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Our plans were originally to spend four days skiing Glacier Peak, but as is often the case, the Washington Cascades forecast sucked....so we pointed the car south to central Oregon to see if the better weather would show.
Driving over the Oregon Cascades we had overcast skies and the occasional rain shower, but by the time we got to Sisters, the weather was improving...cool and cloudy, but not bad. We had brief glimpses of the Sisters, but they were mired in clouds. After a big lunch of bbq, we decided to give it a go and started the hike in. We camped below treeline that night out of the rain clouds just above us and we crossed our fingers for better weather the next day.
In the morning the sun was out and we were off to higher ground. We dumped our tents at Camp Lake between Middle and South Sisters, and started skinning up the south face of Middle Sister. The cloud ceiling was just below the summit, and when we reached the last bit of the summit ridge, we saw the top 500 vertical feet socked in clouds, so after trying to wait for better weather, we clicked in to our skis and had a great run back to camp. The weather improved later that afternoon and we kind of kicked ourselves for not getting the summit...but we had plans for South Sister the next day.
Up early again and perfect weather....back up past the Chamber Lakes, up towards the Lost Creek glacier and around to the west ridge. It was a bit of a navigational challenge, finding the most direct line up that would keep us from having to scramble over crumbling moraine debris below the glaciers. We made our way up to the west ridge around 9100ft, where the slope got too steep and icy to skin, so skis went on our backs, and we donned our crampons. A fairly quick boot up the west ridge got us to the crater rim and on over to the crowds who'd come up the usual south climb route.
Not wanting to waste a 1000ft of elevation to bad snow, we began our decent down the south face enjoying perfect corn snow and then wrapped around the Clark glacier to regain the west ridge. Once over the west ridge, we began linking the Lost Creek glacier and snowfields back to the Chambers Lakes. A few hundred vertical feet of elevation gain got us back over the divide between Middle and South Sister and then we scooted back to camp.
Monday morning we packed up and began shuffling back to the car....more nice weather and fortunately we were back at the trailhead before the afternoon heat really kicked in. Another big bbq lunch and a stop at the Sisters bakery and we were on the road to Seattle... a successful mission of finding sun and snow amidst a bad Pacific Northwest forecast.
Our plans were originally to spend four days skiing Glacier Peak, but as is often the case, the Washington Cascades forecast sucked....so we pointed the car south to central Oregon to see if the better weather would show.
Driving over the Oregon Cascades we had overcast skies and the occasional rain shower, but by the time we got to Sisters, the weather was improving...cool and cloudy, but not bad. We had brief glimpses of the Sisters, but they were mired in clouds. After a big lunch of bbq, we decided to give it a go and started the hike in. We camped below treeline that night out of the rain clouds just above us and we crossed our fingers for better weather the next day.
In the morning the sun was out and we were off to higher ground. We dumped our tents at Camp Lake between Middle and South Sisters, and started skinning up the south face of Middle Sister. The cloud ceiling was just below the summit, and when we reached the last bit of the summit ridge, we saw the top 500 vertical feet socked in clouds, so after trying to wait for better weather, we clicked in to our skis and had a great run back to camp. The weather improved later that afternoon and we kind of kicked ourselves for not getting the summit...but we had plans for South Sister the next day.
Up early again and perfect weather....back up past the Chamber Lakes, up towards the Lost Creek glacier and around to the west ridge. It was a bit of a navigational challenge, finding the most direct line up that would keep us from having to scramble over crumbling moraine debris below the glaciers. We made our way up to the west ridge around 9100ft, where the slope got too steep and icy to skin, so skis went on our backs, and we donned our crampons. A fairly quick boot up the west ridge got us to the crater rim and on over to the crowds who'd come up the usual south climb route.
Not wanting to waste a 1000ft of elevation to bad snow, we began our decent down the south face enjoying perfect corn snow and then wrapped around the Clark glacier to regain the west ridge. Once over the west ridge, we began linking the Lost Creek glacier and snowfields back to the Chambers Lakes. A few hundred vertical feet of elevation gain got us back over the divide between Middle and South Sister and then we scooted back to camp.
Monday morning we packed up and began shuffling back to the car....more nice weather and fortunately we were back at the trailhead before the afternoon heat really kicked in. Another big bbq lunch and a stop at the Sisters bakery and we were on the road to Seattle... a successful mission of finding sun and snow amidst a bad Pacific Northwest forecast.
Nice report and great pics. Forgot to ask how you liked the new camera?!
ReplyDeletelove the camera :) so much fun to finally have a real SLR.
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