Drew the Enchantments lottery hike

[Bean Counter]

Don't get too comfortable around them. I believe they gored a man in the leg on Hurricane Ridge a few years ago and he died. Quick Clot/tampons/torniquet might not be a stupid thing to carry.

When we would leave camp in the upper enchantment area to go pee, the goats would literally surround you and start to move in in your urine. The salt is like candy to them. When we went the USFS asked you to go on a big rock so it spreads out quick and the goats don't golp a pile of peepe'd mud and die from the alcohol/perscriptions/etc in your system, as has been previously identified via autopsy 

[Skyvalhunter]

Done the one day hike thru a few times. Its nice up there but a bit too crowded for me. Good luck and have fun.

[danderson]

  Here's one from last year while hiking the Pacific crest trail, I had many encounters with goats never seen any aggressive behavior, but I know it can happen, The ones that do approach hikers are in the minority most stay in there comfort range or just take off when you seen, the urine topic is well documented, have to be mindful of were you go.

[boneaddict]

Neat trip.   Looking forward to hearing about it. 

[danderson]

Just got back from 6 days of hiking into the enchantments, the hike was more like a combination of hiking /rock climbing scrambling across granite walls of stone, a lot more rock walls were you had to have 4 points of contact than I had thought, we went in from the Snow creek trail out of Leavenworth hiked approx 9 miles in past Nada lake to Snow lake, made camp there and the next day hiked into the upper lakes past lake Vivian, and made camp on a point of land on Leprechaun lake, this was the most fantastic spot I have ever made camp, Mt. goats were in and around camp at all times day and night, we didn't have any  major issues with the goats even the 2 big billys that came in just wandered around camp checking us out and eventually wandered off, the next day we set off for the upper enchantment zone made it past Sprite lake and Perfection lake and made our base camp in the outlet to  Perfection lake, although we renamed it windy gap, winds were in the 50 plus mph at night, the next day we hiked up into the upper lake area that was more like mars, very surreal, Mt Goats in tow as we hiked along they were following us, made our way up to the top of Aasgard Pass at 7800 ft. watched as climbers scaled the back side of Mt Stuart, we climbed to the top of Little Annapurna at a little over 8000 ft and made our way back to Leprechaun with the goats in tow, the next day we climbed up Prusik pass and made our way to the base of Prusik Peak, stood in the middle of 19 Mt. goats here, for more than an hour as they fed and bedded as if I was invisible to them, all females with kids, great hike over all with magnificent views lots of Mt goats a little challenging at times but very doable.

[Little Dave]

Cool stuff Dave.

[Duckhunter14]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. 

Clint

[quadrafire]

That is some amazing country there. Thanks for sharing and making me envious.
That is a cute little goat for sure

[Netminder01]

One of my favorite areas - thanks for sharing those pics. Those goats can be mischievous...   

[quadrafire]

How were the bugs?

[_TONY_]

Nice! We were up there on the 25th of last month... We were supposed to stay a couple days but we ended up doing the whole hike in one day... Mosquitos and black flies were intense.

[danderson]

  The Bugs really were not bad, we entered just as the weather started to change a cold front moved in with strong winds that kept bugs down, I did have the record for most horse fly kills with 12, there pretty slow, I was amazed at the number of through hikers late in the day at the top of Aasgard pass, one gal got hit in the head by a rock and lost a fair amount of blood, we decided to bag the decent of the pass as going down hill was a bit more than my group could handle, I will be going back there next year with a little luck in the permit system to complete the climb of some of the other peaks, and to climb the pass. 

[coachcw]

Good stuff!

[bowhunterforever]

Awesome country and pics

[Bean Counter]

We only spent 3 days, up there, and I wish we would have spent 5-6. Glad you had a good time.