Cascade Pass,Sahale Arm

Wanted to do this hike for the past 2 years and today was the day despite the partially cloudy and cold weather forecast since the access road was to be closed about 2 miles from the trailhead because of repairs needed. The weatherman lied, the sun hardly made an appearance and it was overcast almost all day with low clouds and some snowflakes. The access road is about 23 miles long, most of it unpaved; takes about an hour to get from Highway 20 to the trailhead. Started about 12:15 and saw a over a half a dozen cars at the parking lot. The trail through the woods is 2.5 miles long with a 1400ft elevation gain in about 1.5 hours. Since it had snowed the day before, most of the trees were covered with snow at the higher elevation. Once out of the woods the whole landscape is snow covered. It took a total a little 3 hours to get to Cascade Pass, elevation 5400ft and 3.7 miles from the trailhead. Continued on to the Sahale Arm trail beginning with a climb on the snow-covered slopes. Took a short break to a side trail to Doubtful Lake but did not descend to it. Continued to a plateau about 1.5 miles from the Sahale glacier camp. Decided to turn back since it was 5:30pm and wanted to make it back before dark. Did not get back until 7:30 and needed a flashlight for the last few minutes...bad knees significantly slowed my progress down but the hiking poles helped greatly. For more photos see: http://picasaweb.google.com/steve.d.podleski/2007CascadePassSahaleArm