Cascade Pass and Sahale Arm — Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016

North Cascades > North Cascades Highway - Hwy 20

Hit the trail around 7:20 AM and passed a few groups around Cascade Pass. There is a fair amount of road construction in between Darrington and N. Cascades Hwy, which was a bit tedious on the way in and the way out. The Cascade River Rd is long but is in pretty great shape all things considered. The hike up to Cascade Pass is very quick and easy - took me a touch under an hour. The trek up the Sahale Arm is generally mild until the last stretch, with awe-inspiring views in every direction. The last push to the Sahale Glacier Camp is steep and rocky with a lot of loose scree. There are a few ways to ascend that are marked with cairns. The descent is particularly challenging to the grade of the decline and the looseness of basically everything (scree, larger rocks, dirt). I found myself a little offtrack by attempting to use some of the larger rocks to my benefit for my stability. This was not wise - most are very loose and I had to endear a few controlled slides until I reached more stable ground. The bugs worsened throughout the morning. If camping at Sahale Glacier Camp, I'd strongly encourage starting very early to secure one of the prime camps. I saw lots of backpackers heading up around lunchtime who surely were going to miss out on the best sites. Took tons of pictures, saw 1 goat, 2 deer and a ton of marmots. Right around 6 hours round trip. One of the better destinations in all of Washington.