South Sister Climb 8/20/10

On Friday, August 20th, Chris and I headed out to make an attempt to hike to the top of South Sister. South Sister is a 10,358 foot high mountain in the Central Oregon Cascades, being the tallest of the Three Sisters.

After leaving the Portland area at 7:00 AM, we reached the Fall Creek trailhead at 5,440 feet and started hiking at 10:45 AM. Our camping destination was the Green Lakes area, a relatively flat plain at 6,550 feet between South Sister and Broken Top. We got to Green Lakes about 1:30 PM, found a camp site, then set up camp.

Since the weather was crystal clear, and because recent weather reports indicated that the next couple of days had a high chance of being cloudy, I talked Chris into going for the summit that day. Our whole purpose was to get to the top, and all that effort would not be worth it if the views were obscured. So we set out at 2:00 PM with food, water, warm clothes and headlamps in our packs. We were prepared for a long day.

The route we chose was not the more popular route via Moraine Lake, but a more direct route ascending between the Lewis Glacier and Prouty Glacier. While this route avoids the summer crowds, it does not follow a well-defined trail and is more difficult.

Now I have climbed to the top of South Sister twice before, but I don't remember it being as difficult as it seemed this time. It may be that I am a little bit older and a little bit heavier. It also could have been that we woke up at 250 feet elevation and were trying to get to 10,358 later that same day. There were many times I wanted to give up and turn back. Afterwards, Chris confessed he felt the same way.

After scrambling up for what seemed like forever, we finally met up with the main climbers trail at 8,850 feet. Next up: 1,500 feet in 1 mile of loose rock, thin air and ever-increasing wind. We noticed that the last other climbers were coming down and we were the only ones going up. This was because the sun was getting lower and lower in the sky.

At about 6:00 PM we made it to the outer crater rim, but the true summit was another .4 mile around the rim. Even though we were exhausted and suffering from altitude sickness, we had to do the final slog just because. With the wind blowing over the crater glacier at over 40 mph, all I wanted to do was snap some quick pictures of the view and leave. And that's what I did.

At past 6:30 PM, we began our descent. With every foot of elevation loss I could feel the altitude sickness going away. Splitting headache. Nausea. Cloudy thinking. Since the sun was setting fast, we decided to take the main climbers path to Moraine Lake, then the cut-off trail from Moraine Lake to the Fall Creek trail back to our camp at Green Lakes. Even though this added significant mileage, it was a safer trail.

With the almost full moon and our headlamps, we walked for a couple of hours at night. I rather enjoyed this. We had the whole trail to ourselves and were able to see the silhouette of the mountains as we hiked. Upon returning to camp at 10:30 PM we promptly ate dinner then went to bed.

The next morning, since we had accomplished what we came to do, we decided to pack up and head home. Neither one of us felt like backpacking to another site. I wanted a juicy burger and a soft bed.

Day 1: 17.5 miles, 6,000 feet elevation gain

Day 2: 4.5 miles, 1,000 feet elevation loss

Next up: Mt. St. Helens

Here is the link to the pictures on my Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54959080@N05/sets/72157625109142569/detail/