My friends Cihan, Hannah and I made a run at Sahale Peak in the North Cascades on Saturday. Ci and I had to attend a "no pants" party on Friday night, so we didn't hit the road from Seattle to to the N. Cascades until 9 AM. I checked the forecast in the morning and saw that weather was expected to go to pot on Saturday night and Sunday. So, instead of our initial plan of climbing Sahale on Sunday, we switched to a Saturday afternoon climb.
For pics from the hike, see http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20080726NorthCascades.
Chose to do Boston Basin route. This route involves 5000 vertical feet, all in 10 mile round trip. Seemed like a good stiff day hike. Requires glacier travel gear and some easy rock climbing at the top. This stuff is "easy" but nerve-wracking nevertheless, and is time-intensive as compared to simple stair-stepping.
We hit the trailhead at 1 and were hiking by 2 pm. I expected that an 8 hour round trip would be best case scenario, so we brought headlights. If we were running slow, I would just request that Hannah haul Ci and I up the hill with our gear.
Started on non-existent "road" toward the seemingly non-existent "diamond mine" which were marked on the map. Trail was narrow and rough, practically requiring a machete, but was easy to follow. 'Twas hot as we got started. Passed big group of campers. Made good time through pretty cascades terrain. Reached Boston Basin in about 2 hrs. Could see Sahale looming above in its jagged splendor. Enjoyed a hoary marmot sighting. Ci and Hannah were new to glacier travel, but handled the terrain like mountain goats (well, Ci hit the deck a few times). Crevasses were present but not particularly threatening. Wound between them without much apparent risk toward the upper tongue of the Quien Sabe ("who knows?" in Spanish) which reaches up toward Sahale. We were on track for a concerningly-late 7 pm summit. Fortunately, we were saved by the clouds which gave us a good excuse to chicken out. A cloud deck formed around 5 pm and descended to about 7000 ft by 6 pm. At 6 pm at 8200 ft, we turned around. I figured we'd get down by dark. Turns out I was right for once. On the way down, we saw and explored a mine (50-foot deep horizontal shaft -- maybe just a test hole?), and saw a couple more marmots. Enjoyed glissading down the snowfields, skiing on our boots. Everybody held up pretty well considering the difficulty of the trek. A few blisters.
The next day, we took it pretty easy and just toured the N. Cascades Nat. Park a little bit. Amazingly, it's a free park which is good for grad students (and recent ex-students like Hannah). Some pretty falls just off the road. Ci couldn't stop saying "this is amazing" the whole drive. The reservoirs (Ross Lake, Diablo Lake) are quite pretty for reservoirs. Pretty blue water. We did a little 4 mile round-trip hike to Blue Lake on the east side of the park (it was raining on the west side of the park). Blue Lake is quite scenic and is nestled below the Winters Spires which are spectacularly sheer -- must be wonderful rock-climbs up there.
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