Prusik Peak - South Face and Enchantment Loop (in a day)

Michelle and I had a great day of fun playing in our back yard. Climbing Prusik Peak in a day is requisite for any climber that lives around here. Since Prusik lies pretty much half way into the Enchantment Loop, we decided to go in via Stuart Lake trailhead and go out via Snow Creek trailhead. The total trail mileage is about 21 miles, with over 5,000 feet elevation gain and over 6,000 loss. All this for 5 pitches of climbing on the South Face of Prusik. If you haven't figured it out yet, this makes for a very long day!

We left the car in the wee hours of the morning and arrived at Colchuck lake as the sun was coming up.

Dragontail Peak and Colchuck Lake. It is 4.5 miles to the lake, then we traveresed around the lake and up the broad Aasgard Pass left of the peak. In over 15 years of climbing here and over a dozen descents of Aasgard, that was the first time I've climbed it in it's entirety.

Up we go!

and up...

And finally, Aasgard Pass!

Witches Tower!

It was a beautful morning to walk through the Enchantments!

Looking back toward Dragontail Peak:

Just follow the Yellow Brick Road:

Follow, follow, follow, follow; Follow the Yellow Brick Road:

Getting closer to the objective:

Sure was pretty out there. Little Annapurna and Crystal Lake:

We finally reached our objective, Prusik Peak. The route goes straight up the steep face on the right to the summit.

I had done the Burgner-Stanley route 1 5/6 times before, so this time we opted for the Beckey-Davis line. The routes were very similar in character. Michelle following pitch 2:

Traversing across Snaffelhound Ledge:

And the final pitch which takes a cool, albeit short 5.10a hand crack right to the true summit:

Though it's typically done in 6 or 7, we were able to easily to the route in 5 pitches.

The obligatory Joe shot:

We were the only one's on Prusik the entire day!

We made four rappels down the back side and hiked back to the base.

Michelle chillin' back at the base:

Looking up the route from the base:

Then started our long 10.5 mile journey back to the Snow Creek trailhead. Looking back at Prusik:

Not much to say about the hike out, other than it was long and our feet hurt. You lose around 6,000 vertical feet from Prusik.

The weather was absolutely perfect; we wore t-shirts the entire day, right from and to the car. We made it back to the trailhead just before dark and low and behold our pickup was there waiting for us. Thanks Sara and Mark! It's excellent have great friends in Leavenworth!