Diablo Lake Trail

Drove up to North Cascades National Park to hike on a warm sunny Spring Day. We chose the Diable Lake Trail as it would be snow free. This is a 7.6 mile round trip hike with 1,400 ft of overall elevation gain.
View of Diablo Lake from the road over the dam.

 View of Colonial and Snowfield Peaks on the south side of Diablo Lake. This is the beach by the trailhead parking area.

 The trail is mainly in the woods. There are several crossing trails near the beginning of the hike.
This trail is well signed at the junctions.

 There was lots of lovely moss along the way. The trail was fairly dry. There were a few streams over the trail, but only a few muddy spots.
















About 1.5 miles up the trail is a boot track to a viewpoint under the power lines.
 Colonial,  Snowfield and Davis Peaks

 A short ways further down the trail, the views open up for awhile.

 Across the Skagit River is the John Pierce Waterfall, 700 ft long coming off of Ruby Mountain.

 Ruby Mountain above the Skagit River

 Looking back west, Skagit River and Colonial and Snowfield Peaks.

 Looking east, Jack Mountain in the distance.

 Further down the trail, we had 3 stream crossings over the trail. These were easy to cross without getting our feet wet.

 Before the steep switchbacks down to Skagit River near Ross Dam, there is a side trail leading to an overlook of Jack Mountain and Ross Dam.

 The side trail does continue on for a short ways, it is very narrow and steep. I believe a large rock slide destroyed this trail leading to Ross Dam some years ago.

Foot bridge over the Skagit River below Ross Dam

 View of Ross Dam from the bridge.














Skagit River west of the foot bridge, road leading to the ferry dock on the far side.












This road goes through a tunnel

 View of the ferry dock. The ferry was not running today.
As planned, we returned back along the trail the hiked it.

We saw this lone trillium along the trail today.



















Some more lovely moss