about going for a swim in a snowy mountain lake … don’t do it!

Too late, as I whoop with the blast of cold. And, in case you are wondering: no, I wasn’t skinny-dipping!

That night I got up at 12:30 a.m., and climbed the granite hill behind our camp. I stayed up there in the dark for 2 1/2 hours, trying to get night pictures of the stars over iconic Prusik Peak. I succeeded, but there sure are a lot of techical steps to get just right in order for the night pictures to work out. It doesn’t help to be trying it in the middle of the night, after inadequate sleep.

Galaxies and stars looking down on Prusik Peak

The next morning, after breakfast, we took a hike to Crystal Lake, where we explored the lake shore and an ice cave above the lake. Sue, the geomorphologist, interpreted a delta at the head of the lake and how it was formed. I spent quite a bit of time photographing trout along the lake.

Wildflower meadow with Little Annapurna Peak along the hike to Crystal Lake

Little Annapurna reflecting in Perfection Lake

Arctic Fireweed thriving in an unusual place–a crack in a large granite boulder

Lunch break along Crystal Lake

Ice cave at the mouth of a snowfield covering the inlet stream to Crystal Lake. I climbed into the mouth of the cave, but just barely, since there is always the threat of a catastrophic roof collapse.

The beautiful shore of Crystal Lake with its miniature forest of Alpine Larches

Alpine Larch needles up close

Crossing an outlet stream

Mountain Goat crossing the outlet stream near our camp; goats would often cross streams on stones and logs that people had laid down to create a safer and drier crossing

Youngster learning to cross a human bridge

Goats don’t like to get their feet wet any more than we do

That night, after dinner, I noticed five goats bedding down around our campsite. We had previously noticed that there were goat beds around camp; these are places where Mountain Goats have pawed up the soil to loosen it, effectively making a soft bed. These beds are used repeatedly, and some of them were located just a few feet from Sue’s tent. Once the five goats settled in to chew their cuds, we thought they might be there all night, but then another group of goats came along and that led to a fascinating chain of events that I’ll describe in another blog. Suffice it to say that this was one of our best insights into animal behavior ever.

A big male goat using one of the goat beds we had seen before Sue set up her tent

For the first time, I was challenged by a big male as I was taking pictures from atop the tallest rock along that section of the stream. He was coming straight toward me with head a bit lowered and eyes intent on me, so I backed off. Quickly. Never occupy the high ground unless you are prepared to defend it with your life. I wasn’t.

That night, we had cloudy skies for the first time since the brief showers on the first night, meaning that I didn’t have to spend half the night working with my camera gear. That was probably a good thing, because I needed a good rest before the strenuous hike the next day, though Wenatchee Girl (see previous weblog post) probably covered the distance in two hours and looked fresh as a spring breeze afterwards.

We packed up the next morning for our hike out of the heart of The Enchantments, and down to Snow Lakes. This was not an easy hike, as it led down over numerous steep descents on sloping granite, where we had to use our leg muscles continuously in order to step down safely.

Hiking down granite so steep that the trail builders put rebar staples into the rock to improve hikers’ chances of making it down when the weather is rainy or wet

Terry was feeling like a Mountain Goat on this narrow granite route

We had to lean in close to the granite to make it around this sheer cliff

Descending a steep snow field; since I carry a tripod in my hands, I don’t use trekking poles and am at a disadvantage in descents like this–which is my excuse for falling more than everyone else. On one snow field descent, Karen fell twice and finally ended up sliding down gleefully on her butt!

Self portrait of my legs and feet on a rickety log bridge over a raging creek

A big waterfall drops over the glacier-sculpted granite as we descended toward Leprechaun Lake

One of our group wetting her hair in a waterfall on the way to Leprechaun Lake, on our sixth day in the wilderness

Phil crossing a stream with Prusik Peak towering above

When we finally reached Upper Snow Lake late in the afternoon, we were tired, so I started looking for a campsite. All were occupied, but then I noticed a faint trail leading toward the water. I asked the group to stop while I investigated, and quickly found a wonderful place to set up all of our tents on a sandy beach.

We had a cool swim, which reinvigorated us, then we set up our tents. Phil was a bit apprehensive about whether it was safe to camp on sand, after his experiences in New Zealand. There, everyone avoids sandy beaches at all costs because of the sandflies or sand fleas. In New Zealand, these irritating insects were first called sandflies by Captain James Cook, who said:

“The most mischievous animal here is the small black sandfly which are exceeding numerous … wherever they light they cause a swelling and such intolerable itching that it is not possible to refrain from scratching and at last ends in ulcers like the small Pox.”

Actually, in reading about the sandflies, I believe that they may be the same as what we in the USA call blackflies. Karen and I have encountered swarms of them in the Adirondacks and in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Or they could be more like the no-see-ums that are the scourge of the earth, but you don’t see or feel them when they bite. But several minutes after biting, the itch becomes intense.

Phil’s apprehensiveness here was appropriate. I used Deet on the beach, but I was bitten six times on the forehead–below the baseball cap bill and above my eyeglasses–where I didn’t apply the Deet because I don’t like it going into my eyes. Nearly two weeks later, these six big red bumps still itched like crazy, despite my daily treatments with Benadryl. I suspect that these were no-see-um bites; I’ve always had a really strong reaction to these creatures, and we did get a major rip in the no-see-um proof netting of our tent at Sprite Lakelet, so believe I got the bites overnight, when my face was the only part of my body exposed. Or maybe they’re smallpox.

After dinner on the insect-infested beach, a green-clad Forest Service Ranger suddenly appeared through the brush next to camp. We were apprehensive about whether this was an okay campsite, but he assured us that it was. He checked our permit and I asked him a few questions.

Me: Why are you carrying a shovel?

Ranger: It’s for poop; I don’t like picking it up with my hands. It is also for fighting forest fires.

Me: What’s the weather forecast?

Ranger: There is a 20% chance of thunderstorms tonight, with a greater chance after 11:00 a.m. tomorrow.

Me: Has there been any major news from the outside that we don’t know about after a week out here?

Ranger: It has all gone to hell. If I were you, I would ration whatever food you have left and head straight back into The Enchantments!

With that, he vanished up the lake to warn others of impending doom.

Cooking a meal along Upper Snow Lake

After our tough day, I suggested that everyone take their little blue pills. One of the female members of our party said that little blue pills come in several prescriptions, and asked if I was thinking of Wenatchee Girl. I said “I don’t need THAT kind of little blue pill” and Phil said “No guy would ever admit to needing THAT kind of little blue pill.” Okay, so I forgot that Viagra is a little blue pill. I was thinking of Naproxin Sodium, the generic pain pill that is also little and blue with effects that can last all day. I certainly don’t need the other kind of little blue pill. Really.

We went to bed, confident that we could get up early and head out before the thunderstorms hit. Little did we know …

At 10:15 p.m., the first flash of lightning was visible over the High Enchantments. Soon after, the first rain splattered the tent, and I got up and went out to my pack to retrieve delicate photo gear and bring it inside the tent. Karen saw me go outside, then saw the strobing of the lightning and thought that someone had gone outside and had their headlamp on “strobe.” Though why they would do that is beyond me.

A bit later, torrential rains hit our tents, and we endured five long hours of lighting, thunder, and deluge. This was the biggest thunderstorm we’ve endured in the mountains in 20 years. I would try to drift back to sleep, but soon Karen would be up and finding new places in the tent where water had gotten in. It was a REALLY long night.

The next morning, we assessed how our equipment had done. Our tent had let water in at the base and along some of the edges, probably because when nylon gets wet it stretches out and needs to be restaked. But during a torrential rain with lightning crashing doesn’t seem like the best time to go outside and play with tent stakes. So we got a bit wet. Our comrades in their one person tents ranged from completely dry to somewhat wet. We all set out our sodden stuff to dry a bit, but most of the drying would have to be done at home.

The morning after the thunderstorm

The torrential rain splashed sand up onto our tent

I used one of my underpants to clean sand from the tent; it certainly wasn’t comfortable to wear afterward!

Drying all our wet stuff

Karen reassessed our hike out, and realized that it was longer and required a steeper drop than we had first thought. It was going to be seven miles with a 4,100′ vertical drop. Doable, but tiring. We left camp by 9:00 a.m. and made good time at first, but then there were a lot of rocky stretches of trail where we necessarily slowed to maintain safe footholds.

When we got down near Nada Lake, Sue and I walked over to see the immense jet of water spraying out of an 18″ pipe, coming out of Snow Lakes and destined for a fish hatchery and irrigation downstream. Near the pipe, I glanced up and saw a Pine Marten staring at us from the sharp granite of a big boulder field. I raised my camera by instinct, and managed one grab shot before the creature vanished. Pine Martens are relatives of weasels, but are much larger. This was only my second or third confirmed sighting of one of these animals, and my first in the Cascades.

A quick grab shot of a Pine Marten hunting a boulder field between Snow Lakes and Nada Lake

A butterfly drying its wings and warming up in a shaft of sunlight on this wet and chilly morning after the storm

Beautiful and peaceful Nada Lake on a still morning

We’re just about at the trail head when we cross Icicle Creek on this long wooden bridge

The rest of the hike out was uneventful until I tripped and fell off the trail, injuring my pride but not my camera or my body. Fortunately, we all got safely down to the car, and then went out for a wonderful milkshake and meal at ’59er Diner, where every waitress is named Flo and every waiter named Joe, and the men’s room is a shrine to Marilyn Monroe.

Driving back to Seattle took us through the heaviest rain I’ve seen in Washington State, and cars were pulling off the road because visibility was so reduced. I didn’t pull off because I didn’t think I needed to: after all, I had taken my little blue pill.

For more information about hiking in The Enchantments, go to Washington Trails Association and Recreation.gov. To read my other blogs about The Enchantments, go to The Long Ascent, Mountain Goats, Forests of Gold, and Aasgard Pass and the Upper Enchantments. There is also a good web site that is based upon the autumn experiences of the Starks and another couple called 50 Years in the Enchantments.

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

THE ENCHANTMENTS IN AUGUST Part 1: Aasgard Pass and the Upper Lakes

Clouds that look like the cooled breath of a dragon above Dragontail Peak

My right ankle kinda collapsed under me as I stepped on a rock in the trail, then my left foot sought stability as I pitched that way. I didn’t find it, and instead plunged off the trail and fell down the slope. Fortunately, it was a short fall and I wasn’t hurt, but it was still another reminder that I am getting older. Everyone gathered around to help pull me up to the trail, but I was more embarrassed than shaken. And my camera–the most important part of me–was fine.

That was on the last day of the hike, about two miles short of the finish line and just short of where I had fallen last fall on the same route. I must let my guard down when I approach the end of the hike and am tired.

Five of us had set off on this hike seven days before, on a beautiful Sunday morning after the drive from Seattle to Leavenworth, Washington. Karen and I drove together, and the other three drove in another vehicle so that we could have two cars, enabling us to start at one trailhead and end at another. There was Sue, a retired geomorphologist; Terry, a retired lawyer; and Phil, a retired state department official who had worked in embassies around the world. Plus Karen and I, who are still working. I was the oldest in the group by a year, but all of us were in our ’50s and ’60s.

We left one car at the Snow Lakes Trailhead, then drove to the Lake Stuart Trailhead. Scores of cars were parked at the trailhead, but we found a good parking place and set about organizing our gear for the first day’s hike, which would take us up Mountaineer Creek for several miles, then up to Colchuck Lake, which is a stunning aquamarine lake located just below Aasgard Pass–our killer destination for the second day.

Crossing Mountaineer Creek on a rustic log bridge

Karen and I had heavier packs than the others, thanks to my camera gear (it isn’t fair to Karen, but I don’t have a Sherpa or a pack mule). My pack weighed in at 57 lbs., the same as my pack weighed last fall on the same trip. This time, I had a lighter tent and sleeping bag, but I was bringing a star-tracking gizmo for long exposures of the night sky, and that added about four lbs. of weight. I had briefly thought about bringing my underwater camera and a dry suit, but the reality of carrying about 30 lbs. more gear hit me like a big wet trout upside the head–though I might have made my nephew carry it all if he hadn’t canceled out of the trip. Karen’s pack weighed 42 lbs., and we were glad that we had done some rigorous training hikes all summer.

We were tired upon arriving at Colchuck Lake. Actually, we were tired whenever we arrived everywhere, so maybe I’ll just assume you know that. After inspecting our Enchantments Permit, Wilderness Ranger Carly of the U.S. Forest Service recommended a beautiful campsite on Little Colchuck Lake. We nestled our four tents among the fir trees (Karen and I shared a tent; the others each had a one person tent), then we set about hanging our food to defeat any bears. We went to bed early, having taken our little blue pills (more on that later) and cooked our Mountain House and Backpacker’s Pantry freeze-dried dinners. A few raindrops spattered the tents.

Colchuck Lake is a stunning aquamarine pool, surrounded by high granite mountains

The next morning, Karen found that every time she brushed up against a fir tree next to our tent, she got a sticky load of pitch on her hands and clothes. Let me tell you, pitch is a bitch in the back country, because we didn’t have the right solvents to remove it.

We pumped drinking water from Little Colchuck Lake, then cooked our breakfast of black bean soup, doctored with dried peanut butter for protein and ground nuts for texture. After two cups of Taster’s Choice freeze-dried coffee, I was good to go.

Little Colchuck Lake reflecting the sunset; shown here are the end of Enchantment Peaks on the left, Aasgard Pass in the center, and Dragontail Peak on the right

Reflections in Little Colchuck after a brief storm

Our vertical gain on the first day was some 2,100′ in about five miles. The second day, which would take us up Aasgard Pass, would only be about two miles, but what a two miles! The first stretch of trail took us through a boulder field at the upper end of Colchuck Lake, in which we climbed over and under and around huge boulders. It was tiring and challenging, but then we reached the slope that would lead up to Aasgard Pass, which ascends 2,300′ in about one mile. This, for those not used to hiking, is steep. Really steep. Muscle-killing steep. Did I say it was steep?

Working our way through a boulder field at the upper end of Colchuck Lake

Arctic Fireweed and shadows on granite, viewed while resting on the Aasgard ascent

The ascent would have been far, far easier with lighter packs and if we had been more accustomed to the roughly mile-high altitude, but we took our time. We were passed by a lot of people, including a 76 year old man. Later, a 20 year old young woman with thousands of sparkly gold sequins shimmering on her stylish black day pack left us dazzled in the dust.

Stream that paralleled our ascent of Aasgard

My shirt was soaked with sweat, and my face was smeared with SPF 45 and Deet, which melted down into my eyes as perspiration streamed down my forehead. Both Karen and I ended up with blood trickling down our sweaty legs from run-ins with granite. It was fun. Karen commented how stupid we were to attempt this climb, but we soldiered on, eventually reaching the pass, where Phil calmly waited for the rest of us after having surged on ahead, beating the rest of us by two hours.

When skin and granite collide

Fortunately, we enjoyed some of the sights as we ascended. There were Arctic Fireweed plants blooming–a species we had first seen in northern Alaska during a backpack 29 years before, when I had carried a 78 lb. backpack on my then-145 lb. frame (we’re not going to talk about my current weight, thank you, but suffice it to say that my pack-to-body weight ratio now looks better, at least on paper). A Mountain Goat mother and child sauntered by, wondering to themselves why the climb was so difficult and why we were producing so much sweat and so little pee. More on that later.

View back down to Colchuck Lake from halfway up

By late afternoon, we had reached the pass, briefly rested, and surveyed the Upper Enchantments. This stark and amazing basin sits below the towers of Dragontail Peak, which looks like it could be one of the dark and jagged mountain ranges surrounding Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. We found a campsite about 1/4 mile from the pass, right along Lake Freya and, more importantly, just a few steps from a great open-air toilet hidden among the larches and granite just above our campsite. A tarn ringed with granite boulders was perfect for obtaining water.

We set up camp among granite boulders in the Upper Enchantments

Karen dipping water for coffee and tea from the nearby tarn

The_Enchantments_Summer-660 Mommy taking a drink while junior waits, at the tarn we also used for drinking water

Some of our group had diarrhea, which I blamed on the stress of two days of climbing. In any event, when older people travel together, the talk often turns to regularity or lack thereof. Which brought about one of the frequently used acronyms on the trip: TMI (too much information). Three members of our group said they had experienced an odd sensation of shivering or hypersensitivity that they blamed on their bodies’ electrolyte balance being tipped because of the extreme exertion.

The Aasgard Adventurers: (clockwise) Sue, Phil, Terry, and Karen. I’m hidden behind the lens.

Last sunlight on McClellan Peak, with one of the lakes of the Upper Enchantments in the foreground

That night, the sky cleared off and we enjoyed the Milky Way splayed across the vast dome overhead, at least when we got up after midnight to attend to nightly rituals. We saw the advance contingent of Perseid meteors streaking across the sky, with no moon in sight and just a hint of the lights of civilization to the east.

Our four tents illuminated at deep twilight, with the jagged skyline of Dragontail Peak rising in the distance

Sunrise light on Dragontail Peak

Karen viewing the morning light from atop a granite outcrop

Our beautiful camp in morning light

The next morning, human visitors arrived to use the nearby toilet and goat visitors arrived to enjoy our company. I think we counted about ten different Mountain Goats, including mothers who were still shaggy from shedding, their small young of the year, yearlings, and a big male. Throughout The Enchantments, these creatures come around daily to see where their human guests have peed, so that they can lick up the golden liquid or the salty traces of it. I don’t know if these animals need some minerals contained in the urine, or if they are simply peeaholics, addicted to the pleasant taste of the salt.

We had learned from a sign at the trailhead that it is best to pee on granite, since peeing on bare soil will encourage the goats to dig up the soil. What we learned, in reality, was that peeing on slabs of hard granite causes the pee to splash back up–on legs and shoes. Yuck. Well, nobody ever claimed that backpacking was a clean and tidy affair.

The Mountain Goats came and went on their own schedule all day long; often we saw a mother and her young of the year, but there might also be a yearling tagging along, or sometimes a big male

Around camp we also saw two Hoary Marmots, who may or may not have been dreaming of getting into our Fritos. But the Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels, who look a lot like big chipmunks, certainly did try to raid our food. One of them even made off with a bag of mixed nuts and dried Michigan cherries before Karen chased after him and convinced him by overwhelming force to drop the bag. Too bad, he thought his raid had been a triumph.

Hoary Marmot checking out our camp

We chose to camp a second day in the Upper Enchantments, so that we could better take in this austere landscape, with all its lakes and ice and granite. It was a perfect day, and we simply wandered in the high country. There were waterfalls and ice cave entrances to explore, and streaks of watermelon snow (red algae) on the snowfields. A few small icebergs floated on Isolation Lake, calved by snowfields along the lake. This was also a day of relative ease, after the struggles of the past two days in climbing up here.

Terry exploring the glacier-polished granite of the Upper Enchantments

The stillness of Isolation Lake

Still still

Glacier-forged landscape of granite, snow, ice, and meltwaters

Entrance to an ice cave at the lower end of a snow field

This is how we hung our food: we gambled that bears wouldn’t be in this barren location and that we mostly had to keep the food away from ground squirrels

Suncups with an intense concentration of “watermelon snow,” which is an algae that thrives on summer snow remnants in the high country

Channels of intense watermelon snow reflecting on a lake

Karen videotaping above tumultuous mountains waters

Elephant Head, a classic wildflower of wet meadows in alpine and subalpine habitats

Mountain lake in the Upper Enchantments

Ripples and sun patterning a mountain lake

Granite and reflections of the blue sky in a zen garden

Last sun on McClellan Peak

Smoky sunset from our campsite; there were several large forest fires in the mountains around Leavenworth and Wenatchee

That night, I set the alarm for 1:00 a.m., so that I could work with my new AstroTrac star tracking device. When I got up, I found it was a warm evening with perfectly clear skies. I walked back toward Aasgard Pass by the light of my headlamp, then set up my tripod and set about figuring out all the equipment. By the time I returned to camp, it was 3:30 a.m., and I was exhausted, knowing that morning was coming in two and a half hours.

The Milky Way splayed across the heavens above Dragontail Peak

The next morning, our plan was to hike down to the Middle Enchantments, where we would camp for two more nights. We hiked down the trail, and three of us took a side hike to see a lake that Karen found on the topo map. This lake, named Lake Ladgunn on our Stark Enchantments map, proved to be the most beautiful lake in the Upper Enchantments. It was a bit higher than the others, and it still had substantial ice on the surface. It was magical, with its isolation and stunning colors and textures of ice. One American Pipit loudly called out to another of its kind from the surface of an iceberg. On the route down from the lake, Karen found a White-tailed Ptarmigan–it was the first I had seen in Washington in 24 years.

Hiking down the valley of the Upper Enchantments

Identifying peaks

Reflections of waves and sun on the face of a permanent snowfield, once a glacier, along Isolation Lake

Ever-present Mountain Goats, our high country companions

Lake Ladgunn, the hidden lake we investigated off the trail

Ice and reflections of watermelon snow at Lake Ladgunn

Glacier-polished granite with the aquamarine waters of the little lake

Fanciful floating ice with its own shadow

Melting ice and reflections

An American Pipit stayed on the remnant lake ice for as long as I watched

The stunning alpine setting of Lake Ladgunn

White-tailed Ptarmigan with Arctic Fireweed

We then walked to the lip of the Upper Enchantments, where there is a granite bluff looking out over the expanse of the Middle and Lower Enchantments. Here we enjoyed our lunch of cheese and crackers and dried raspberries and chocolate. While eating, a young woman in her early twenties breezed up to the cliff and started immediately chatting with us, while her boyfriend explored the area. She was in aerobics clothing, and was trim and athletic and pretty, without a pack, and without a bit of trail sweat or dirt within yards of her. If she had been a step closer, we probably could have caught the scent of her morning shampoo. While we thought it was a significant accomplishment to get this far on the trail, she and her boyfriend had started at 7:00 a.m. at the same trailhead where we started, and now, five hours later, they had come all the way up to and over Aasgard Pass and across the Upper Enchantments to where we were eating lunch. She made all of us feel inadequate!

Sue and Karen with iconic Prusik Peak in the distance

When people do the whole 20+ miles of The Enchantments in one day, it is known as the “Death March,” but this girl didn’t even look tired at the halfway point. We deemed her “Wenatchee Girl,” because that’s where she volunteered that she lived, and we compared our aging and tired bodies to her trim and athletic youthfulness for the rest of the trip.

And that is where I’ll end today’s part of the tale. In Part 2, I’ll describe our descent into the Lower Enchantments, where we encountered the magic of Alpine Larches, goats and more goats, and screeching upon plunging into a glacial lake with snow still clinging to the shore.

For more information about hiking in The Enchantments, go to Washington Trails Association and Recreation.gov. To read my other blogs about The Enchantments, go to The Long Ascent, Mountain Goats, and Forests of Gold. There is also a good web site that is based upon the autumn experiences of the Starks and another couple called 50 Years in the Enchantments.

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

THE ENCHANTMENTS IN AUTUMN Part 3: When We Walked through Forests of Gold

Golden Alpine Larches reflecting in the turquoise waters of Crystal Lake

Our goals for the two days in the Lower Enchantments were modest: we wanted to explore the shores of Inspiration Lake and Talisman Lakes, and hike up to Gnome Tarn to get the classic and oft-repeated photograph of Prusik Peak reflecting in the tarn. Distances are not long up here, so our day hikes were to be at a leisurely pace, allowing us to photograph these Indian Summer days to our heart’s content.

One hike took us to Prusik Pass. When we reached the pass, there was a cold torrent of wind funneled over this low place on the ridge. We had to put on extra layers, and we watched as the forest fires on distant ridges blew up in billows of fresh smoke. I was photographing when I heard a sudden shout of horror: one of our group had his camera on a tripod, and a sudden blast of wind tossed it right off a ledge onto the rocks below, damaging an expensive piece of equipment. I learned a quick lesson by his experience, and clung to my gear as the wind howled.

Prusik Peak reflecting in Gnome Tarn

From Prusik Pass, we bushwhacked up and over a ridge to get to Gnome Tarn. The tarn was diminished in size by a seasonal drought, so the shores were extensive and muddy. Clouds skittered across the sky in the high winds, sending their shadows racing to keep up. A Peregrine Falcon zoomed overhead. Below us, a pair of male Mountain Bluebirds, the color of sky captured in feathers, were a perfect complement to the golden Alpine Larch needles where they foraged.

Since the shore was so muddy, I laid down atop a plastic bag and waited patiently or impatiently for the sun to light up the peak in between long periods of shadows. I also waited for the wind to subside, so that the ripples on the tarn would diminish, making for a better reflection. With my companions, I waited … and waited … and got chilled almost to the bone. But the peak was finally revealed enough that I got some good pictures of The Enchantments’ iconic peak. Toward dark, the clouds grew thicker, and several of us decided that the peak had passed. The most persistent among us (not me) hung on longer, and got the best pictures of the day. Oh well; it’s always hard to know when to hold em or fold em in poker, and sometimes photography is the same way.

Prusik Peak at Gnome Tarn, where sunlight and shadow fleetingly crossed the peak

We cooked a late dinner of Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai and crawled into our tents. Or at least most of us did, I stayed out in the dark to try and get a few more pictures. The sky had cleared substantially by now, though there were still some clouds racing by. I was struck by the look of all four of our tents lit up by headlamps, so I asked everyone to cooperate for photos of the group of illuminated tents looking like fragile, glowing nylon fairies in the night. Then I noticed the clouds over a distant ridge; a full moon was rising and backlighting the clouds that were racing over the ridge.

Our tents lit by faeries or headlamps at deep twilight after our cold photo session at Prusik Peak

The rising moon created a corona of light on the racing clouds

The full moon revealed briefly by a tear in the clouds

Later, the full moon cast larch shadows over smooth granite, and illuminated larches and peaks under the starry sky

The next morning was to be our hike into the Upper Enchantments, which I’ll describe in another blog post, but before beginning that hike we went about our regular morning activities. These included a pre-dawn hike up the rocky slope behind camp to Inspiration Lake, where there was lovely dawn light on the surrounding peaks–and where the outhouse was located. Actually, it was not really an outhouse, since the vault toilet had a seat, but no walls. It was more like a throne with a great view through a sheer curtain of golden larch needles. It was beautiful enough to encourage us to “Skip to the loo …” Sitting there, I knew I was missing some great light, so I tried to speed things along, and eventually finished and ran down to where I had left my camera and tripod. Fortunately, I was not too late and was able to capture the red glow on the ragged peaks towering over the lake.

Early red light on the peak above Inspiration Lake

Karen creating a dawn video of the beautiful light on Inspiration Lake–and thank goodness for that warm layer of down!

Each morning was cold in The Enchantments; after all, we were in the mountains in October, when the golden Alpine Larches were spreading the word that the end of warmth was near. One of our group was a young guy with not much meat on his bones, and he shivered and lay wide awake all night. He said: “It was almost the worst night of my life.” When I asked him what night had been worse, he replied “Well, I can’t think of any.” He decided he had gotten all the great pictures he needed, and decided to hike out on his own, two days early. It’s a good thing he got out when he did, because the next morning it was 16°F, which makes me shiver just thinking about it. It was so cold that it was painful to brush our teeth, and the water bottles were nearly frozen solid.

Ice formed overnight in our water bottles when the temperature dipped to 16°F

Mountain Bluebird feather on thin ice at the edge of an inlet stream for Perfection Lake; the ice surface had an almost featherlike texture and there were tiny air bubbles trapped in the ice

Needle ice formed in wet soil on the shore of Perfection Lake

We met occasional hikers in the high country, with more as the days sped by and people realized that The Enchantments weren’t going up in flames. I often wear a University of Michigan baseball cap, which advertises my alma mater. It is amazing how many people I encounter in the Pacific Northwest who grew up in Michigan, went to the University of Michigan, then moved out West for better economic opportunities. It is a real brain drain for Michigan, but that is another story.

Anyway, on one morning near Perfection Lake, there was a pretty, young woman hiking alone. She struck up a conversation when she saw my cap: it turned out that she had grown up in Ann Arbor and had recently gotten her medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School and was now doing her emergency room residency at a Seattle hospital. Her mother from Michigan had hiked as far as Snow Lakes with her, but the steep climb from there was too much for her Midwestern legs, so she stayed back in camp. The bad part about meeting a new young doctor, as I get older, is the nagging feeling that “surely she can’t be old enough to be a doctor!”

Old and young Alpine Larches, blazing gold, were everywhere in the Lower Enchantments. As the week wore on and the cold and high winds took their toll, more and more needles lost their color and fell, but there were still concentrations of intense gold.

One of my companions looking across Perfection Lake toward Prusik Peak, with a vast panorama of golden Alpine Larches

I grew up in the Midwest and have lived in the Northeast and the Rocky Mountains, so I am well-acquainted with autumn colors: Red Maples burn with scarlet intensity in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; Sugar Maples glow brilliantly in Vermont; and Trembling Aspens shiver with golden light in Colorado. Here in the Northwest, autumn color was a bit of a disappointment until I learned about the timberline Alpine Larches. These are unusual, in that larches are a decidious conifer that somewhere along the evolutionary path strayed from the law that conifers are evergreen. Even here in Washington, the Evergreen State, they drop their needles.

Alpine Larch with golden needles and a cone, with the aqua waters of Perfection Lake forming a beautiful backdrop

For a tree living at timberline, where snow falls by the foot rather than by the inch, there are certain advantages to losing needles. The trees don’t have to carry as heavy a snow load with all the needles gone, so branches are less likely to break. Without needles, the larches don’t have to feed hungry Mountain Goats all winter. The trees don’t suffer as much from the dessicating effects of frigid winter winds. Perhaps most important, the vital amino acids, which are the building blocks for healthy needles, are safely tucked away in the roots and trunks of these trees living on the edge.

Alpine Larches along Leprechaun Lake

Peak of color along Perfection Lake, aka Rune Lake

Convergence

Seemingly growing from granite, this Alpine Larch looks like a bonsai; it has been stunted by the desiccating winds blowing near Prusik Pass

Shield Lake on the Lost World Plateau, shaped like one of the Red Delicious apples that nearby Wenatchee was always known for, viewed from Prusik Pass

The other trees growing at timberline were the Whitebark Pines. These pines were more scattered than the larches, and have a fascinating co-evolutionary relationship with Clark’s Nutcrackers that I described in an earlier post about Clark’s Nutcrackers in Banff National Park. We observed several of the nutcrackers flying through The Enchantments, commuting to their favorite trees. Whitebark Pines are threatened by White Pine Blister Rust, a disease imported from another part of the world, and by the Pine Bark Beetle, which has exploded in population as our climate has warmed.

Huckleberry leaves were scarlet, but there weren’t many berries to sample: it was another bad year for the bears. Mountain Bog Gentians bloomed in our campsite, and there were occasional purple asters along the trails. I associate these species with the last gasp of the dying summer in the high country, but it’s nice that they provide a bit of vivid purple to the landscape.

Scarlet Huckleberry leaves with a fallen Alpine Larch trunk

Awwww!

Gracefully weathered lines of a very old Alpine Larch trunk

When fallen Alpine Larch needles gather at the edge of a tarn, the end of autumn is nigh

We camped on Perfection Lake, or was it Rune Lake? Both names are used. The U.S. Forest Service originally established the place names of The Enchantments, and used such workable but rather dull names such as Perfection Lake, Inspiration Lake, and Isolation Lake. But the names got complicated when Bill and Peg Stark began visiting The Enchantments starting in 1959, and gave new names to the lakes, tarns, and peaks, based upon the legend of King Arthur and Norse mythology. Thus Perfection Lake also became Rune Lake. Inspiration Lake became Talisman Lake. Gnome Tarn is a name of their creation, as is Aasgard Pass. The place names of The Enchantments are now officially a blend of the two naming conventions, and there is enough overlap to cause plenty of confusion. Which makes the experience more fun. Myself: I love all the mythological names.

Karen cooking breakfast on one of our cold mornings

Snow for snowmen was scarce, but Karen make “Hula Girl” from a remnant snowbank of dirty snow, along with a skirt of fallen larch needles for modesty

Even grasses can take up the spirit of the season

Can you imagine a more beautiful setting for a campsite?

On these golden days in the Lower Enchantments, there was plenty of leisurely time for watching a pair of Meadow Voles leap from their grassy nest, and examining the texture of ice forming on the edge of a pond. Sometimes, people get so wrapped up in hiking long distances in the mountains that they fail to stop and smell the gentians. Not us: we revel in these long days of nature observation and photography.

A highlight was twice seeing a Douglas Squirrel race by, along the shore of Talisman Lake, with a big mushroom in its mouth. Mushrooms are a favorite food of squirrels, and they often store a mushroom among the twigs of a shrub, perhaps to dry it out for later storage or perhaps to let the rain leach out toxins. I’m not sure which, but I find the behavior fascinating. Can it really be instinctive to temporarily store a mushroom in the open? Other wildlife was scarce; the marmots had apparently already entered hibernation. We saw a single Pika and found its stored haypiles near our camp.

Inspiration Lake, aka Talisman Lake, just above our campsite

Karen crossing a log bridge over the outlet for Talisman Lake; we had a long stop here while I temporarily repaired my broken pack waist strap with duct tape (the kind young man who gave me the tape laid down on this log while waiting for my time-consuming repair to be completed, and he somehow rolled off the log into the stream and got soaked!).

Alpine Larch along Talisman Lake

Gentians in bloom near our campsite

Rune Lake viewed from a high granite outcrop above the lake

Larch shadows crossing the beautiful green waters of Talisman Lake

Trail through a subalpine meadow, with Little Annapurna in the distance

One last fond look at the magic of the Lower Enchantments: Prusik Peak, Alpine Larches, and Rune Lake

In the next and final installment of “The Enchantments in Autumn” story, I’ll go above timberline to the Upper Enchantments, which has a stark beauty all its own.

For more information about hiking in The Enchantments, go to Washington Trails Association and Recreation.gov. To read my other blogs about The Enchantments, go to The Long Ascent and Mountain Goats. There is also a good web site that is based upon the autumn experiences of the Starks and another couple called 50 Years in the Enchantments.

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

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