5/23/15 – 5/25/15

What was supposed to be a 4 person expedition to climb Glacier Peak in Washington for Memorial Day weekend suddenly turned into a 2 person outing to Oregon’s Three Sisters Wilderness area due to weather forecast and changes in schedules.  Daybreaker hopped a bus down from Seattle and Saturday morning we left Portland at 5am for the Pole Creek Trailhead to climb Middle Sister (10,056′).

It was cloudy, as forecast, but not actually raining and we felt optimistic.  The higher we got, the more the clouds took over, and by the time we were on the Hayden glacier, we were in and out of (mostly in) whiteouts.  Even as we got higher, it was quite warm, and we were hearing small avalanches on the mountain.  We were safe where we were, but with the whiteout, we couldn’t see our route and didn’t want to be walking into a dangerous path.  We decided to stop and take a lunch break, hoping the weather would clear to see ahead.  Though it mostly got worse, we did get a long enough break to see up to the saddle between North and Middle Sister and decide it was safe to proceed to that point.

 

Again, when we got to the saddle it was socked in, and we waited a few minutes for another break.  We were able to see exposed rocks on the ridge, which was a good sign for safety and decided to continue on.  We finally reached the end of the rocks, and it was just snow from where we stood up to the summit, not that we could see it.  Without being able to see the slope and hearing the slides on the steep east side of the mountain, we decided it was unsafe to proceed.

 

And then we got our big weather break – a brief spell of blue sky and sunshine revealing the summit, a mere ~500ft up.  We decided we had to go for it.  We got maybe 50ft up from the rocks when Daybreaker noticed the snow sliding out from my steps and slightly pinwheeling.  Too risky.  We had to call it.  While it certainly sucked to be so close, we knew we were making a good decision.  The mountain will still be there, and under the right conditions, it is not a difficult mountain at all.  We’ll be back.

 

We were back to the trailhead by 6pm. With all that daylight, we decided to drive down to the South Sister trailhead, which meant going through town….which meant a quick stop at Dairy Queen for burgers and ice cream… and filling up our water bottles in the bathroom. We camped at the Green Lakes trailhead, just a mile or so away from the Devil’s Lake trailhead to South Sister so we could get an early start on Sunday.

 

On the route to Middle Sister, we saw one climber at the saddle on the way down, and then a few others on their way in/out close to the trailhead.  We saw at least 100 people on South Sister, which is a very popular and straight forward climb.  We hit snow very quickly ascending the valley from Devil’s Lake trailhead. We popped out on a nicely frozen plateau at the base of the mountain which we knew would be a miserable slog of post holing on the return in the afternoon.  The weather was clear and we had gorgeous panoramic views of Mt Bachelor and Broken Top.

 

Though we felt good, we were a bit slower than normal, having already climbed over 5000′ yesterday.  As the morning went on and we neared the rim of the mountain, clouds increased. And wouldn’t you know it, just in time for the summit we got whited out again.

 

But again it was relatively warm, and we had no reason to hurry, so we took our time and hung out on the summit. Our patience was rewarded when the clouds broke after about an hour and we finally got to see Middle and North Sister!!

 

We had been toying with the idea of hiking into Green Lakes that night to camp and trying for a Broken Top summit the next day.  But from South Sister we could see Green Lakes was still snowed in, we already had 2 days of climbing on our legs, and we had to be on the road by 1pm for Daybreaker to make his train to Seattle that night.  Better save that one for another time.

Seeking alternatives, I remembered from my researching Oregon’s 100 highest peaks that nearby Newberry Crater National Moument contained Paulina Peak, an easy ~1500′ climb, and even better, hot springs at Paulina Lake!  So we hauled ourselves over to Newberry and made camp off a Forest Service road, serenaded to sleep by the whoops and gunshots of the local yahoos.

 

At dawn, we followed the trail from the visitor’s center up toward Paulina Peak.  The trail disappeared under the snow, but we saw markers on trees and footsteps and made our way to a sign showing a split for the summit and the Crater Rim Trail.  We headed the direction of the summit and found ourselves on a little ridge between a couple of rock spires.  The one that looked highest would’ve required ropes to climb.  Hmm, I remembered reading this was an easy hike, with a trail all the way to the top, no mention of technical climbing. So we climbed the lower-looking rock which was easy.  From there, I noticed a fence the next ridge over….a parking lot. And it kinda looked like it might be higher than where we were standing. Huh.  We knew a road went up toward to a view point (still closed due to snow), but the sign toward the summit had pointed this way…right?

 

We really didn’t know what to think, but I had a lot of doubt about where the true summit was.  Admittedly, since this was a last minute unplanned excursion, we didn’t even have a map with us.  When we got back down to the visitor center, I looked at the park newspaper with a basic map showing roads and hiking trails.  The parking lot we saw was the summit.  Somewhere the trail must’ve taken a turn under the snow and we missed it. D’oh! 1 for 3 on summits for the weekend, not the best record.  But our little wrong-summit was more exciting than a parking lot anyhow, right? Afterwards, we took the very short and pleasant Pauline Lake Shore trail over to some hot springs, and we didn’t really care about the peak anymore.

 

Oh, and then we had lunch at Crux Fermentation Project in Bend, and stopped by Lost Lake to see the famed “drain hole” lava tube.  And Daybreaker even made his train with time to spare. Happy Memorial Day!

 

Stay Tuned: Bubbles and I are planning to go after Middle Sister again in June!

On a side note, I got an emergency locator (in preparation for an upcoming solo hike in Iceland) that doubles as a fun toy, the Delorme InReach Explorer.  Using this device, I can now collect GPS tracks of my hikes.   I really like playing with tracks and maps, so look forward to more!

http://caltopo.com/m/6614