After climbing Sahale Arm in freezing rain, we quickly set up our tent within one of the protective rock walls we found near Sahale Glacier. (Our tent is right-of-center in this photo.) Sunset was cold, windy, rainy and foggy without much of a view. In the morning, most of the clouds were below us and alpineglow lit up the nearby peaks with pinks and purples.
In the May 2012 issue of Backpacker Magazine, this campsite was featured as one of twelve of “America’s Best Campsites.” Backpacker wrote: “Camp at what feels like the top and the edge of the world. At 7,686 feet, this perch (the park’s highest designated site) sits at the brink of a 2,000-foot dropoff overlooking a sea of razor peaks smothered in snow and ice. You’ll likely share the view with mountain goats and hoary marmots, but not hiker hordes – there are six text sites, each atop widely spaced talus mounds. Plus, the camp is at the end of the trail. Get here after a quad-taxing ascent of 4,100 feet in 5.9 miles on the Cascade Pass and Sahale Arm Trails, passing through meadows exploding with lupine and Indian paintbrush in mid-summer.”