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On August 24 2002 for our eleventh anniversary we rented a little floating cabin up at Ross Lake in the North Cascades. To get to our destination was a bit of an adventure. First, we drove 3.5 hours up into the mountains and across a dam. Then, we caught a ferry that took us up to the head of Diablo lake. Here are the pictures of Diablo lake:

Once we reached the head of Diablo Lake, they loaded us into the back of a giant pick up truck. The truck wound up the side of the mountain to the top of the Ross Lake dam. Steve had no idea of what was going to happen - he was awfully cute in his boyish enthusiasm for adventure!

When we reached the top of Ross Dam, we unloaded the truck (it was piled high with supplies and humans - mainly alcohol and fisherman). Then, the "water taxi" took us across the lake to the resort.  The water taxi was  cool. It was this old, but in fabulous condition wooden ski boat. The dude driving it would gun it and you would go bouncing across the lake. He would drive you right up to your cabin so you could unload directly into it.

This resort is very small and very hard to get into. The only reason we got in was that the person who had reserved the cabin we stayed in for the last seven years had to cancel. We booked a weekend in August 2003 while we were still there - we got the last open reservation. Pretty much you need to luck into a reservation at this place!

On Saturday, we rented a canoe and went exploring on Ross Lake. First, we went paddling up towards the dam. Then over to the waterfall directly across from the resort. Then we headed out of the break water and up the Ruby Arm. We had a great time. I packed pate sandwiches, Taro chips, vanilla coke, and apples for lunch. We went almost 4 miles up the lake. At around noon, we remembered that the rental chick warned us about the afternoon wind that would come up. Oops! We had to row 4 miles back to the resort, against the wind. And in white cap water.  A couple of times the wind was so strong that with Steve and I both paddling as fast as we could, we weren't even making head way, we would just maintain our position. We couldn't just get out and carry the boat back
because the steepness of the banks. It was pretty intense! We then started to take the hike around the lake to Diablo dam.

First, we passed this lady with a giant pack who looked like a dehydrated, dying turtle. A little further up, there was the man who was sitting off the to the side of the trail. Turns out they had been hiking off trail for days. No wonder the lil'lady looked so tuckered!

On Sunday, we did the return voyage of water taxi, truck portage, and Diablo lake ferry. From Diablo lake, we decided to continue further into the North Cascades park. We stopped at a look out over Ross lake to see a vantage point of our recent watery play ground. We then went up to the Rainey lake trail and took a short hike. I nice lady took our picture up at Rainey lake.

Eleven years gone by - each one better than the last!