Sahale Arm

Trevor and I decided to leave Seattle on Thursday night so we could make an early morning attempt at Mount Sahale. Upon arriving at mile marker 21 on the road, we found a closed gate. The forest service website said that the upper portions of the road had suffered from severe erosion last October.

There was nary a drop of snow where we camped that night and in the morning, upon looking up the towering mountains beside us, we both wondered aloud how long we would have to hike before we hit snow. After a hearty breakfast, we geared up and began our hike along the road. It turned out to be a breeze, the steady, smooth incline of the road allowed us to ascend 1,000ft and 2 miles in less than an hour.

We threw on our skis and began skinning. The snow was quite firm, but it made for a fast ascent. I had lost a ski crampon on a previous tour, and opted to skin up the steep section right before Cascade Pass. Big mistake. By the time I realized I needed to boot pack up the slope, I was on the final traverse across and there was no way to get my skis off without sliding down. I managed to get across, but expended more energy than I would have liked. Trevor made it quickly across with his ski crampons and patiently waited on the other side.

I opted to boot pack up the steeps after Cascade Pass and then threw on my skins once the slope became more gentle. The snow was still firm once we got on the arm and we were able to quickly skin up a majority of the arm. As we skinned up the arm, we heard the constant thundering crash of avalanches on the south slope of the ridge across from us. All around us, the clouds were coming in, but they seemed to break around Mount Johannesburg and never made their way to Sahale. We saw five different marmots pearched on the rocks and a pair of Ptarmigans.

We had to boot pack fifty feet to reach the rocks that formed the summit, and we punched through numerous times while trying to ascend. We decided not to climb up the rocks to the summit as the avalanche conditions were increasing with the sun and I was very tired and unsure of my ability to scramble up the rocks with alpine boots.

We were a little worried about skiing from the top, as we had puched through on our final boot pack, but the slope we descended on turned out to be great. In fact, the entire ski down was fantastic, with corn snow all along the arm. The snow became a little slushy as we approached Cascade Pass, but was still excellent.