October 5, 2024

Bright and early leave time at 3:40am for our 4:00 shuttle to the Stuart Lakes TH. We did a larch march with the rest of the state. We hiked the 19 mile Enchantments Traverse. It was absolutely enchanting! Walking through all the larches was epic. Add the light granite, the cool clouds, the jagged peaks - sigh. 

We were definitely happy with our strenuous hike choice. We started about 4:45am (and finished about 5:30pm) and hiked to Colchuck Lake in the dark and made it to the gorgeous lake just as things were getting light.  Then it was up Aasgard pass which was so hard. But much harder than Aasgard was the overall 7,000 foot descent, especially the last 8 miles from Vivian on. It was mental and physical exhaustion.  Funny how the downhill was more difficult than the uphill. Thankfully the amazing scenery from miles 4-10 made it all worth it. When we planned this trip months ago we hoped for some fall larches and the Enchantment larches were better than we could have imagined. Also - I was expecting the hard. What I didn’t expect was the amount of people.