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Marcus has a great time of year for a birthday -- at least for those of us who like primo spring skiing (yes, it's still spring in the Pacific Northwest). This year he chose Ruth Mountain as his destination. Ruth is located in the North Cascades, midway between Mt. Baker and the Picket Range. The views are advertised to be some of the best in the state.

We spent the night at the Hannegan Pass trailhead and headed up the trail at a little past six Saturday morning. The trail climbs along the Ruth Creek valley through open meadows and stands of mature trees for several miles before reaching Hannegan Pass. The trail was about 75% snow-free until Hannegan Pass. From Hannegan Pass, the route climbs south around a small sub-peak to another saddle below Ruth, then climbs straight up the northeast ridge of Ruth to the summit.

The day was perfect -- crystal clear skies, but verging on too hot. It was fine though, after last weekend hanging out in miserable weather on Baker for two nights, I will take a little heat discomfort. We reached the summit after about 6 hours and gave Marcus a beer and a birthday song and took millions of pictures. The views were every bit as advertised. We could have stayed up there a long time, but the snow wasn't getting any better, so after half an hour we put on the skis.

There has been a recent problem with pollen on the snow in the Cascades, but none of us had experienced it yet. Ruth was no exception, although it didn't seem as bad as we had heard. It was definitely grabby, but if you stayed on your edges by turning a lot (the method preferred by Kirsten and Anastasia and me), or just going really fast (the method preferred by Marcus), it wasn't too terrible. It did seem that those of us with more wax on our bases accumulated more pollen residue, which is just weird. We enjoyed our turns down the Tasty Chutes (as Pete called them) nonetheless. After 2,000 feet of skiing we were back at Hannegan Pass.

The hike out got hotter and hotter. As we crossed slide paths the air was cooled by the snow, but on the dry sections of trail it felt like hot air was just pooling on the trail. Clearly our bodies are still acclimated to more wintery conditions. We all emptied our camelbaks with at least an hour to go and when we finally got back to the car we were quite parched. We found a picnic table in a nice shady spot and had watermelon and beer and water, then headed out. 2,000 feet seems like a pretty small amount of skiing for a 10 hour day, but any skiing in June is always good, and the incredible views certainly made it a pretty ideal trip for Marcus' birthday tour.