Hiking the Enchantments — PROMASTER BLOG

My phone vibrated on my desk, “You in for a 3 night stay in the Enchantments starting July 29th?”.

I texted back immediately, “Let’s go!!!! Hell yeah I’m in.”

July was five months away but I didn’t think twice. This was the trip of a lifetime and right of passage for any Washington hiker or photographer.

Now for those of you who don’t know about “The Enchantments” let me bring you up to speed.

This is a region of the state in Central Washington known for its breathtaking alpine lakes and stunning views of the Cascade Mountain range. But these views demand a debt.

This area is infamous for its challenging hikes with several grueling stretches that quite literally last for miles. Aside from the physical challenge the trail offers, the logistical aspect of the hike is just as daunting. To hike this trail there are only two options: hike the entire eighteen plus mile trail in one day or apply for a camping permit through Alpine Lakes Wilderness Society’s lottery system, which offers about a 7% chance of success. Good luck!

After several years of trying (and failing) to obtain the camping permit, myself and a few friends decided we’d attempt the one day eighteen mile hike. So in August of 2022, we set out on the trail. Twenty three miles and over fourteen hours later we sat in the parking lot exhausted. Knees destroyed. Back destroyed. Feet destroyed. And not even close to enough photos shot.

The day itself was incredible. Stunning blue lakes ranging in every hue, jagged rocks contrasted against a pale afternoon fog and wild mountain goats frolicking with their kids. As a photographer these are the conditions you can only dream of. I frantically fired off shots trying to capture every possible angle of this place.

In order to make it off the trail before dark, we had to maintain a brisk pace. This didn’t leave much time for shooting on this trip. When I did finally return home and started reviewing photos, I found myself wishing I had shot more. And deep down I knew that I would.

Three years later that prediction came true. Somehow my best friend Conner won the lottery for a camping pass at the end of July. Unreal!

With our camping permit secured, our six person crew set off on the hike with our backpacks jammed packed. Spirits were high and the general excitement of finally having a few days off from the real world were kicking in.

Day one consisted of a four and half mile hike into our campground. Day two would be our second hardest with my estimate of total mileage ranging around fifteen miles. Day three would be an easier four miler to another nearby lake. And day four was the final four and half mile descent home.

Keeping that in mind, this was a trip where every single ounce was going to matter, especially camera gear.

Since I wasn’t sure when I’d have the chance to do this trip again, I knew I wanted to capture both photo and video on this trip. I finally landed on a small gear kit that consisted of: Two camera bodies, a Ricoh GRIII, a Sony A7SIII and GM 16-35 F2.8, a 82mm ProMaster HGX Prime Variable ND Filter, camera hand strap, 128GB Velocity CINE UHS - II V90 memory card, the XC-M 528CK tripod, and a bluetooth remote tripod grip.

Was this gear going to be able to allow me to capture everything I wanted? No way. But it was going to get me about ninety-five percent of what I was hoping to capture: big, sweeping landscape shots.

Every piece of camera gear was carefully considered for this adventure. Let’s start with the 82mm HGX Prime Variable ND Filter. Correctly exposed video was a priority on this trip and maintaining the correct shutter speed along with the native ISO would be crucial. For the A7SIII that meant keeping ISO at 640 and keeping my shutter speed at 1/48th for 24fps (or 1/125th for 60fps) for natural looking motion blur. In order to keep these settings locked in, aperture is the only variable to adjust. Now here’s where it gets tricky. If it’s a super sunny day, and it would be, in order to maintain that 640 ISO, I was going to need an ND filter that had a wide range of stops, so a variable ND was a must in this scenario. With over 8 stops of ND this filter would allow for footage to be captured with shallow apertures shooting in extremely bright scenarios.

The next essential piece of gear for this trip was a sturdy tripod. And there aren’t many sturdier than the XC - M 528K Professional Tripod. This tripod packs down to less than 16 ½ inches which made it great for attaching to the bottom of my backpack. Unfortunately for my back this tripod added an extra four pounds, but it was a piece of gear that I knew I couldn’t leave behind.

My reason for lugging this tripod into the mountains was I knew I wanted to shoot wide, detailed images ranging from f5.6 - f16. In order to shoot at this higher aperture at a wider focus this would require lowering the shutter speed to correctly expose my photos. And lower shutter speeds can introduce camera shake, which leads to blurry photos (amateur alert!).

This was one image I came home proud of. In order to capture this shot, I set my camera settings to f2.8, 16mm focal length, ISO 2000 and a shutter speed of 30 seconds. To make sure the camera wouldn’t shake while it was capturing the image I used my tripod and remote so I didn’t have to touch the camera to shoot.

To trigger these shots I used the bluetooth remote tripod & grip for Sony GP-VPT2BT. This remote also snapped into a handheld tripod/selfie stick. But the best part was its lightning fast bluetooth connection. I set it up once with my camera and never had to touch the settings to connect it again. This also came in handy when we sat down to take a few group photos as well. The range is incredible allowing users to control the camera from up to thirty two feet away. I’ll definitely be bringing this on every hike from now on!

The last variable I wanted to worry about when deep in the backcountry was memory cards. That’s why I went with the SDXC 128GB Velocity CINE UHS - II V90 Memory Card. This card is a beast! When shooting RAW photos or high resolution videos that require fast writing speeds, having a fast memory card that can keep up is critical to not risk corruption. This card can shoot high photo bursts and capture high quality video codecs that other slower cards cannot. With blazing read speeds of 300 MB/s and write speeds at 250 MB/s I felt confident shooting high photo bursts and capturing high quality 4k video. Another perk? When purchasing this card through ProMaster or an authorized dealer, you’ll receive a limited lifetime warranty and 48-hour replacement guarantee if there’s any issues with your card.

The last piece of camera gear that I wanted to bring on this trip was ProMaster's Large camera hand strap. I knew I would be shooting a lot of handheld video and photos on this trip and having the camera on my neck strap would be a bit inconvenient with my pack. This small hand strap was perfect for keeping the camera secure when I was hiking. It felt extremely secure and came with two straps; one that went around your hand and second strap that clipped your wrist in.

After finally returning home and reviewing what I shot, I can confidently say I captured what I set out to shoot; wide, sweeping landscapes.

What led to the success of this trip was thoughtfully considering what and how I wanted to capture this place. And I could not have done it with the support of ProMaster and their incredible team! This was not an easy place to capture and thanks to the versatility and quality of ProMaster’s products I was able to capture some of my favorite shots to date!