When the Permit Gods Smile Upon You: Hiking the Enchantments

Living in the Pacific Northwest, there are countless beautiful trails to hike. But there is one in particular discussed in whispered, reverent tones, lest a hiker upset the permit gods: The Enchantments. Crystal clear alpine lakes, an otherworldly moonscape, and a near impossibility of getting a permit: what’s not to love?

This is one of the many reasons why this permit is so coveted. Leprechaun Lake, Enchantments

The Enchantments

The Enchantments area is a region of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness near Leavenworth, WA. Section J of the Washington PCT also travels through the Alpine Lakes Wilderness a little bit to the west. In my totally-correct-and-not-at-all-subjective opinion, it is one of the most picturesque wilderness areas in the PNW. The Enchantments are just a small portion of it, but a particularly stunning portion and one sought after by countless hikers every year.

Technically, there are 5 permit zones in the Enchantments: Eightmile/Caroline, Stuart, Colchuck, Snow, and the Core Zone. The Core Zone receives the most permit applications every year. It is considered to be the classic Enchantments experience, but more importantly, a Core Zone permit allows you to camp in any zone. And this permit is exceptionally hard to get.

Enchantment Permit Zones from the US Forest Service

The Core is quota-limited: 24 overnight campers per day are allowed to enter the Core. In 2023, over 35,000 applications were submitted. Fewer than 7% of applications were successful in the lottery, including all 5 zones. For just the Core zone, the success rate drops to 1%. I’ve applied in the February lottery for the past few years without success. I have heard of hikers applying for nearly a decade without succeeding. I applied this year and received my (sadly) expected rejection email in March. The same happened to my hiking buddies who also applied. The odds are absolutely not in your favor.

The stats are not heartwarming.

When a Day-Hike is also a Thru-Hike

With yet another failure in the lottery, four hiking friends and I decided to instead attempt to hike the Enchantments in one day. Since the overnight permit is nearly impossible to acquire, a common workaround is to thru-hike the Enchantments. (The phrase “thru-hike” here specifically refers to hiking the whole trail in one day.)

The hike through the Core is point-to-point, typically starting at the Stuart Trailhead and ending at the Snow Lakes trailhead. Sources disagree widely about the total distance, estimating everything from 18 – 24 miles. This is because much of the hike from Lake Colchuck into the Core and within the Core itself lacks a clear trail. (I spent so much time hiking from cairn to cairn that I started to get irrationally angry at them. Even still, I can’t see a cairn without picturing both the brutal ascent and descent of this hike.) 20-21 miles is probably the most accurate estimation. This comes with 5000 feet of gain, front-loaded, and 7000 feet of loss.

The mapped thru-hike, starting at the NW green dot, ending at the NE black dot.

Long story short: this is not an easy day-hike. It is not for the faint of heart of weak of quads. But if it’s the only way to guarantee seeing this unique and beautiful landscape, many consider it worth it.

My friends and I planned to do this on August 10, and started planning in the spring. We had plenty of time to train and prepare. Even so, starting about a month before our planned hike, I started to get cold feet. Of the 5 of us, I was the only one who had never seen the Enchantments. I didn’t want my possibly one and only experience to be an exhausted race through the landscape, partially in the dark. I wanted to get a chance to experience it fully when I saw it for the first time. In the end, I decided not to join them, hoping to one day find success in the permit lottery. 

The Miracle Permit

Instead, I decided to go and support my friends on their long day. I had never seen Colchuck Lake, a worthy PNW day-hike in its own right. I love Leavenworth, a cute and charming Bavarian-themed mountain town that also serves as a PCT resupply stop, and this way I would be able to spend time in the town on my own while my friends hiked the day away. Not a bad trade-off.

We all hoped that we could find a last minute permit cancellation to be able to camp overnight in the Core on our trip. There is a daily geo-fenced lottery in addition to the competitive spring lottery. I planned to drive up early on Friday morning to be within the geofence and apply for a permit. A few days before, I logged into recreation.gov to check out what the daily lottery looked like. I looked at the normal permit page and froze – in just a week’s time, there was an available permit in the Core zone. I quickly clicked on it, excited to tell my friends we might have another option. As I looked closer, I realized the opening was just for 1 person. Just me. 

I stared at my screen. I had never planned to do the Enchantments solo. My preference was to hike it with others because of how difficult the climb over Aasgard Pass is and how steep the descent through Snow Lakes is. Aasgard Pass is the entrance into the core – a rocky, scrambly climb of over 2000 feet in 3/4 mile. Just the idea made me nervous. 

But, my planned upcoming trek on the Timberline Trail was looking less and less likely. I had already cut short my PCT WA Section J hike. Here was my chance to make something more of this summer, and have an unforgettable solo experience. I could not turn that down.

Colchuck Lake

With my permit acquired, I now could see this trip to support friends as an information-gathering hike. They started their Enchantments day hike attempt at 5:45 am. I joined them to Colchuck Lake, the first good stopping point of the hike. The lake is absolutely stunning, and it often called the most popular hike in Washington state. As such, hiking it on a Saturday was less of a hike and more of a conga line, with trains of 20+ trail runners forcing us aside as they passed. I followed my friends all the way to the base of the infamous Aasgard Pass before turning around.

Just the tiniest hint of how many people were there.

During the descent, my hiking patience was tested numerous times. Early on, I rounded a corner to see a hiker squatting and peeing just inches from the trail, two feet from the stream I was planning to collect water from. I was surprised on so many levels – what a bold choice on such a crowded trail, very anti-Leave-No-Trace in numerous ways, and blatantly inconsiderate. I was so surprised that I was jostled out of my normally anti-confrontational ways to snap that she really shouldn’t pee so close to water. Her friend, collecting water downstream, looked up at me and said, “Oh, I guess that’s a good point” while the peeing vandal tried to hide herself. 

After that, the hoards of hikers stepped aside for on my descent seemed like child’s play. What did surprise me was how many of them told me I was the only one who had given them the right-of-way. I was reminded why I don’t often do popular hikes on the weekends.

But, I was glad to get valuable intel. Knowing how much energy I should expend on this part of the hike, experience the famed boulder field, and looking at Aasgard up close all helped prepare me for my upcoming Enchantments hike. 

My reward in Leavenworth for surviving the most popular hike in Washington on a weekend.

But Did They Make It?

Yes! While I got to have a leisurely shower and walk into Leavenworth for lunch and a well-earned ale, my friends hiked an estimated 20 miles. They finished Aasgard Pass in 2 hours, an extremely impressive time and one I would not match. I picked them up from the Snow Lakes Trailhead, just a few minutes outside of Leavenworth, a little before 10 pm. As we discussed their experience, my friend Lauren expressed her potentially controversial hot take: “The thru-hike is not worth it.” In 16 hours of hiking, they only spent about 4 hours total in the Core zone, the most magical and sought after part of the Enchantments. The majority of the day was a brutal and toe-killing descent.

Between her comment validating my decision not to join, and the scoping they all did of ideal campsites for my upcoming journey, I couldn’t help but get excited. And nervous. So, so nervous. In fact, the nerves would grow exponentially over the next few days until my permit date. There was nothing to do but ride them to the trailhead and beyond.

Aasgard Pass over the jade green of Colchuck Lake.