South Sister Hike

Our final play day was focused on getting up in high country and seeing what was in store.  We decided South Sister as the objective for the day and woke up to a little bit of a surprise when we looked west in the morning and saw a fresh coat of white on her.  The wheels were in motion and plans in place so we forged ahead.

On the way up, the gas light came on and we all did quick calcs in our head to see how luck we felt about making it back to town.  Fortunately, we could postpone having to cross that bridge until after the hike.

We were collectively psyched to get an early start and Abe and I poked angry panda for his selection of shorts for the day.  The good news was that it would get warmer as the day progressed...the bad news was that it was chilly as evidenced by the snow up high, and the ice in the parking lot!

The hike started quickly enough until we realized we were on the wrong trail...we backtracked and found our trail that would take us up the little hill to 10.3K in elevation.  The hike starts with a pretty steep section for about the first 30 minutes until it relents and you walk along some rollers that give expansive views of BrokenTop and S Sister.  The views were amazing and we started to see where the snow line was.  It looked like a light dusting so onwards and upwards....

After a couple of pictures here and there and a couple of obvious junctions to navigated, we made our way up the big chunk of earth.  As we started to gain elevation on her side, the angles increased again and we found our way as we plodded along.  It was cold enough that a lot of the loose sand and scree was frozen so we had timed it just perfectly...it made the ascent fairly solid.

The snow line was in view and in no time, we were in the snow and following the footsteps of others who preceded us.  There were a couple of spots where we had to kick-step our way up but we kept enjoying the views as we grunted up.  Soon enough we were at the ridgeline and followed it along the ridge to the true summit where the views to the north opened up.  You could see both N and Middle sister as well as further north towards Mt Wash, Jeff, Hood, and Adams!  It was a beautiful clear day with views for miles and miles.

We stopped, had lunch in a spot where the wind was relatively chill and then started the descent.  As we descended, we remarked on how our timing for the ascent was really fortuitous.  The conditions on the way down started to warm up and it meant the frozen scree we came up was now loose.  Early bird gets the easier ascent....

The descent put the hurt on all of us and we were happy to reach the parking lot and make our way back to Bend.  Total time car to car...6hrs...total moving time 5:15...around 12.5 miles and close to 5K in elevation gain/loss...mission accomplished.