Too Much Driving...: Enchantments Trip - Backbone Ridge

After way too much planning and logistics, Mel, Amy, Jason and myself finally made our trip to the Enchantments region of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. We had reserved a three day permit to camp at Colchuck Lake, (right at the base of Dragontail Peak, second highest peak in the Stuart Range) and indeed our campsite was spectacular. Mel and Amy were planning on hiking over Aasgard Pass into the Enchantments basin, and Jason and I were planning on a little climbing. As the sun was setting we polished off dinner and Jason and I were scrambling to plan our route up the lower portion of Backbone Ridge, a classic granite arete on the north side of the mountain (Grade IV - 5.9 - 16 pitches).

My alarm went off at 3:45, but I was already awake and nervious about the climb... This would be my first "alpine" 5.9 climb, and the prospect of climbing so many pitches of this grade at altitude with a backpack on was a little stressful to me. In the dark we started up the loose rock approach, and by first light we were changing out of our crampons and stepping onto the rock which marked the toe of rock buttress. About a half hour of scrambling led to the first real pitches of climbing, so we changed into our rock shoes and flaked the rope out. One 200 foot pitch led to the lower crux of the route, a 100 foot offwidth (wide) crack that tends to weed out the folks who aren't cut of for the rest of the route. Thankfully, we made it through this pitch without too much difficulty, but then immediately paid for our success by loosing track of where the proper route went. A short traversing rappel put us back in the correct crack system and we were again swapping more leads. A few more pitches led to easier ground, and we shortened the rope length and simulclimbed for another half hour or so. This simul-lead brought us to the base of the upper ridge and a feature called the fin, which is a polished granite slab laced with intersecting crack systems. Words fail to describe the quality and position of these pitches, but suffice it to say that it was the most spectacular alpine rock climbing I have ever done. Four pitches later we were straddling the knife edge crest with literally thousands of feet of exposure on either side. A dead end at this spot forced us to downclimb into the top of the triple couloirs route... This pitch punished us for the solid granite pitches we had enjoyed previously with rock so loose that 4 out of 5 handholds crumbled or pulled out. This pitch more resembled mining than climbing, and I'm still amazed that the whole mess hasn't managed to simply wash off the mountian yet. Just when I thought we were in real trouble, I spotted an exit gully that led back to the knife edge crest of the ridge and solid rock. From another ridge-crest-straddling belay I brought Jason up. His final lead brought us to easier rock and we scrambled to the summit. It was 5:45 and we had been climbing for about 12 hours. Here are the pics:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So while Nate and Jason went off climbing, Amy and I hiked over Aasgard pass to explore the enchantments.

Colchuck lake with Aasgard Pass

We spent most of the day hiking through the upper enchantments while searching for the elusive mountain goat.

View of Leprechaun Lake in Lower Enchantments?

After a few hours of hiking and exploring all the lakes, we came across a few moutain goats. These were the first I've seen so I was pretty excited!!!