Backpack - Sahale Glacier Camp

Northgate Park and Ride at 2pm (tentative).

At 7600', Sahale Glacier Camp (a.k.a. Sahale High Camp) is the highest established backcountry campsite in North Cascades National Park and is regarded by many as one of the most spectacular campsites one can visit "on trail" without scrambling or technical climbing.   It has appeared on numerous magazine covers and other publications, and is on many people's "must do" lists.  The route that leads to the camp, Sahale Arm, is also considered one of the most scenic day hikes around.  All of this means, of course, is that the area is very popular and can be crowded on weekends.  We will try to avoid the crowds by going on a weekday and by getting an early start on the trail.

Because the drive to the trailhead from Seattle is very long (much longer than the estimate in Google Maps), we will drive up the afternoon before and stay at Mineral Park Camp, the closest car camping site to the trailhead.  This will help us avoid commute traffic on both Thursday evening and Friday morning. Though "only a car campground", Mineral Park camp is located on the shore of the Cascade River seventeen miles from the nearest town (Marblemount) and is itself a nice place to spend a summer evening.  So even though the highlight of the trip is Friday at Sahale, our Thursday should be nice too.

Our early hiking start on Friday morning should allow us to arrive at camp by mid afternoon so that we can enjoy the rest of the day experiencing the area. We will also linger in camp Saturday morning to enjoy sunrise and the morning light on the surrounding peaks, with a tentative plan to start hiking back down around 10am. This will *tentatively* put us back at the cars around 2pm and back at the Park & Ride by around 5pm on Saturday.

The trip leader is not a fast hiker, and our pace will be on the easy side of moderate.  However, even at an easy/moderate pace this is still a strenuous trip: 4000+ ft of elevation is no small thing when carrying an overnight pack.  This trip will require good conditioning via recent trips with significant elevation gain.  You will need to have been very active in June and July (including trips with high elevation gain) in order to be ready for this trip by August.

This trip has a number of special considerations.  Please review all of the following before deciding whether to sign up:

• The final few hundred vertical feet of trail are on scree that can shift under foot.  Though it is safe and there is no exposure, it can feel alarming if you have not experienced it before.
• The campsites at Sahale Glacier Camp are all on either scree or snow.  A freestanding tent is necessary, ideally one with a small footprint.
• Bear canisters are required at Sahale Glacier Camp (Park Service rule). Ursacks cannot be substituted.
• Sahale Glacier Camp has a famously exposed solar toilet that has privacy from the camp itself but not from the surrounding area. Please be OK with this. In reality you will be a tiny invisible spec that nobody will notice.
• Though this trip is during the peak of summer we will need to bring clothing adequate for unpredictable mountain weather.  We will be camping in an exposed area at 7600' in an alpine environment above treeline.
• We will not be doing the side hike from Sahale Arm to Doubtful Lake. It would add another 900' of gain/loss, and this trip is already big enough.
• Participants are encouraged to bring two tents, one for the car camp on Thursday night and another for the backcountry camp on Friday night.  That will ensure that we do not have to carry wet tents in our packs if they get wet the first night (either due to rain or simple condensation).  Don't worry if you don't have a spare tent to use on the first night: we should be able to find enough to share or loan from among the group.