Sara and I decided to take a backpacking trip for the long weekend - probably our most ambitious to date. After some deliberation, we decided on Ross Lake - which is just north of Diablo lake in the North Cascades National Park. We arrived on the night of Aug 31st to pickup our permits - only to discover that they closed at 4p and weren’t going to open til the next day. No big deal - we slept in the van at a beautiful boat launch and then headed over at 7a to pickup our permits. We were planing on staying at Roland creek camp and then rainbow point the second night. This was going to be a 7 and 9 mile push with over 1k feet of elevation change in two separate days (with a shorter day in the middle) - and Sara was carrying some of her stuff now… We will see how this goes!
9/1/2024
We kicked off around 8a on Sunday, headed along the east bank trailhead making our way to hidden hand campsite. This whole section of the trail is in the dense woods and it pretty much stays there as it starts the climb up and through hidden hands pass. It was a beautiful hike, but I was assuming it would get a lot more beautiful on day two when we started hiking along the lake
Sara’s pack didn’t quite fit her, so we spent the first several miles figuring out how to get it to work better for her. We finally landed on using my belt to tie the bottom half of the pack to her waist - replacing the hip straps that were way to big.
We got into camp around 3p and setup camp. Both of us were doing well - Sara struggled a bit with the uphill after hidden hands camp up to the pass, but she recovered quickly when the downhill started.
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After setting up camp, we decided to take a swim/bath in the nearby creek. It was cold! Sara then decided to wash all of her clothes (even the clean ones that were still in her bag) while I wasn’t paying attention so our tent was a trying area for the rest of the night so that she had something dry to wear in the morning… :)
9/2/2024
The next morning we had a short day - only 2 miles to get to our next camp and then we were going to play on the beach, do a day hike without packs, etc and enjoy being out here. We got up, had breakfast, packed up and made short work of the hike. The two miles of this hike were more beautiful than the 7 from the day before, so we just enjoyed it - views of the water, bridges and mountain streams.
We got into camp just as another group was being picked up by the boat ferry (you can access most of these camps by boat through the Ross Lake resort). After that, it was just us.
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We setup camp and had some lunch before going out to explore the beach. The beach was covered in tree stumps that looked like they had been chopped down a long time ago - probably when the built the dam, the area flooded and better to cut the trees down before they die. It made for a pretty cool looking beach though - probably would look different in early summer when the water level was higher.
We packed up after lunch for a day hike - about 2 miles up the trail to Devil’s Creek. It looked like it might be a pretty overlook from the terrain on the map, and we were not disappointed. These two miles were more beautiful than the last, with most of the trip on a trail carved into the cliff face about 40-50 feet up from the lake. Beautiful!
We headed back to camp after the day hike feeling refreshed and energized. We considered going for another swim, but it felt cooler than yesterday and we decided against it.
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A few minutes after we got back, some deer came through camp, fun! I’m sure they were coming through looking for food, but we had all our stuff squared away so they had nothing or ours to find.
Around 4p, another pair of backpackers came in - two of them, a man and a woman, and we invited them to come over and hang out/have dinner. They came over with a cribbage set and we played a game for the next hour or so. They had just finished a big loop, basically spending 3 days circumnavigating Jacks mountain - and tomorrow would be their last day. They had started dating recently, but she was meeting his parents next month - good luck to you both!
Sara was less into Cribbage than the rest of us, but she was perfectly happy playing with some of the jewels that she had brought with her - decorating the rocks, our stuff, basically anything around. Even our new friends were onboard and let her decorate some of their stuff.
We tucked in for bed around 9p, psyching ourselves up for the bit 9 mile push the next day.
9/3/2024
We woke up around 6 am the following day and slowly packed up camp. We ended up departing camp at 7:30a, just before our camp friends from the night before. They were much faster than us though and passed us up about 2 miles in.
After reliving the beautiful 2 mile stretch back to Roland Creek camp, we started our long assent up to hidden hands pass. Sara really impressed me here - She told me she was getting tired, so she needed my help to distract her so that she could keep going. I was just amazed at the self-awareness she showed here - Even today, I don’t think I’m this aware of what I need when I’m tired…
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We got back to the car around 3p and headed off to get mexican food for dinner. Sara was still excited about backpacking, even at the end of the trip, so I call that a win!
