May 12, 2007, Mt Ruth, N Cascades

Mt Ruth has been on my hit list for about 15 years but I've never had all the planets align until Bill Doyle and I headed out on Sat. The road is easily passable up 2 mi then come more washouts. We got another .5 mi up the road before calling it quits in front of a large rubble pile at ~2700'. We left the car at 8am and got the campground (~3100) around 8:30. There was a well used Toyota 4x4 pickup that had made it all the way. We followed the trail through intermittant snow until we put the skiis on our feet about a 1.5 mi in. We skinned up through bands of slide alder slowly awakening from their winter hibernation. We cross the creek at around 3720' and made quick progress to the head of the valley. We had some trouble getting up the steep slope as skinning slid out periodically and booting it was mostly postholing.

But once we were on the ridge it was clear sailing to the top of Ruth at 7100' at 2pm. We hung out for awhile before heading back. WOW! Incredible ego snow for about 1500' down to  the top of the headwall where the snow really started to resemble slushies. We followed our up track back down valley and got back to the car around 6pm.