Day 53: Ross Dam

August 1: It was a quiet, uneventful night. Amanda and I didn't linger in camp too late, though, since I had miles to hike and Amanda needed to get back to Seattle.

We packed up and returned to the car, then drove a half hour back to the Ross Dam trailhead where I would resume my hike, this time, carrying a full pack.

I had a quarter-mile or so hike down 300 feet to get back to the PNT which went quickly, then followed gravel roads along the shore to Ross Dam.

Ross Dam is one of several dams in the area built by Seattle City Light to provide hydroelectric power. About 92% of the electricity used in Seattle comes from hydro-electric power, and I couldn't help but think we have some of the most beautiful power in the world. In fact, I'm typing this blog entry from my computer in Seattle right now which, for all I know, is powered by electricity coming from Ross Dam this very second. A little connection to the PNT, even now when I'm off the trail.

Ross Dam is an impressive-looking dam, and has an admittedly odd checkerboard appearance which I've never seen on any other dam. Anyone care to guess the reason for that? I'll tell you the answer below, but go ahead and give it some thought.

Any guesses to why Ross Dam has this checkerboard pattern on its facade?

Construction began in 1937 and the dam was meant to be built in four phases. The first two phases were completed in 1940 and the dam rose to 305 feet (93 m) above the Skagit River.

The third phase was completed in 1949 and raised the height of the dam to 540 feet (160 m) above the river.

And the fourth phase was never completed. If it had been completed, the dam would have been raised another 125 feet (38 m). If the dam was raised further, the existing dam would have been thickened to support the taller structure and hold back more water, and the checkerboard pattern had been left in the face of the dam to help 'lock' the added section to the existing wall. Kind of like Lego blocks. But since the fourth phase was never completed, the checkerboard pattern remains.... never serving the purpose it was designed for.

And the PNT crosses directly over the top of the dam, which is where I found myself looking down over the side wishing we were allowed to throw bowling balls off from the top. =)

If only it were legal to throw stuff off from the top of
Ross Dam! How much fun that would be! =)

A short while later, I reached the trail junction that led down to the Ross Lake Resort. The resort is located a quarter-mile off trail, but I wanted to check out the location anyhow. It's kind of legendary among thru-hikers and I've heard so much about the place. A lot of hikers send resupply packages to the resort, but since I just got back on the trail barely an hour earlier, I was already well-supplied. I didn't really need anything, and with barely 10 miles to hike for the day, I had time for the short detour.

The resort is pretty interesting with all of the buildings floating on the shore of Ross Lake. It was a floating resort! A freshly-cut sign asked people to wear masks and social distance and hand-sanitizer bottles were tied to each table. I was a little amused to the see the bottles actually tied to each table. Apparently theft was an issue?

I put on my mask and dropped my pack at a table outside, then went into the office to look around and see what was available. There were some snacks and such available for sale, but PNT hikers would have been hard-pressed to resupply from what was available.

Ross Lake Resort floats on the lake shore.

I asked about a hiker box which they pulled out from a back room and took outside for me to browse. I grabbed a few beef sticks out of it before I returned it.

I also took a half hour to use their Internet connection to check email and messages one last time. I was sure once I left here, I'd have no Internet for at least the next several days, and maybe none until I reached the town of Concrete in eight days.

Then it was time to resume my hike, and that's what I did.

The trail was generally in good condition and didn't pose much trouble. My feet were in good shape and also didn't cause me any trouble. Life was good!

The only hiccup in my hike was that past Pumpkin Mountain Camp, I didn't carry enough water. My map showed about 10 small creeks I'd pass along the route and while some of the water sources I figured would be seasonal and probably dry, I had assumed I could fill up again in at least a couple of them--but I was wrong. Not a single one was running, so I didn't have enough water. It wasn't a huge problem. I cut back on my drinking and was a bit thirsty along that stretch, but it never reached a critical state before I was able to fill up with water again.

My campsite for the evening--as dictated by my permit--was 39-Mile Camp. I found a side-trail that was pointing toward 39-Mile Camp, but I wasn't entirely sure if that was the right camp despite the sign. It was a horse camp, as evidenced by the horseshoe on the post. Were there two 39-Mile camps? One being a horse camp and the other being a non-horse camp? I wasn't familiar enough with the area to really know how campsites were laid out and my map wasn't detailed enough to show exactly how the campsites connected to the PNT.

I didn't want to keep hiking up the PNT if this was the camp I was supposed to be at, but I didn't really want to walk off-trail into the horse camp if the hiker camp was still further up the trail. I wasn't sure where to go.

Finally, I decided to explore the horse camp. If there was a great campsite, I could just stop there anyhow even if it was the wrong location. I looked around a bit, but the campsite smelled like, well, horses. Nobody was there at the moment, but I decided to go back to the PNT and hike a bit further for a hiker camp which I quickly found.

I set up camp. The flies were terrible, but they were more of an annoyance than a real problem. I wound up killing dozens of them and thought about collecting their corpses in a pile like Blueberry did on the Superior Hiking Trail, but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth and I would just flick them off my groundsheet instead.

The campsite was empty when I arrived--both the horse camp and hiker camp--and I wondered how I was the only person here. I was the only person at Ruby Pasture Camp as well when I got off the trail. Campsites in the North Cascades could often be difficult to reserve because they're so popular, but they all seemed empty! Later in the afternoon, though, a few other people arrived. I had nabbed the best campsite for myself already--they had to find other sites at the campground.

And that was that. My feet survived the trek well enough. They were a little sore just from walking over 12 miles with a heavy pack, but no more than normal. The earlier injuries to my feet caused no problems. Life was good!

The PNT crosses directly over Ross Dam

Less than five months into the pandemic,
I could sense that some things had changed....

The North Cascades are beautiful! Gotta give it that! =)
This is the view from Ross Lake Resort looking back toward the dam.

I had a hunch these bottles of hand-sanitizer at each table were new this year, but I was amused to find them physically tied to the tables. Was theft an issue?

Little fish in the water.

The PNT first reached Ross Lake on the other side of the lake from this location. It's only two or three miles away, but it took about 25 miles of hiking because I had to walk around the perimeter of the lake.

This little glimpse of Ross Lake through the trees from the suspension bridge would be my last view of Ross Lake before the trail left the lake and headed into the mountains again.

Hello, Mr. Toad!

As the crow flies, the PNT hadn't really covered much distance. It was only a couple of miles from one side of the lake to the other. But as the duck walks, it required about 25 miles of hiking! (I grabbed this image from stage 35 of the PNT hike on Walking 4 Fun.)

Day 50: Ross Lake Arrival

July 24: I slept well and hit the trail running at 7:00am. Well, maybe not running--my feet were still in agony and hadn't improved during the night. They also didn't get worse, but each step was painful.

Fortunately, the first several miles of the day, I'd be heading downhill toward Ross Lake, then the rest of the day I'd largely travel along flat ground following along the shoreline of the lake. There was very little uphill for the entire day--a fact I was enormously thankful for since the uphills rubbed the back of my ankles most and therefore hurt the most.

Jack Mountain

So I headed downhill toward Ross Lake. There weren't many views, mostly tucked in among the trees, but numerous blowdowns slowed my progress. The scrambling up and over the blowdowns or up and around the banks of the trail caused my feet lots of grief.

Much of the time I spent wondering if there was actually a word that describes the back of a person's foot where my injury was located. I couldn't think of a name for it except the "back of my foot" or "back of my ankle," and I found both phrases needlessly wordy and imprecise. Heel didn't seem correct either, since I thought of the ball of the foot as the heel. I should invent a word for this part of the body, but what?

I settled on "kark." That's actually a Polish word for the back of the neck. My feet, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with my neck, but in English, kark had no meaning so I felt it was available to use for anything of my choosing, and I needed a word to describe the back of my ankle more than I needed a word to describe the back of my neck. And anyhow, in English, there was already had a word to describe the back of the neck--the "nape." So I figured I could re-purpose the Polish word to describe the location of my current injury. =) (If there was a Polish word to describe this part of the foot, I didn't know it, so that wasn't an option!)

With that pressing problem solved, continued down toward Ross Lake, eventually coming out to the shoreline with beautiful, wide and expansive views. It's a large, man-made lake that's 23 miles long and up to 1.5 miles wide and stretches across the Washington border into Canada. If the lake didn't exist, the PNT could just go straight across and cut dozens of miles of hiking around the lake into a few miles. But no, the lake is in the way, so now the trail follows the long shoreline the long way around the lake.

After covering about 7 miles for the day, roughly my half-way point, I was absolutely exhausted and crashed on a small nob overlooking the lake. The location was gorgeous! And I decided that I needed a long rest--at least for an hour or two which justified the pain and effort of taking off my shoes. Which is what I did.

 

I took a two-hour break on this nob overlooking
Ross Lake. It was a wonderful place for a break!

I enjoyed the break, eating snacks, reading my Kindle and admiring the views. But after nearly two hours, it was time to put my shoes back on and hike out to my campsite at Ruby Pasture. When I reached Ross Lake, I had entered the Ross Lake National Recreation Area and all camping was by permit only. I had a permit, and it required that I camp at Ruby Pasture.

The trail, much to my annoyance, climbed nearly a thousand feet up and away from the shoreline, somewhat of a "shortcut" to the Ruby Arm section of the lake. The path was shorter than one that would have stayed along the shoreline, but it was less scenic being in the trees and infinitely more painful for me to walk. My progress slowed dramatically.

Eventually I reached the top of the shortcut and the trail headed back downhill again.

On my map, the Ruby Pasture campsite appeared to lie right on the trail, or at least right next to it at the junction with the Hidden Hand campsite located a half-mile off trail. It was the reason I choose the Ruby Pasture campsite rather than the Hidden Hand campsite--it was closer to the PNT.

Except when I arrived at the junction, I didn't see the campsite. There was a sign pointing uphill to Jack Mountain, and there was another sign pointing in the opposite direction to Hidden Hand Camp, and toward Highway 20, and toward Ross Lake. All of the directions were labeled, but none pointed to Ruby Pasture. Where the heck was Ruby Pasture?

Unsure, I walked further up the trail for a few minutes, but it didn't take long before I guessed this was the wrong direction and retraced my steps back to the junction. So then I tried following the trail to Hidden Hand Camp--ironically not so hidden since it was labeled at the junction. My Ruby Pasture camp was pretty well hidden, though!

I decided to follow the trail toward Hidden Hand Camp, however, because if I didn't find Ruby Pasture, I'd just set up camp illegally at Hidden Hand instead. If the park service wants me to camp at Ruby Pasture, they should have labeled their signs pointing to its location!

A quarter-mile down the trail, I found the Ruby Pasture Camp. But I was further dispirited when a post marked that the water source for camp was I another 1/4-mile further down the trail. "That's Hidden Hand Camp!" I exclaimed with anger. I thought this campsite was supposed to have its own supply of water. If I have to hike a 1/4-mile to another campsite, then it doesn't have a water source! 

I was very angry when I discovered that I had to walk
another 1/4-mile (one way!) to get water.

I was so pissed. Every step was agony and I was doing too much off-trail walking already. Round-trip, I'd need to walk another half-mile just to get water! Which meant I had to do a full mile of off-trail hiking from the PNT to the water source. Not to mention the extra mileage I covered when I walked in the wrong direction looking for the campsite. I'd have been better off if I had just reserved the Hidden Hand Camp to begin with. Yes, I'd still have to walk a half-mile off trail, but at least I wouldn't have gotten 'lost' looking for my campsite and I'd actually be camped directly near a water source.

If I knew beforehand that there was no water at Ruby Pasture, I'd have filled up with water at the last creek I passed before arriving and save that half-mile of walking from the camp to the water and back.

Basically, I was very upset. Why did my maps show my camp on the trail instead of a 1/4-mile off trail? Why was there no hint that the camp didn't have its own water source? Argh!

I partially set up camp, dropping my heavy pack and tying my Ur-Sack to a tree (I don't normally like to leave my food unattended, but I sure as heck wasn't going to carry it to the water source and back!)

I took off my shoes--I couldn't wait to get them off again--then walked to the water source in my Crocs. The Crocs were wonderful to walk in. I flipped up the strap so it didn't get used and walking was easy as soon as there was nothing rubbing the injured area. I was still annoyed at the extra, unexpected walking, however.

I skipped making a proper dinner once again. It was too late (7:30pm) and I was too tired and felt too lazy to cook a meal. I ate snacks instead and pretty much decided that I needed to get off the trail tomorrow. Highway 20 was just 2.5 miles further down the trail. I could hike out in the morning--even with my injuries, it wouldn't take more than a couple of hours--and have all day available to hitchhike back to Seattle. Unless some miracle happened overnight and my karks started feeling a heck of a lot better, I was getting off the trail tomorrow.

Blowdowns were the most difficult part of my morning since I had trouble navigating them due to my injured karks.

The trail alongside the lake was well-maintained, mostly flat, and had no blowdowns at all! Beautiful trail!

That looked like fun right now. Maybe I could get off the trail without having to walk?! =)

The trail along the shoreline of Ross Lake was definitely the highlight of the day!

Plenty of fresh air while doing your business! =)

Today I named this area of my foot the "kark."
Turns out, hiking 14.4 miles today didn't help it heal.