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Backpacker Magazine – May 2012
America's Best Campsites
Park your tent in one of these 10 spots, and you'll be happy in the morning. Guaranteed.
Photo by BP0512CAMP_Lanza_Sahale_445x260.jpg
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Tags:
- Feature Stories |
- Camping |
- North Cascades |
- Washington |
- Great Sand Dunes |
- Colorado |
- Maine |
- Grand Canyon |
- Arizona |
- Oregon |
- Arkansas |
- Wyoming |
- Glacier Bay |
- Alaska |
- Glen Canyon |
- Utah |
Sahale Glacier Camp
North Cascades National Park, WA
Camp at what feels like the top and the edge of the world. At 7,686 feet, this perch (the park’s highest designated site) sits at the brink of a 2,000-foot dropoff overlooking a sea of razor peaks smothered in snow and ice. You’ll likely share the view with mountain goats and hoary marmots, but not hiker hordes—there are six tent sites, each atop widely spaced talus mounds. Plus, the camp is at the end of the trail. Get here after a quad-taxing ascent of 4,100 feet in 5.9 miles on the Cascade Pass and Sahale Arm Trails, passing through meadows exploding with lupine and Indian paintbrush in mid-summer.
Permit Required (free, first-come). Pick up at the Wilderness Information Center in Marblemount up to one day before your trip.
Map BACKPACKER PRO Map Sahale Glacier Camp ($20, backpacker.com/promaps)
Contact (360) 854-7245, nps.gov/noca
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READERS COMMENTS
Just there this week - it is County Rd 7 and is easily accesible to 2wd cars and is reasonably well signposted. Yankee Boy Basin has nothing to do with it(unless and until you hike to Blue Lakes Pass that is). The trail to the pass is in poor condition in places and i was glad i did not have a full pack. Incredible place!! And if you do Sneffels consider the SW ridge route - more fun that the standard.
Heads up for all the eastcoasters thinking they can just drive to the trailhead. You will need a 4w drive vehicle to access the trail.
I cant believe theres not a top ten place for camping in california?????????????????
Not true about the Dallas Creek trailhead. I hiked up to the Blue Lakes from there in 2010. The road name and number may be incorrect, but the lakes are certainly accessible from the north. Just take Rt. 62 five miles west of Ridgway and turn left. Google Maps has it labeled as County Road 7.
That said, the Dallas Creek trail is wooded and, not counting some waterfalls, not as scenic as the Yankee Boy Basin approach (which starts about 2000' higher).
This is spectacular country. I was really happy to see it on this list.
Regarding Mt Sneffels. The phone number does not work and forest rd 851 (Dallas Creek Rd) does not exist. The trail is at the end of forest rd 853.1B (Yankee Boy Rd).
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