Sahale Peak is a gorgeous hike/mountaineering/scramble. 7 miles to the campgrounds, from there make your way up a glacier (tractions recommended - you can get away with microspikes easy). At the top is a pyramid with class 4 and class 5 scramble. Some parts were quite sketchy. My party, along with other parties at the summit, rappelled or belayed down.

Felix and I finally synchronized our schedules and got to climb a mountain together this weekend. He didn't like my idea of going to Whitehorse mountain, a short but extremely tough climb, so instead we ended up going to Sahale Mountain via the Quien Sabe glacier in the Boston Basin. I woke up at 5am in order to make it to the trailhead in time and start hiking by 9. The trailhead parking for the Boston Basin is just a small area along the Cascade River road with space for no more than ten cars, located after the large parking for the El Dorado trail and before the Cascade Pass trail parking. The forest hike wasn't very interesting, with some steep scrambling over rocks and roots and very thick with undergrowth in the lower section. However, once we reached the Boston basin where the trail stops, and we started rock-hopping (the equivalent of bushwhacking on stone slabs, going in the general "up" direction) the landscape opened up toward all the craggy peaks that surround it - Forbidden Peak, Boston Peak, Sahale Mountain and the ridges in between them - and we were in mountain climbing heaven. We reached the glacier around noon, roped up and started meandering between the crevasses which were just now starting to open - in a few weeks the glacier will be much harder to navigate. By 2:15 we were on the summit after a bit of class 3-4 scrambling. We had to share the small summit space with a party of 4 climbers who arrived there at the same time via the Sahale Arm route. We left by 2:45 and took a longer, less steep route across the glacier and avoided the rock slabs by descending to the climber's camp via the moraine. Back to the car by 6:30. What a glorious day!