The epic motivation for this epic adventure

Goal: Ruby Mountain in Ross Lake NRA
Parked: Colonial Creek Campground
Total Distance: 17.56 mi
Elevation Gain: 6,482 ft
Total Time: 21 hours
Sun Horizon Collisions: 2 (clear for both)
Photos Taken: 560
Short Summary: Comet watching and high elevation battles with packrats in the heart of the North Cascades.

Growing up I attended a lot of summer camps. Like, A LOT of summer camps. Horse camp, waterski camp, geology camp, dinosaur camp, soccer camp, olympic camp, jello camp, place filler camp, get-your-kid-to-a-different-location-every-week camp. With both parents working and lacking older siblings to annoy, I ended up every summer getting stuck with a bunch of shipping labels that directed me around Western Washington to learn about the world. I’m not exactly sure why I didn’t get just schlepped off to one of those two-month long forest camps, but maybe my parents liked me enough to see me every so often without the threat of returning to a barbecued house (I was quite into fireworks so this threat is much more real than you’d expect).

You can basically skip the first three paragraphs of this if you only care about the hiking. Too much light pollution (artificial and natural) to get a good view of all of NEOWISE down near the ocean.

Anyways, for whatever the specific reason, I frequently found myself plopped down in a new group of kids and most frequently this was at a day camp called Camp Anderson. Set on a rural lake surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest, Anderson was the perfect place to play all sorts of "campy" games. You haven't played Capture the Flag and similar until you’ve played them a la "guerrilla style" in a sprawling forest. Bodies were grimed, clothes were torn, bones were broken, and extreme boundaries were pushed as we scurried along decomposing logs 10 or more feet in the air to escape the grasping hands of our assailants.

One of these games was called Man Eating Chipmunks and it had a very simple premise. All the campers were small woodland creatures who had to get a nut (a colored, squishy, yarn poof) to an unknown storage location somewhere deep in the forest. The more nuts you stored, the more successful you were in the game. Oh, and of course you had to watch out for the wild man-eating chipmunks. These were the counselors who would do everything in their power to steal your poof and send you back out of the depths of the forest to restart your nut storage quest. Probably one of my favorite activities ever, but never did I think I would be dealing with real man-eating chipmunks.

What do you know? There are views up there!

I start out on the trail late. Somehow a planned noon "car locked, backpack already weighing me down, heel blisters forming" leave time has blown past before I even get out the door to the house. It’s 4 p.m. and I’m just now taking my last "final" bathroom stop. Now honestly, 4 p.m. is not the latest I’ve started a hike (wait, actually it might be), but I certainly don’t usually have only 4 hours to schlep 40 pounds of stuff 10 miles up 6,500 feet. I’m headed to the top of Ruby Mountain, an "off-trail" peak in the heart of the North Cascades, to enjoy the beauty of the newly arrived NEOWISE Comet (C/2020 F3) which has been gracing northern skies for the past few weeks. Unsurprisingly, my continued inability to pack correctly is why I’m lugging 40+ pounds for a single overnight. I honestly didn’t even pack a tent, but of course I’m carrying every camera lens I own so that more than compensates. The 6,500 feet of elevation that lies before me is a big day even by my standards, but the Cascades gotta cascade and anyways, it it really a hike if you’re not climbing at least 4,000 feet through trees?

Soooo green or turquoise or some color that’s unusual and makes it look extra pretty to us plebes

I’m leaving my car in the last open spot at the south end of Colonial Creek Campground. 15 years ago we used to come up here spontaneously for our annual week-long camping trip, but the world has discovered the North Cascades. As I set off along the trail there are hundreds of Instagrammable moments occurring along Diablo Lake as the paddle board Subarus line up half a mile along Highway 20.

The trail starts off gentle along the turquoise banks of Thunder Creek (the source of Diablo’s green glacial flower tint). Berries line the trail as I encounter a number of runners and hikers returning from a long day out. Other than those backpacking through the park’s valleys, the premier destination on this trail is Fourth of July Pass (a campground with a couple mountain glimpses). Regardless to say this is not a swarmed trail. Which is nice because there’s plenty of ripe berries that haven’t been touched. Even though I’m in a desperate rush to make it to the 7,400 foot summit for golden hour, I get off track for a bit as I munch on some blueberries (henceforth known as bluebs) and don’t pay attention to the trail signs.

Mama decided bluebs are tastier than Wyatt (I’d have to agree). If you look close you can see the ears of one of her cubs in the background.

I’m still trying prevent the bluebs from distracting me too much when I go around a corner, hear a couple loud crashes in the bushes, and find myself face to face with a family of black bears. The crashes are the two young cubs desperately trying to ascend two trees right off the trail while the yelp echoing through the forest is me realizing I’m less than 50 feet from their mother. She is not happy, and she’s not afraid to show it, especially since I’m slightly closer to her kids. All at once the cubs decide that they haven’t chosen the best tree to climb and make their break for a more distant forest while their mother begins to pick up speed towards me and I try to make myself look as big as possible (while also reaching for my telephoto lens from my backpack). I know I’m not supposed to run, but fleeing is definitely on my mind as mama comes within 20 feet of me. I cautiously take a number of steps backwards while making as much noise as possible. She stops at that distance, almost certainly not from intimidation but due to the fact her children have escaped to a suitable unthreatening distance. I’m sure she knows I want to pass her, but she doesn’t give a damn as I stand rooted and she mosies along up the trail munching on bluebs.

This interaction lasts 15 minutes (I get a couple of blurry/grainy photos, but I was never really set out to be a wildlife photographer). She’s in no hurry to let me pass and I’m in no hurry to anger her (or try to pass her by crunching off trail through the underbrush) so I take a moment to gather my breath and appreciate the beauty of her and her family. Eventually she makes her way off the trail and up the mountainside, allowing me to slowly pass and warn the hiker approaching around the next quarter that she should protect her dog if she doesn’t want it to become a chow chow.

Definitely don’t want to miss this moment

The rest of the five mile ascent to the pass is uneventful and I make decent time through the never ending low elevation forest. Every so often you get a glance of the surrounding peaks and glaciers, but they are mostly obscured until the pass where there’s an overlook with a pretty little lake and a decent view of Snowfield Peak. It’s here, with 4 miles and 4,000 feet to climb that the "off-trail" travel begins. After reaching the pass I take a left, passing a sign reiterating how I am now traversing an "unmaintained tail," and make my way though more trees. Honestly, I kinda love the fact you don’t get very good views here until the the top when you’re jaw instantly drops all the elevation you’ve just climbed, but sometimes you can get so desperate during the tree ascent that you start counting trees. 1, 2, 3…5436, 5437, 5438.

Most backpackers like to camp near water sources. This usually means you are at a "low point," but how can you be queen/king of the world if you’re at a low point. On Ruby, unless you want to spend years melting snow, the last chance to gather water is shortly after you’ve left the main trail. A dirty, slightly opaque pond, swarming with mosquitoes greets me and I gladly load up with 4 liters of water as I wage an all-out kung-fu fight with the insects. Hard to say who wins. I don't actually get many bites, but neither do many mosquitoes die, so maybe we’ll call it a truce. Refreshed and starving (Of course I can’t take the 30 seconds to eat a snack, I am behind schedule and the day is waning), I charge up the hill.

This is a great thing about camping near other people. You don’t have to carry up a tent to get all the great shots.

As I had read in trip reports, the "non-trail" trail is actually incredible! Sure I have to hurdle over a number of downed trees and navigate a few steep sections, but up until 6,000 feet it’s remarkably switch-backed with steady footing. Then at 6,000 feet it’s like whoever was making the trail got excited by the fact they were surrounded by wildflowers and mountain views and glaciers and they couldn’t wait any longer to get to the top. At 6,000 feet any pretense of preventing erosion or having a nice grade gets thrown off the mountain as the path takes the steepest line towards the summit. Like hold onto heather, bear walk up, don’t turtle or you’ll die sort of steep. I had chosen Ruby Mountain because I had heard there wasn’t much snow to slip and die on (especially with all the weight I was carrying), but that didn’t mean there weren’t scree fields to cause heart palpitations.

Lungs burning, heart thumping, legs screaming (oh sorry that was just a pika) I crest the summit ridge at 8 p.m. There are beautiful views and then there are views on the mountain tops of the North Cascades. Wow! Except for the summit blocking my view to the North I can see dozens of mountaintops and their associated glaciers stretching towards the horizon. Below lies the snaking figure of the Ross Lake Reservoir which stretches all the way to Canada. There are already two parties camped on the ridge (with three tents), but I didn’t come up here for the night to stay anywhere except out under the stars with the best view. One family gets a wave and that’s basically the last I see of them for the rest of the time on Ruby. They go to sleep before sunset and wake up after sunrise and hurry down shortly after (people, if you’re going to make the 6,500 ft effort, at least enjoy the most beautiful light!).

Group #1 missed sunset, the comet, and sunrise. I don’t know why they came up here, but I hope they enjoyed it because if you’re not seeing the alpenglow behind you, you’re missing out.

The next group has a tent so perfectly positioned that I have to take a picture of it. I’m still definitely on a timeline (golden rays are stretching across all the valleys and my sunlight is quickly disappearing) so after a slight pause I rush past them for the highest point. It’s amazing how well group-think works. I mean if I saw someone jump off a cliff, it might be harder than I think not to follow them. This pack sees me rushing for the summit and must realize it’s time so we troop up the last hundred feet to the radio relay tower together on an island in the Cascades.

Now, surprisingly, this is another beautiful trip in which I’ve failed to make it into the actual North Cascades National Park. Ruby is located wholly in the Ross Lake Recreation Area which means they can have stuff like this radio tower here. In fact, Ruby was originally slotted to be outfitted with a tramway to the top, which ended up being cut due to budget reasons. Hard to say how I feel about this. Would have make the park much more accessible, but also would have made the park much more accessible. I’ll probably have an entire write-up at some point about the history of the park, but now let’s get back to the evening light and the coming war.

360 degrees of peaks. I would love to make it into those other basins sometime in the next couple years

I’ve made it up in just under four and a half hours which positions me perfectly to watch the sun sink behind the Pickets. 360 degrees of peaks. No way have I ever planned to spend a night in as beautiful a place as this. There really aren’t words to describe the emotions. So I’ll let the photos do most of the talking. To the west Baker rides high on the horizon. The setting sun illuminates haze in the Baker Lake Valley below, which makes the mountain appear as if it's floating. Continuing to the south the Snowfield/El Dorado/Boston Ridge highlights peaks whose extreme summits are illuminated by the dying sunlight. There are just enough clouds to add a little color as the sun disappears at 9 pm and the group who has been hanging at the summit with me trying to name every peak falls into silence. Yeah. Nature is awesome.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of these views, but if I do please slap me.

Darkness continues to descend and we see a cute little mouse with a furry tail pop out from below a rock. Before the group returns to their tents for the night they make a passing comment about how backpackers from the previous night had warned about aggressive mice, but I don’t worry too much about them as I settle down to eat.

I’ve discovered that beauty has such an impact on me that frequently I can ignore all earthly needs if I’m occupied taking photos. My predominant thought on the way up had been food Food FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD. Probably should have taken a snack break, but what can you do. The sunset had distracted me, but now I am so hungry that I am losing my appetite and feeling pretty shitty. The overnight weather is predicted to be super nice with temperatures barely dropping below 50F so I not going to get cold, but now all I want is sleep which is definitely a bad idea. I have a dinner of champions, almost a full box of pasta, a block of cheese, and thick tomato sauce. The water boils, the noodles soften and I rest with my eyes closed against the radio tower as I spoon glorious food into my mouth. Thats when the attack begins.

Packrats are devil rodents who supposedly just want to fill their homes with warm and shiny things. I’m not so sure they can be spoken of in pleasant terms like that. The first attack is on my hat. I’ve eaten about 2/3 of my pasta and I’m just starting to feel slightly better as I rest with my eyes closed and as I wait for darkness to bring the comet when my hat starts to scurry away. This is not like a nudge here and a bump there, but rather a full on running hat about to disappear over the edge of the summit. It takes a second, but I have lost too many hats in the past couple of years (I have a strange predilection to lose thing that I normally wear on my head) and I dive for the hat. On first go I miss the way too nicely named "bushy-tailed woodrat," but I certainly find multiple jagged rocks. I scramble up and snag it just as the furry-tailed devil makes a break for freedom over the cliff. I’m sure that this animal was going for the Ratatouille paper plane escape method.

Okay, I’m awake and vigilant, but the packrat knows I will have to sleep at some point and he is patient. I scarf down the rest of my dinner calories (he’s not getting my food if I can help it) and place the rest high up on the radio tower. As I’m doing this my sandal dives for the exit. Anyone who knows me knows I feel very strongly about my Chacos so this is now personal. The sandal is heavier than the hat so it’s retrieved with less fanfare, but now I’ve entered war mode. I’m feeling the pasta kicking in, like a potion one takes to make you invincible. Somehow, it takes another shirt almost scuttling away for me to realize that none of my gear is safe from the monster. Everything goes into the backpack and I think about entering a full scale retreat. Of course at that point my eyes are set on the prize as complete darkness has fallen and the NEOWISE comet shines brightly above the distant glaciated peaks in the moonless star studded sky.

I charge…to my camera (which I guess could be considered leaving the field of battle and begin to shoot). My ears are fully tuned to even the quietest scratching sound. Every few minutes I turn around and spring back to my backpack as the assassin falls back into darkness. Meanwhile the stars are rotating, the Milky Way is glowing and I’m clearly in a warped version of heaven. After a recent trip to Utah I’ve gotten back into astrophotography so I’m doing different experiments to see how I can get the best photos with the relatively limited technology I have. The night sky is so dark you can see galaxies and the twin tails of the comet with ease, something I’ve really missed out on down in Western Washington.

Blue hour promises safety from the packrat

The adrenaline lasts about three hours, by then I’m exhausted, but the packrat doesn’t sleep. I may be done with my camera for the time being, but as I settle into my sleeping bag on my Crazy Creek chair (I’m too scared to put out my sleeping pad as I’m worried the packrat will puncture it) I know many battles are yet to come. Every half hour I wake up with a start as I hear a gnawing close to my ear. Rocks, sticks, threatening it with a railway share (please read Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark) fail to scare this creature away, but the long night slowly passes. At 4:30 color reenters the sky and I awaken after having slept for a glorious hour continuously. The man-eating packrat has faded like a spectre and I have saved my poofy photos of the comet in my camera.

Slightly disheveled after my battle, but not too much worse for wear

This is the second night in the backcountry where sunrise has been even more beautiful than sunset. I don’t know if this is yet a theme, but I will definitely have to give sunrises greater respect. Maybe I should be thanking my packrat for making sure I don’t miss it. Once again, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves, but by the time the sun is up I know I have never had a more beautiful overnight in my life.

After light has returned to the landscape my friends from the previous night rejoin me at the summit. It turns out multiple assassins were active throughout the night. One of the group has lost the straps of his backpack and his hiking poles. Fortunately the third party had an extra strap they lent him so that he doesn’t have to make the long descent down with an extra heavy fanny pack. We revel in the warming sun and I consume the blessed oatmeal of the backcountry as light returns to the landscape. First it hits the mountain peaks and then inches down into the valleys. The 2,600 foot Colonial Creek Falls, the tallest waterfall in the contiguous US and 15th tallest falls in the world cascades off its corresponding glacier and into Diablo Lake.

First light reaches Mount Baker. Soooooooooooooo pretty!

Up here it’s remarkable to see the change in weather across the Cascade Divide. Ruby is just over the first couple ridges of Cascades from the Pacific and it’s substantially drier than the mountains to the west. Meanwhile to the east, mountains that are 9,000 feet plus have very few glaciers and the winter snows have almost melted. On the drier side of the crest is Hozomeen which dominates the Northern view and looks like some two eared creature acting as gate keeper along the US Canadian border (maybe it’s trying to keep healthy Canadians out of the US).

Eventually I am left alone again on the summit. With the threat of attack gone and temperatures extremely pleasant I decide to catch up on the missed sleep before making the long trudge back to the car. With such a tranquil view, you would never know that a violent war had occurred here (although I guess it passed without any bloodshed). It’s peaceful and calming and a beautiful place to mentally escape from all the problems in the world. I wake up around 9 a.m. and figure it’s time to head back down. All of my stuff is already packed up so I heft everything back onto my shoulders and set off, down, down, down.

Look at those rays stretching across Ross lake and surrounding Hozomeen! In a night of a lot of impressive things, this may have been one of the most beautiful.

Immediately after I’ve left the top there are already some day hikers making their way up. These hikers obviously don’t have a problem with starting on the trailhead early ( I should ask them for advice). I float (errr thump thump thump) down the mountain with very little fanfare or excitement. No close encounters of the bear kind, no berries drawing me off the trail, not even a lack of water making me desperate for sustenance. It’s so uneventful in fact I’m back to the trailhead before I know it.

A common refrain you hear from explorers in the North Cascades is the more hikes you do, the longer your list of dream hikes. After this trip that is undoubtably true. This was my first off-trail travel, my first night spent on a high summit, my first "bivy," and my first battle with the wildlife. I’ll be back, probably for more nights, so that I can continue to explore this stunning area and I can continue my war with the Man-Eating (or at least gear-eating) packrats.

August 13, 2020

Night of the Man-Eating Packrat

Wyatt Mullen

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