Enchanatments, page 6

Glacier Peak in the distance. Mt. Baker waaay in the distance.

I took over 75 photos with my Pentax camera and knew that unless I totally screwed up, I was going to have some outstanding pictures when I got home. MMR also had a 35mm camera, but he had a wide-angle lens. He explained to me that he was getting panoramic shots that I would not be able to get with my normal lens. But I expected my pictures would be fine because, after all, it's really about how you frame the shot.

I took a shot looking down upon Nightmare Needles (the spires near Crystal Lake) that gave me a little twinge of Acrophobia. You can see a white blob at the bottom of the photo because I wasn't going to get any closer to the edge!

Nightmare Needles from the summit of Little Annapurna.

We headed back to camp, me still snapping pictures along the way. This is such an incredibly beautiful area, it's no wonder that people come from all over the world to visit it. It's wild, rugged and terribly fragile.

Looking down on Crystal Lake as we head back to camp.

The next morning, I packed up and started to hike out. MMR said he was leaving, too. We hiked together down to Upper Snow Lake, then I said ‘Toodle-oo’ and set off down the trail at a brisk pace, hoping to outdistance MMR, but he kept doggedly on my heels. Once we got down to Nada Lakes, I kicked in the afterburners and began to pull away from him. He might've been a mountain rescue hotshot, but I was a marathon runner.

On returning to the parking lot I found that my car, along with many others, had been broken into. The thief punched out the lock to the trunk and stole my jumper cables, tape deck and about $40 worth of tapes. Bastard! I stopped at the local police office in Leavenworth to report the parking lot vandalism. They seemed totally disinterested, basically saying that it happens all the time because the trailhead is right off the Icicle Creek road and easily accessible.

– End adventure!