Stories behind pictures

SAHALE MOUNTAIN

Scenic Edge Photography | Published Feb 21, 2019

Sahale Peak, the apex of Sahale Mountain in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington State, was a challenge to us non-rock-climber hikers. We chose a hard route towards the top but essentially made it to the summit. Well, "touched" the summit. The climb was in 1995. We packed up a Fuji landscape camera and a Nikon both with Kodacolor film. We took our collection of negatives to a digital scanning service and brought our experience of 25 years ago back to life! Video | Climbers’ Interview

sahale mountain

Sahale is a Native American word meaning "high place." At nearly 8,700 feet, there are few other peaks that were higher than Sahale in tht region of the North Cascades. The route we took had an elevation gain of over 5,000 feet and the round trip distance was 14 miles and the climb took 12 hours.

sahale glacier

Sahale Mountain climbers standing upon Sahale Glacier (me left with camera).  

free climbing risk

We unintentionally took a route that was not recommended as the easiest. There were climbers on rope on the rock face that reacted to seeing us free-climbers as if we were a novelty. Indeed, it was risky with perhaps a thousand foot drop below us. If we lost balance, or took a hand and a foot off position at the same time, death was likely. There was one place while going down where I could not see my foothold because the rock below bent downward, out of sight. My left hand was raised as high as I could reach and holding rock while I stretched my right foot downward and below where I could not see. I asked my climbing partner below to place my foot in a hold, then trusted him with my life. It held. I learned that my response to challenges, such as this challenge and the earlier challenges that led to it, is that I keep pushing forward beyond my real capacity at times. So far I have not been in serious trouble on any adventure, or trouble that I could not overcome. I attribute this to planning a level of any adventurous undertaking to within my psychological and physiological limits of my ability to handle them. Accidents do happen, I know, so I hope and pray one doesn't happen to me.

Video | Climbers’ Interview