With its somewhat gentle slopes and comparatively inviting appearance, I would classify Ruth as the symbol of towering elegance within the baker area. Not elegant in the sense of a daisy or a swan seemingly floating on a placid lake, rather that contrasting elegance we give to things that also hold much power. With this is in mind, I had a mission to get closer to this thing.
This trail is nice in the sense that--for the most part--you know where your destination is. In an unkempt forest you can duck and rise, dodge and weave, and begin to question just where in God’s name you are heading; not so here; here you instantly have a connection with your destination. Right from the outset-- when you are stumbling on the somewhat loose collection of rocks the trail seems to continuously hold-- Ruth is visible, and asking sincerely for your motivation and energy.
Your available room for your steps is limited, as at some point long ago some brave souls entered bushwhacking hell to make a trail through towering brush on the side of a hill. I wonder if it became a question of someone’s sanity in pondering to design trails through certain sections of the North Cascades.
A cloud would intermittently move in and diffuse the light over the backlit-rugged Mt. Sefrit. This was a nice break, as it was getting uncomfortably hot; uncomfortably hot in the sense of how a ham feels while it is in an oven.
A lady passes by lamenting at how she didn’t bring bug spray and is a main course for rather unselective creatures. I smile kindly and say hi as six flies bite into my arm.
At many points your boots are enjoying the hydration they so deserve, as one passes various cascades along the trail. I packed my water filter and enjoyed the refreshment that fresh-snow melt offers several times.
At one of the cascade crossings, a man sits and enjoys the puffs from a cigarette. He resembled something that would hail from a Harley Davidson convention more than he did a hiker, as there was a rather sporadic gathering of tattoos on his arms and a mustache someone could hold on to.
I wouldn’t deem the pass a disappointment in the sense of how I deem the movie “Daredevil” a disappointment, but with Tapto lakes and so forth, it definitely isn’t the prime-aesthetics repository on the whole trail. For the large portion of the day the lighting is harsh in a spot you wouldn’t really want it to be harsh at.
I scrambled up a slope and enjoyed sunset in a rather uncomfortable and precarious position while granting a tree the opportunity to prevent my bag from rolling down the slope. After sunset , the clouds merged and suddenly begin to sock the area in. My baked skin told me it enjoyed the cool and increasingly moist air that the cloud pattern brought.
On the dark trail along the descent, the moon illuminated the swirling and dense clouds hovering above Ruth, as I avoided rolling an ankle approximately 56 times. To summarize, not the most enjoyable trail I’ve done in the dark.
Photographically speaking: this area is decent. I really had to hunt and peck (mostly peck )for the compositions that I did shoot, which was a very small handful. It may be a better area for longer focal lengths, as I feel that without the heather or other floral growths, there wouldn’t be much to use for a foreground.
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