Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

October 13, 2024

2573m

Leavenworth, WA

Little Annapurna is one of those Bulgers that do not boast over 100 m prominence so the inclusion in the fabled list is likely due to the significance in the hiking community. This is arguably the easiest summit in the core zone of the Enchantments. My original plan was to combine this with either Enchantment Peak or Dragontail Peak but I somehow ended up doing those objectives without the inclusion of Little Annapurna. I honestly wouldn’t mind because the Enchantments is one of the areas that worth repeated visits, especially in different seasons. When Krystal asked me if I had any plan over the Thanksgiving long weekend I knew it’s eventually the time to tick Little Annapurna off the list. The larches were at the prime and all of the new snow had certainly melted after a week of warm weather. Krystal’s capable of running 50 km in a single push but had minimal off trail experience so I picked something physically demanding but technically straightforward. Kostya also decided to come along but with a secret plan to also grab Dragontail Peak along the way, which I was not surprised at all.

I insisted on car-camping because I otherwise could not handle both ways of driving, and we definitely needed my trusty Tacoma for the final few miles of FSR. I picked them up from Kostya’s home at 9:30 pm and then drove towards the border. The border crossing took almost 40 minutes thank to one of us not having the NEXUS card. Still, it was very annoying to have such a long line at this time of a day. I guess everyone’s out taking advantage of this long weekend’s incredible weather. The rest of the drive to the trail-head was exhausting but uneventful and we got there at around 1:30 am. In about half an hour the two tents were erected but then people started to show up. The night was extremely noisy. I don’t think any of us got much sleep so by 5 am I woke everyone up that we might as well get going. There were at least several hundred people arriving between 2 and 5 am and the parking lot was already full. Krystal came prepared with lots of fancy homemade food (risky given the border crossing) so we took full advantage of that, having a luxurious breakfast before starting the day at around 7 am. Later I learnt that there were several thousand tourists, hikers and climbers visiting the Enchantment’s core zone over this weekend and that was unbelievable.

This was already my 4th time hiking the Colchuck Lake trail so there’s little worth documenting. Krystal volunteered to set the pace and we arrived at the lake in just over 2 hours, without doing any unnecessary stop. We immediately started the contouring with some up-and-downs. The boulder field on the far side of the lake was just as annoying as I remembered, and Krystal took the oppourtunity to practice her scrambling skills. I told everyone that I generally do not take a break until there’s some sunshine so we must press on, and the next stage was that daunting 700 m grunt up the Aasgard. Not to my surprise there was no direct sun beam until 100 vertical meters under the pass so no break’s allowed. Krystal did this section excellently and we managed to pass at least 20 if not 30 people. We eventually caught up to a pair of Russian ladies and slowed down as Kostya was socializing in Russian. I used that as an oppourtunity to quickly don some sun protection, and we did our first proper break 100 m higher at the pass.

I had a few ideas about the route on Little Annapurna as I generally prefer to not follow the standard way, but the terrain seemed a bit more involved than anticipated. We deviated from the main trail by traversing between two lakes but after examining the scramble route up close we decided to pull the plug and just do the easiest (but longer) way. Krystal was overall not very keen on scrambling. To get to the standard NE Ridge route we had to lose more elevation and plod across more flats, but at least the larches’ density was increasing. The scrambling up the NE flanks was also not just an “off trail hike” and involved fair amount of boulder hopping and walking on slabs. This was all basically new for Krystal so we took our time. Eventually after about 7 hours we made the summit of Little Annapurna. I decided to not scramble the Witches Tower in favour of getting back at a reasonable time, but Kostya should proceed onward for his traverse to Dragontail Peak. I would then accompany Krystal down the exact same way that we had came up from and we planned to regroup somewhere near Colchuck Lake or at the parking lot.

Krystal did the descent excellently so we made good time back down to the main trail. I then decided spontaneously that we should do some detours to check out more larches for the simplest reason of why-not. I did not think it’s possible for Kostya to finish his twofer while still beating us back to the Aasgard and I was correct. Krystal and I really took our time descending that 700 m loose terrain but the bonus for us was seeing two mountain goats. To get some better pictures we had to venture off trail. Krystal was very excited as seeing the goats was actually her primary objective of this trip, unlike Kostya and me. Kostya eventually caught up to us at the lake just when it’s dark enough to use the head-lamps, and we stuck together for the rest of the hike-out. The round trip time was 15.5 hours. Thank to Krystal’s preparation of food we just had a late dinner at the parking lot and eventually started the long drive homewards at 11 pm. Kostya and I had to take turn driving and we eventually got back to the border crossing at 4:30 am. The border guard asked us a shit ton of unnecessary questions but that’s understandable, as crossing the border at this time of the Thanksgiving Monday did seem rather weird. I wouldn’t complain because I’m fully aware of the fact that I’m a weird person who does weird things. I eventually got back home at 5 am but still had to drive to Elise’s house for the promised cat sitting, so did not go to sleep until 6 am. About 3 hours later I woke up not knowing where I was nor what I was supposed to be doing, but I quickly realized that I needed to show up at work. I ended up working all the way to the late afternoon but exhaustion made me cancel the final few hours. I then slept for 12 hours straight on the following night.