Great day and lots of cars at parking lot for boston basin, managed to crowd into the last one. rugged hike straight up to the basin with awesome ramblings around the rocks,slabs and scree with water trickling down everywhere from glaciers up above.

views were not so great because of smoke.

no need for any kind of pass if dayhiking in the north cascade national park, but would need permit for overnight camping.

I found this hike to be one of the more difficult hikes I've done. Although this is not a maintained trail, there is a good trail part of the way. However, there are also some very heavily overgrown sections, there are tricky stream crossings (no bridges anywhere), and some very steep scrambling sections. The last big creek crossing, which I believe is Boston Creek, is the most difficult. It is also a creek crossing where some could miss going the easiest way. Some advice: When you get to the ravine where the creek is, look for a path that hugs the edge of the ravine heading up. Eventually you should find a spot where the path drops into the ravine to a relatively easy stream crossing. Once across the stream, look for a path that heads down to rejoin the main trail. Once past this stream crossing the remainder of the hike to the upper basecamp should be straightforward. The upper basecamp has some nice areas to place tents, and also has a toilet nearby.

Locating the trailhead can be a local tricky, as there is no sign along the road. The trailhead is about two or three miles prior to the Cascade Pass Trailhead. The trailhead is located not far above a rocky clearing along the road below a prominent cascade. Look for a parking spot on the left side of the road (most parking along this stretch of the road is on the right side). From the parking spot it will be easy to spot the trail going into the woods. A short distance into the woods you will find a sign (the only sign there is) identifying this trail to Boston Basin.

17.5 hour C2C adventure climbing up the classic West Ridge of Forbidden Peak with DaniilMag, up through Boston Basin. Stunning scenery all around. Putting some summary info here, rest of the details on peakbagger.com.

A gorgeous day in the mountains. Arrived at 5:00 am and found a spot in the Cascade Pass parking lot, then shuttled down to the Boston Basin trailhead. The Boston Basin trail was very overgrown with a lot of downed trees. We missed the junction at 5580 and went left when we should have stayed right, but managed to get back on track by the time we reached Quien Sabe glacier. We filtered water in one of the many streams in Boston Basin, where we were completely socked in with clouds. At the glacier, we roped up and put on our crampons. We stayed north and hugged Sharkfin ridge, navigating around some large open crevasses before ascending to the saddle between Sahale and Boston peaks. 

Going over to the other side of the saddle was like entering Valhalla as we finally caught our first views: Sahale glacier and Sahale peak, Boston Peak, Forbidden Peak and many others - just spectacular!

Our leader set a hand line at the top of Sahale Peak and we prusiked up, then he set a rappel line from the summit and we repelled down the south side of the peak to the boulder field above Sahale glacier. After crossing the boulder field, most of our group (including me) decided not to rope up on Sahale glacier, but I regretted that decision. Parts of the glacier were quite icy and steep and I wasn’t confident I could self-arrest on such a hard surface. Many of the footsteps were also melted out and turned into small swimming pools - not fun to step in.

After descending the glacier we filtered water again at the edge and began the long decent to the Cascade Pass trailhead. We saw goats, marmots and a variety of wildflowers along the way, including penstemon, scarlet columbine, paintbrush, pearly everlasting, gentian, monkey flower and many others. The trail from Sahale camp to the Cascade pass trailhead is in great shape, including all 37 delightful switchbacks. We arrived back at around 8 pm - a long, exciting, unforgettable day.

Car-to-car Boston Basin > Quien Sabe Glacier > Sahale Peak > Sahale Glacier > Sahale Arm > Cascade Pass

Left the Sahale Arm trailhead parking lot ~3am and walked on the road for about .5 miles to the Boston Basin trailhead. We opted to park at the Sahale trailhead due to more parking spots being available (the Boston Basin parking lot is very small compared to how many cars can fit at the popular Sahale trailhead) and wanting to get the half mile of easy, downhill road walking out of the way in the morning when no cars were out. 

The climbers trail up to Boston Basin is notorious for being steep and more of a bushwack, and it definitely did not disappoint. Some relatively straightforward stream crossings kept us alert as the first morning light started to peak through the trees and those of us with trekking poles were happy we brought them. We enjoyed the sweet relief and stellar views once we arrived at the basin as we were greeted with a gorgeous sunrise. 

The Quien Sabe glacier was quite broken up on the South end so we opted to put our glacier travel gear on at the North end and traverse the East side of the glacier up to Sharkfin Tower. There were some sizable crevasses but they were easy to navigate. Once off of the glacier, it was relatively straightforward class 3 and class 4 scrambling with some occasional snow to the summit block. Other than a party coming down from the summit as we were approaching, we were delightfully surprised to have not seen anyone else in the Basin and had the summit block to ourselves. 

A few (very easy) 5th class moves to the summit allowed me to set up a top rope for the other members of my party - there is some really good, new tat with rappel rings at the top that made setting up a top rope and rappels super easy. Having no parties behind us, we enjoyed lunch on the summit, took in the gorgeous 360 views, and took plenty of pictures. 

We did one rappel down the South side of the summit block. A 60m rope allowed us to perfectly get to a flat ledge and then it was some easy 3rd class scrambling down from there. We opted to not rope up for the Sahale glacier as there were no visible cracks / crevasses and from there we met up with the large crowds on the Sahale Arm and Cascade Pass trail. We enjoyed a slow-paced afternoon getting down the mountain, stopping to watch the handful of baby mountain goats and ptarmigan chicks we encountered along the way.  

Notes: There was plenty of water re-supply spots along the trail - only section without easily accessible running water was between getting onto the Quien Sabe glacier and getting off of the Sahale glacier. We were very thankful we started early, to avoid being in the summer sun and heat all the way until we got to the summit block.