It’s always great to have the cover of a magazine feature your photo, but even more so when that publication is one of your personal favorites and always a cover-to-cover read. So it is with the March 2013 issue of Backpacker Magazine, with my photo of hikers on the Sahale Arm Trail in Washington’s Cascade Mountains.
Sahale Arm Trail is an extension of Cascade Pass Trail, one of the most popular trails in North Cascades National Park. If you’ve been there, you know why this hike is so popular. In my opinion, this is one of the absolute best trails, for both day hikers and overnight backpackers, in the Pacific Northwest. The scenery at the trailhead amazing, and the experience just continues to get better as you climb through forest and wildflower meadow to Cascade Pass. Those who continue a couple of miles higher on Sahale Arm Trail are treated to outstanding panorama vistas of jagged, glaciated peaks. Wildflowers abound in summer, as do huckleberries in early autumn. The berries draw black bears, and rocky, talus slopes are haven to pikas and marmots.
If you’d like to hike this wonderful trail yourself, check out the trail info on the Washington Trails Association website, or pick up a copy of Day Hiking North Cascades by Washington hiking guru Craig Romano.
Additional note: this photo also won the Bronze Award in the Natural Scenic Category in the Society of American Travel Writers‘ 2013 Bill Muster Photo Competition. You can see more of my images of this beautiful area in my online gallery of North Cascades photos.
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