Adventure Report: Ross Lake 135 Mile Solo SUP and Run
1pm on Monday, August 17th, 2020 – Marblemount Ranger Station
Ranger: What campsite should the permit include for tonight?
Me: Can we do Cat Island?
Ranger: Are you sure? That is like a 20 mile paddle in and its already 1pm?
Me: I was actually going to run up Ruby Mountain before even getting on the water. It’s probably going to be a late night.
Ranger: (With a confused look on his face) If you say so. How about the second night?
Me: Hozomeen Camp
Ranger: Hozomeen? I’m not sure that is even open this year. Let me check..
<5 minutes later>
Ranger: Ok, you’re allowed to go there. The bathrooms are supposedly open, but since the Canadian border is closed, so there is no road in and no one else is up there. How about the third night?
Me: Tapto lakes
Ranger: How are you going to get all the way over there?
Me: Run
Ranger: You really are getting around. This is probably the strangest backcountry permit I’ve ever issued.
Me: I’m going to quote you in my trip report
Ranger: I want to read your trip report. I’m interested to see if you actually make it.
Between August 17th-2025th, 2020, I ran and paddled ~135 miles in the wilderness around Ross Lake – alone and unsupported. Over 82 hours, I ran up mountains, glided through the mirror-image of a starry night, flirted with hypothermia, utilized live bats as a makeshift bug shelter, suffered minor heatstroke, slept outside in the rain without a tent or tarp, and bushwhacked through the thorny stalks of neck-deep devil’s club. This is my adventure report.
Goals
- Have fun – ACCOMPLISHED!
- See something new – ACCOMPLISHED!
- Don’t meet any cats – ACCOMPLISHED
- Complete 100+ miles of combined SUP & Running – ACCOMPLISHED
- Complete 3 18+ hour days of self-powered moving – NOT QUITE. I did 54+ hours but took 3.4 days – depending on how you count, my days were 14.5, 11, 12, and 18 hours long.
- Complete 150+ miles of combined SUP & Running – FAILED
- Complete 200+ miles of combined SUP & Running – FAILED
- Get a few good shots on the GoPro – ACCOMPLISHED
- Average 120bpm+ during my moving hours – ACCOMPLISHED
Successes
What am I proud of from adventure day?
- Most miles I have ever covered in one push
- Most miles I’ve ever covered without sleeping (62 miles on the first day)
- Made some good gear decisions
- Had just enough battery to keep everything (phone, emergency GPS, GoPro and tracking watch) powered on until the final hour
Failures
What areas could I improve for future adventures?
- This wasn’t the right paddle board selection
- My plan to secure gear to the board was not sufficient
- I need better bug defenses
- My legs got pretty cut up – could use some of those pants things
- I spent way to much time packing and unpacking gear – probably 10 of the 82 hours
- I bit off too much on the first day, getting into camp at 5am didn’t work well for sleep
Thankfuls
What that was out of my control am I thankful for?
- My wife for letting me take a few days to go run most of the crazy of 2020 out of my head
- Jim Henterly, the ranger at the top of the Desolation Peak who recognized my heatstroke and gave me some water
- Abram for helping me plot a course and being my remote support crew
- Phil & Denise for letting me borrow their GPS tracker again so everyone could follow along
- A relatively uneventful trip
Frustrations
What that was out of my control do I wish had happened differently?
- Little Beaver was far too overgrown with some nasty thorns & stinging nettle
- The mosquitos were out of control, one of the worst years those parts have seen
Summary
Day 1 – 2pm start, summit Ruby Mountain, paddle across Diablo Lake, portage the dam, paddle to cat island, rest there for a bit, paddle to the east side, summit Desolation peak, paddle to Hozomeen camp, finish 7pm the next day
Day 2 – start 7am, paddle to Little Beaver, run to Tapto Lakes, finish 7pm
Day 3 – start 5am, run back to Little Beaver, paddle to dam, portage, paddle Diablo lake, finish at midnight
My 2020 Bucket List Adventure
When January 2020 rolled around, I decided my bucket list item for the year would be to undertake a 100+ mile SUP (stand up paddling) and trail running adventure. Little did I know what else 2020 would have in store for me.
In the end this adventure felt fairly uneventful for a year that has featured wildfires, COVID-19, murder hornets and unexpectedly working from home for six months (so far). It seems tame to have an adventure where I only flirted with hypothermia and heatstroke, where my only close encounter was with a very calm juvenile black bear, and where I mostly had all of the right gear… mostly. But nonetheless, here is the story of 82 hours and 135 miles in the backcountry.
Preparation
After last summer’s failed attempt to non-stop run the Wonderland Trail, in which I ended up spending the night sleeping in the dirt with no gear, I decided to invest in some better lightweight shelter.
New additions for 2020 included a down jacket, a down elephant’s foot sleeping bag, a lightweight inflatable mattress and an emergency bivy sack. For the cost of two additional pounds, I had a sleep setup that makes it possible to get some solid shuteye, even while camping next to a glacier at 6k ft.
I also upgraded a few things in my running kit, a lighter knife, a water filter instead of iodine tabs and an upgraded fuel strategy that was a bit better tested. My second attempt at a trail run was being undertaken with much more experiential wisdom than my first.
Doing another big run would have been too easy though, I added in SUPing which added some new elements. I needed all of the gear to SUP (paddle, board, PFD, waterproof bags, etc.) and would have to learn a whole new set of skills. A month before my trip I realized I didn’t really know how long it was take to SUP 50 miles as I’d never paddled farther than a mile. In addition I had to figure out how to attach my gear, to the board and how to keep it dry (down is useless if it gets wet, as are my electronics).
I took a private SUP course with Rob from Salmon Bay Paddle and went on a test 10 mile paddle. The two of those had me feeling pretty good about the paddle itself. In retrospect I realized that until the day of my adventure, I had never secured gear to my SUP or paddled with bags on it.
Here is the gear that came with me.
As always, calories are important. I went with mostly carbs but since it was a mutli-day trip, added some protein and fat in as well.
Plan
I wanted to attempt a compass-points adventure centered on Ross Lake. My goal was to do one big run at each of the North, South, East and West sides of the lake. I had some backup trails in case the main ones didn’t work, or in case I was ahead of schedule and needed extra miles to reach the dark place.
The order of things would depend on what I got permits for an how fast I was moving. I had a few rough plans depending on which nights I could get which sites for. My goal was generally to camp near trailheads I wanted to run so that I could stash my board at the camp.
Sidebar about days: The nice thing about starting an adventure at 5 or 6 am is days on the calendar roughly line up to consecutive 24 hour periods of exertion. Especially if you sleep at night. Because I started at 2pm and paddled through the night, I am somewhat confused as what to call day 1. Is is the first calendar day (10 hours long)? The first continuously moving stretch until I stopped and tried to sleep (15 hours)? The first 24 hours? The stretch until I actually slept (30 hours)? For the purpose of this blog post we’ll go with the last one I list, time between sleeping.
Ruby Mountain
I set out on my adventure from Colonial Creek Campground at 2:30pm on Monday. I unfortunately had to pack and finish some work the morning before I drove up and I had to get a permit at the rangers station on the way. I would have loved to start early, but, alas, that wasn’t what worked for this trip.
It feels pretty funny to start and end in Colonial Creek campground, a crowded, family-friendly National Park campsite I’ve been to a few times before. Here I am running, loading up a highly curated 5lb bag of gear that I hope will keep me alive during three days in the wilderness as families inflate their 12″ mattress pads and setup pop up bug net shelters around their picnic benches.
The run up Ruby Mountain starts along a flat nature trail that follows a beautiful river for 2 miles before it gets steep and ascends 6k ft over the next 8 miles. About half way up the mountain there is a campsite and then the trail starts heading back down the other side to another river. The only way to the top in an unmaintained trail that splits off. In fairness to this trail, it was better than many of the ‘maintained’ trails I spent time on over the next days. Finding it gave me a bit of trouble though. It wasn’t on the map I had, so I assumed it split off from the camp and wandered around for a bit before giving up and deciding to go a bit farther. Thankfully when I got there, I found a sign that at least let me know I was at the right unofficial trail.
The unofficial part was fine except fallen trees weren’t cleared so I spend 3 miles harkening back to my days of racing the steepleschase. Thankfully this was my first day and my legs were fresh.
Towards the very top the trail gives way to scree and marmot holes. Here you start to get views of more mountains to the west and finally, when you reach the ridge, you get to see the full 360* view of the North Cascades, including a clear perspective on Ross Lake, the 20 mile body of water I’d spend the next few days covering.
I summited in 4.5 hours and made it back down in 2 hours 45 minutes. The final miles were in the dark and I had a brief encounter with two sets of eyes on the trail that didn’t follow me. That there were two and that they didn’t follow, it was probably just deer, out for an evening drink.
Night Paddle pt. 1
As I jogged back through camp at about 9:30 pm, I found myself amused by the contrast between myself, a runner, now 20 miles into a planned 150 mile adventure and hordes of marshmallow faced kids playing flashlight tag.
I hit the bathroom, (the last flush toilet I’d see until I finished) refilled water bottles at a spigot and pulled my board out of the bush I had stashed it in that afternoon. Thankfully no rodents or campers had decided it was interesting. I strapped the bags to the board and paddled into the darkness.
I quickly found my headlamp was almost-useless. It only illuminated a small area in front of me, not enough to navigate with and the brightness of the light ruined my ability to spot anything farther away. The best approach was to paddle in the dark, using the black shadows the mountains cast on the starry sky to set my course. It was a moonless night and the water was so calm that it acted as a mirror. I could see thousands of stars, above and below me, sandwiching the symmetrical shapes I knew to be mountains meeting the lake.
Paddling became a bit surreal at this point. I lost touch with the notion that I was floating on water and felt as though I was flying in space. Perfectly glassy water and perfect silence. A stark contrast to some of the paddling I’d face three days later.
The walls of the mountains got slightly steeper as I turned onto the Skagit river arm of the lake. The waterway narrows as you get closer to the dam. It was 11:30pm as I reached the dock where the portage started.
Uphill Portage
The next mile is a mostly-uphill gravel road that winds around the dam and connects me with the next section of lake. During the day there is a truck that will take you and your boat up this road for $20. At 11:30pm the truck wasn’t an option. Besides, that felt like cheating anyhow, I wanted to be self-sufficient.
Having never portaged before, this was a learning experience for me. I debated if I should attempt two trips, one with the board and the next with the gear, but decided that being separated from either of those things was probably a bad idea. So I put on my backpack, picked up my board by the handle, under one arm like I cary a surfboard, and carried the paddle in the other hand. This worked great for ~50 yards and then my arm was tired from the 35lb board (that might have taken on a bit of water) and I set it down on the gravel road. Specifically, my forearm and hand were tired from holding the board and trying to keep it pointed the right direction.
After a series of 50 yard shuffles, I decided to try and improve the situation. I used some straps and the leash to spread some of the weight of the board off of my arm and onto my opposite shoulder. I also found if I squeezed the board against my body it was a bit easier to cary. Unfortunately that started to result in some chaffing on my forearm from the traction pad of the board, but at least it got me up the hill.
I got lost here, there was a fork in the road with one sign saying ‘Ross Lake Dam’ and the other saying ‘Ross Lake Ferry’. I knew I needed to get into the water, and assumed the dam was the best way to do that. I was wrong. I ended up on top of the dam, looking down at a 20 ft drop to the water, debating the logistics of jumping 20 ft with a paddle board and gear. I was also a bit worried about getting int the water that close to the dam, I know there are turbines and valves and stuff under there and didn’t want to get sucked up or go over the falls. I suppose I could have huffed back up the train and tried the other trail from the fork, but it still wasn’t clear to me at this point that was correct, perhaps I was supposed to cross the dam.
On the other side I made it to a dirt path that still didn’t put me onto the water. I was clearly not in the right place, was now really tired of carrying my board and it was around 1am. Now a good distance away from the dam and any machinery that might suck me under, I felt fine getting into the water. I found a rock that let me get pretty close to the water. I found that getting onto a SUP with all of your gear is a lot more complex that it might seem. Being it flat calm water, on a sandy beach, like where I started, makes it pretty easy. Being on rocks, a few feet above the water, is a whole other story.
I’m sure I ate something during the hour the portage took, but I didn’t record my food on this trip and can’t remember. If I had to guess, it was some fig bars, a few Oreos and a bunch of water. I probably also had my first 100mg of caffine around here.
Night Paddle pt. 2
Now, nearly 12 hours into my adventure, as the clock struck 1am, I was on the water and only a 15 mile paddle from my camp. Up until that point I had never paddled more than 10 miles in a day before, so this would be new territory for me. I was pretty sure it would take 4-5 hours, but wasn’t sure how my body would do paddling for that long without rest.
As I paddled north away from the dam, Ross Lake Resort and the few lights still on were on my left. Then a light appeared behind me. A boat was approaching with a spotlight. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be on the dam and generally dams are pretty sensitive areas (especially since September 11th, as they are viewed as terrorism targets) so I was expecting to have to have a conversation with some sort of law enforcement.
The boat was going really slow. I gather there are speed restrictions on the lake, especially at night. My strategy was to keep paddling unless they got on a bullhorn and explicitly told me to stop. It slowly closed on me over the course of a few miles, periodically scanning around with the spotlight. I wasn’t using my headlamp, so I’m sure they lost track of me periodically, which I still wasn’t sure if I should consider an advantage or a risk. It eventually caught me though and then passed with a wave. I have no idea who would be crazy enough to be up on the lake at that time of the morning. Perhaps someone going to pickup campers at a site way up north early the next morning.
I somehow navigated fairly effectively in the dark without a light using the outline of the mountains and reflection of the stars on the lake. I knew from my GPS, downloaded on my phone, which side of certain outcroppings I needed to stay on and as I kept paddling, there kept being more lake to paddle on.
By this point I’d gotten pretty tired of standing up so I began to sit and paddle some. I found that the water was so calm, with even a gentle stroke I could keep some decent momentum going. My paddle only has a blade on one side, but I was able to use the handle and some extra pull on the other side to keep things fairly even. This was the section of the trip that was the most “brain off, just keep moving” of the whole thing. Hours passed by, my GPS beeped and periodically I’d check the GPS to make sure I was headed in the right direction still.
Sometime around 3am I passed close to the shore where there was a camp. When the created the lake by damming the valley, they also cut down trees at the edge so they wouldn’t rot and fall over. What this created was a bit of a graveyard of tree stumps, each sticking a few feet out of the water, their dark black outlines standing in contrast to the star-speckled reflection of the lake.
As I navigated through these stumps I had my first and only real swim of the trip. I was back to standing and as a swerved around one tree, I suddenly felt a bump. My fin had run into another tree stump, one below the water and stopped the board dead in its tracks. I flew overboard and landed on a muddy floor in chest deep water. It wasn’t bad, except the water was in the 50s, the air was too and I still had a few hours until I could get anywhere warm and dry.
I kept paddling and eventually was producing enough body heat to dry off and stay warm.
Not Camp
Cat island really needs a cat.
I got there around 5am and figured I’d try and get a little bit of rest before starting up a mountain for the day. I laid down on my tarp and immediately felt a few chipmunks hopping all over me looking for food.
What is funny is I had picked this camp specifically because it was an island, figuring it would be safe from critters, large and small.
After some futile attempts to scare the little chipmunks away, I decided I might as well start my day. A few hundred calories later I was off.
The backup plan had been to use another campsite I saw up along the way. In retrospect, camping at a site much closer would have been a great idea. Getting into camp around 2am and catching a few hours of sleep before an early start would have made the next day go a lot better.
The trailhead to Diablo Mountain is just on the east bank, so I had to do a short paddle over and find a place to dock my board. I decided to keep most of my gear in the bear box at Cat Lake for safekeeping from chipmunks.
Diablo Mountain
This is a big nasty climb without any water access and was nearly the end of my trip.
Six miles of switchbacks and 4,500 of vert to get up to 6k ft. I started around 7:30ma and by 10:30 as I broke the tree line it was getting warm and I was out of water.
As I got to the top the ranger up there noticed I was in bad condition and took pity on me, refilling my water and making sure I was good before I took back off downhill.
I the PNW I rarely have to think about water, but this was one case where one liter wasn’t enough between refills after 24 of movement.
Paddle Back to Camp
This was the silliest hour I’ve ever wasted.
Cat island is just a little south of the trailhead to Diablo, it should have been a quick paddle. Unfortunately the wind was blowing strong from the South and I spent a silly amount of time going those few hundred yards. After packing up I got back on my board to head north to Hozomeen, thankfully for this leg the wind was with me.
Paddle To Hozomeen
This was mostly an uneventful downwind paddle. I stopped once on the shore to eat because there was too much chop to really do much on the water.
The wind calmed down in the evening and I got to camp. I was the only one there. Well, there were about a million mosquitoes that were happy to see me. The second I stepped on land my legs and arms were covered. There was nothing I could do to keep them off of me.
I had planned to do a trail up in Canada, but figured I’d check out the border first to see what the vibe was. There was a gate and a sign saying it was closed. Then a bunch of people camping on the Canadian side.
It was a funny moment in the midst of a funny year. The whole world was shut down by a pandemic and this border crossing was technically closed, but in the silliest way possible. There were no guards, just a laminated paper sign and an empty campground that was inaccessible by road. And one silly American who had stand up paddled to it.
I decided not to to the Canadian hike – the combination of international laws, mosquitos and 28 hours and 62.5 miles, I figured I could use some rest.
I noticed a few kitty paw prints in the sand around the camp, which was not comforting, but they could have been old, the area was very undisturbed.
I setup my shelter to keep the bugs out and found it wasn’t super effective. The combination of it still being light out, the mosquitoes buzzing in my ear and the thought of kitty cats all had me a bit off. I went to the bathroom which was very unbuggy thanks to a bunch of spiders, and hung out a little longer than the bathroom required before deciding that was kind of a lame way to spend the evening.
I had a better idea.
The Buggiest Night
Often bugs are a bit lighter over the water, so I decided to head over to the dock. Sure enough there were fewer bugs.
What there was by this time was a lot of bats hunting the few remaining bugs. I decided that was a fair trade – I’d lure bugs with my stench from two days of running over to the dock and the bats would eat them before they could land on me. So I setup my bivvy and soon feel asleep. That was a great night of rest.
Paddle to Big Beaver
A short 8 miles paddle in the morning over to the west side and I was at the Big Beaver trailhead.
In retrospect, I should have done a better job packing. I got all ready for a paddle at Hozomeen camp, paddled for two hours and then spent another hour at Big Beaver camp repacking for the run and overnighter. Had I thought about this better, I could have saved that time and packed straight for the next thing.
Run to Tapto Lakes
A nice mellow seven hour run of 20 miles and 4k feet.
Most of this was very uneventful. I was excited to bump into some humans at one point. After going most of two days without seeing any, it was kind of nice. One bear, also nice to see. I tried to pet it, but it wasn’t feeling it and scampered off.
The most eventful part was a stretch of trail that hadn’t been maintained and likely not travelled much that year. It was overgrown with neck high devil’s club – a plan with an irritating thorn on the stalks that give you a nice sting. A few miles of trudging through that in shorts and my legs looked pretty raw and felt even worse.
The views in the valley and at Tapto were worth it though.
Camp at Tapto Lakes
I had debated if I wanted to stay the night at Tapto or run back to Big Beaver. Being unsure is a risky move.
If I knew I was going to stay, I might have brought more gear, because I wouldn’t have been time crunched. If I wasn’t, I would have gone much lighter.
I had decided to go right in the middle and bring a lightweight setup, elephant’s foot bag, polycro groundsheet and my fleece. Just enough to stay warm but not enough to stay dry.

I ended up just enjoying the sights of a beautiful evening and sleeping there. I felt it start raining around 4am and decided I’d stay in my bag as long as I was dry and then take off. It was my last night out so I didn’t need things to stay dry, I could dry them once I got home.
An hour later, I was still surprisingly dry but decided I might as well get moving. Rain jacket over my down and I was moving for a nice 20 miles slightly downhill.
Paddle into the Wind
72 hours into the trip it was time for me to return to my car. I just had a nice 25 miles of paddling left to do. I was looking forward to the glassy water and stars I had three nights before.
Alas, that day was much more like the previous one – strong wind coming from the south. It was so bad I could barely make progress.
I ended up finding that instead of going in a straight line, I could do better my weaving my way along the shore and taking waves on diagonally when I had to. I was able to make some slow and stead progress, but it was hard fought for.
Downhill Portage
Around 10pm I finally reached the portage. Downhill is so much easier than uphill, I was able to do it in a single trip with only a few rest stops, just a half hour to cover that mile with all of my gear in tow.
Final Paddle
Nearing midnight, the wind had finally calmed down and the last bit of paddle was actually pretty glassy.
An uneventful final few miles back to the dock and I was back at my van. I decided rather than trying to drive tired I would just crash at that camp and drive back in the morning. What a great night of sleep after some 135 miles.