North Sister

North Sister is often climbed late-season with no rope, no pro, and in running shoes by those comfortable on unstable scree. However, when.
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I'm smiling while I say it, and I remember seeing her smile, too, though perhaps I confuse what I hope to see with what I actually see. Nonetheless, she drives the picket home and hollers up that I am on belay. I break down my end, and downclimb It turns out to be steeper than it looked: Shod in aluminum crampons, with a Grivel Lite Tech axe in one hand, I'm glad to have a solid Super Courmayer in the other.

I'm impressed with Hannah's one-tool skill. Hannah pulling the picket in an amphitheater of rime. We swing a couple belayed downclimbs through the infamous "Bowling Alley" and then start off on the steep traverse. Hannah salves my ego by letting me lead most of the way back to the Camels Hump.

There we take in coils and walk together to the split between the south and southeast ridges. Here we need to decide if we want to go across to Middle Sister, or back to camp. Hannah on the traverse.

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The weather and our decision are unsettled. We relax into the scree for a delicious, extended quasi-nap. At this point I'll gladly follow along behind you, trying to keep up, wherever you want to go, fat, dumb, and happy with a big shit-eating grin on my face. There wouldn't be a view. Let's go back to the tent.


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Then she does something that I really appreciate: Ten minutes of silence and then, "We're all the way over here, we should go do it. Let's go to camp. But then what would we do? No, let's go to Middle. My eyes shut, I hear her rise and squint up at here. She sits back down and ten minutes more pass. Then, almost in unison, we both get up and start down the south ridge toward Middle. The ridge is a choss-heap, but easy. A short, icy descending, traverse leads to a nice glissade where I demonstrate summersault technique with crampons and an axe.

Hannah fares better and arrives next to me while I am still busy excavating snow from various unpleasant places. Hannah making her way down the south ridge of North Sister. We traipse up and over Prouty Point, avoiding any atrocious postholing and arrive at the col at the base of the north ridge of Middle. A raven, perhaps the same one that visited our camp the previous day joins us. I toss him a bit of a Luna bar and mention that they are a bad omen. Hannah unleashes several snowballs in his direction, which she will later regret.

Plodding over Prouty Point toward the col. Hannah is all smiles at the col. We leave most of our gear at the col and Hannah blitzes up the north ridge, once again demonstrating her prowess as a postholing machine. I lollygag behind, appreciating her enthusiasm which is now reminding me of how I used to be in the mountains. The Posthole Machine in action.

True to form, Hannah insists that I take the lead just a few feet from the top and I wheeze up to the summit. We sit on my pack, back to back for a while, largely in silent, mutual appreciation of a glorious day of solitude in the mountains. In what is becoming a familiar scene, we get up to leave, only to get distracted again. I lie down on the pack while Hannah constructs a snow man on the summit. Eventually I rise, we snap a few pics, and we start back down. Someone get me a shortrope: Chilling on Middle Sister with North behind literally, and, finally, figuratively.

Hannah's little snowman highlights the foreground. From the top we couldn't see the col. But as we round over the flattish summit and start down the steeper slope of the ridge we see that the ravens are throwing a party at the col. Our neat pile of gear is strewn all over by the resourceful birds. Back at the col we find that the birds paid particular attention to Hannah's gear: While they poked at mine, they went as far as opening zippers on hers, and her food including a green apple is in half-eaten disarray. I chortle and admonish her for chucking iceballs at them while I provided food.

She accurately reminds me that I had advised her that I really didn't believe that ravens were a bad omen and that harassing them would have no untoward consequences. Though she mourns her apple I'm mostly amazed she chose to haul an 18 pound apple up a volcano , she is a good sport. We clean up and head down the Hayden Glacier.

Now I'm missing my skis, which I opted to leave in camp when we changed routes from the Southeast Ridge to the Headwall. Despite her shorter legs, Hannah rockets down the odd arete on the glacier, through the moraine, and up the tedious slope back to our camp. I smile smugly as we find it easily. Years ago, on a solo trip, I'd been forced to get the GPS out to locate my bivy in one of the many stands of krumholtz. Having learned from that, I've adorned the trees near our tent with an array of decorations: A pair of pants, a Thermarest chair, the shovel I feel good back at camp: Satisfied, happy, and at peace.

The weather is still nice and I sit in the chair melting water and making dinner. I discover that Hannah is a pasta connoisseur and is quite particular about the firmness of noodles.

Three Sisters (Oregon) - Wikipedia

She sits in the door of the tent looking up at our route, and samples the noodles until she is satisfied. Dinner ensues and shortly after we climb into the tent. Tonight Hannah is first asleep and I lay awake for a couple hours basking in the joy of the day. The weather shifts overnight, making our morning decision about South Sister easy: We pack up and head down. We cross Soap Creek higher up, leading to a moment of navigational ineptitude on my part, when I thoughtlessly cross it again at the bridge. I guess some part of me wanted to go back up and climb South Sister. Wrong-way Loren soon sorts things out and we locate the trail.

Eruption History for North Sister

The walk out is accentuated by a remarkable number of pine cones spontaneously falling from trees at the precise moment I walk under. Back at the car, I indulge in a few beers then discover that I cannot cajole Hannah into another stint behind the wheel. I'm well-behaved though, and don't drive in a way that causes to her rue her decision to let a dehydrated lightweight with a buzz to take the wheel. Pizza is had in Bend, where begins the great camping debate.

I'm lobbying for Motel 6 and a hot shower. There are patches of mountain hemlock, subalpine fir, and whitebark pine near the treeline, as well as wet meadows supporting Brewer's sedge , Holm's sedge , black alpine sedge , tufted hairgrass, and alpine aster. Near the peaks of the Three Sisters, there are extensive areas of bare rock. This ecoregion has less precipitation than the western slopes and has soil derived from Mazama Ash ash erupted from Mount Mazama.

These slopes support nearly pure stands of ponderosa pine. Understory vegetation includes greenleaf manzanita and snowberry at higher elevations and antelope bitterbrush at lower elevations. Mountain alder , stream dogwood , willows , and sedges grow along streams. Local fauna includes birds such as blue and ruffed grouse , small mammals like pikas , chipmunks , and golden-mantled ground squirrels , [89] and larger species like the Columbian black-tailed deer , mule deer , Roosevelt elk , and American black bear. Bobcats , cougars , coyotes , wolverines , martens , badgers , weasels , bald eagles , and several hawk species are many of the predators throughout the Three Sisters area.

The Three Sisters area was occupied by Amerindians since the end of the last glaciation, mainly the Northern Paiute to the east and Molala to the west. They harvested berries, made baskets, hunted, and made obsidian arrowheads and spears. Traces of rock art can be seen at Devils Hill, south of South Sister. He describes "a number of high mountains" south of Mount Hood. Around , there were reports that one of the Three Sisters emitted some fire and smoke. In the late 19th century, there was extensive wool production in eastern Oregon. Shepherds led their herds of 1, to 2, sheep to the Three Sisters.

They arrived in eastern foothills near Whychus Creek by May or June, and then climbed to higher pastures in August and September. By the s, the area was getting overgrazed.

Climbing North Sister, one of Oregon's most dangerous peaks (photo gallery, poll)

In , the forest was split: Most of the Three Sisters glaciers were described for the first time by Ira A. In the s, the Three Sisters were part of a proposed National Monument.


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The Three Sisters are a popular climbing destination for hikers and mountaineers. Horses are prohibited, and ice axes are required during the winter climbing season for safety reasons. From Memorial Day to October 31, permits are required for entry to the area. Due to extensive erosion and rockfall, North Sister is the most dangerous climb of the three peaks, [] and is often informally called the "Beast of the Cascades".

Passing through forest, lava flows, and meadows, the scramble trail provides views of various cinder cones in the Three Sisters Wilderness. Middle Sister can also be scrambled, for a round-trip of The trip runs about 12 hours, beginning with a route through dense forest and ending on Middle Sister's southern summit. The standard climbing route up the south ridge of South Sister runs for From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Three Sisters The Three Sisters, looking north.

Topographic map of area. Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Geological Survey, Cascades Volcano Observatory. Forest Service and the University of Montana. Retrieved November 24, Magmatic processes recorded in an arc-related ash-flow tuff". Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. Archived from the original on Index of Monthly Reports". Retrieved 30 July Archived from the original PDF on Nice ledges and climbers trails traverse along the west until you climb back up to the ridge in a gap.

Now follow climbers trail on east side to another gap back on the ridge.

Three Sisters (Oregon)

Again on the west side, follow trails in scree to the Bowling Alley. Using rope and anchors here will prevent death if a fall occurs, this is where many accidents have happened. The Bowling Alley needs to be done with care as to not drop rocks on party members, but the scramble is easy and no exposure.

At the top of the alley is some class 4 rock. Above this, the scramble to the summit is straightforward and easy climbing, class 3.