Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

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RobinB
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Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by RobinB » July 29th, 2014, 2:18 am

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Opening picture: Broken Top and No Name / Crater / Sullivan's Proposal Lake.

The area southeast of Broken Top is one of my favorite places in Oregon, but for various reasons - usually having to do with bad planning and overambitious dayhikes - I never spend as much time there as I'd like. After a few great trip reports (Mandrake's off trail adventure, Chris's loop from Todd Lake, and, although I hadn't seen it yet, Roy's trip up Tam McArthur), Krista and I decided to head up this past weekend for a loop around Broken Top largely as it's described in the Field Guide.

Friday

We woke up early on Friday morning, drove bleary eyed down to Three Creek Lake, and started the trail around 9:30. (Mosquitoes made sure we didn't dilly-dally too much at the trailhead.) Because it starts around 6600', the trail to Tam McArthur Rim has excellent views from the outset.

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Three Creek Lake with (from left to right) North Sister, Mount Washington, Three Fingered Jack, Jefferson, and a bunch of hills I should know the names of but don't.

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Jefferson and scars from the Pole Creek Fire (more on that in a little).

We made it up to the Rim pretty quickly, but skipped the viewpoint, as we've both been there recently. After the Rim turnoff, there's a "Trail Not Maintained" sign, but the trail doesn't degrade in any appreciable way, and may actually get a little nicer - at least less dusty. Did this used to be an official route? In any case, the views continued to be fantastic.

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Bachelor (center) and Ball Butte (right) with something I can't name on the left.

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Broken Top in the distance.

After cutting across a few pumice meadows, the trail climbs onto the ridge that eventually leads west to Broken Hand, and the views open up even more.

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Broken Hand and Broken Top.

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Three Sisters.

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Cascade Line. Hood's hiding to the right there somewhere, and Adams was even visible (even if it's not in this photo).

Getting around Broken Hand can be a little tricky. The trail seems not to have been sure exactly what to do, and so does everything all at once: one branch leads south, hugging a cliffy section of Broken Hand; another leads north over a sketchy snowfield; and a third just stops in its tracks and gives up. Having run into the issue before, we cut south off the ridge a few hundred feet before Broken Hand and traversed west across a few gentle snow fields. This is, by far, the easiest option. There are some great deer trails, and even a cairn marking nothing in particular, but even without any of that, it would be an easy walk. After passing Broken Hand, you have the choice of either heading south, to a good use trail that eventually leads to the Broken Top Trail, or continuing west to No Name Lake at the base of Broken Top. We chose the latter. The lake is, like the whole area, just incredible. It's not as unknown as it once was - Sullivan's written about how great it is, and we saw quite a few people heading up the other direction from Todd Lake - but it's still worth the trip. It would probably be worth the price of admission all on its own.

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The snow leading up to the lake was a little tiring to walk on...

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But man: the payoff. I stood like this for a while.

The lake was still mostly frozen over, but it was thawed some on the eastern outlet. We ate an early lunch and spent an hour wandering around taking pictures.

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The whole business.

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Ice finger ready for its closeup.

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Bottleneck at the outlet stream.

We eventually headed out, crossed a few snowfields, and started the walk down. Although the trail isn't obvious around the snowfields, it's very well defined as you get further down. The trick is to aim for the pass between Ball Butte and a smaller hill just west of it.

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Looking back up at Broken Hand.

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And down the trail.

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Southwest toward Sparks Lake.

We could have kept going for a while - in fact, the loop could easily be done as a two day / one night thing, or even as a loony dayhike - but we found an excellent campsite at the foot of Ball Butte near one of the eastern forks of Soda Creek (44.065, -121.681194), and decided to call it a day. The nice thing about stopping early is that it leaves plenty of time for picture taking (and bourbon drinking).

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Camp.

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The view of Broken Top from camp.

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Looking back up toward Broken Hand. Notice the waterfalls.

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Stream. I'm pretty sure this is the eastern most fork of Soda Creek (?).

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I know you don't need this many pictures of a stream, but it's really only a fraction of what I took.

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One more: waterfalls revisited.

Saturday

The night was calm and cold. We woke up around six, leisurely packed up camp, and were on the trail by 6:45.

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Sunrise on Mount Bachelor.

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And Sparks Lake.

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Saying goodbye to (this fork of) Soda Creek.

The unofficial trail we were on has become so popular that, when we hit the official Broken Top Trail, it actually seemed to be the more legit of the two. We meandered west for a while, crossing a bunch of creeks and taking way to many, nearly identical pictures of Broken Top.

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Broken Top and one of the creeks.

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Broken Top and another. "Does this really justify a second stop?"

Among the many, many things to love about this place is that it's just full of springs - water just coming out of the ground, almost wherever you look. We stopped at one, had a little breakfast, and chatted with the first hikers we'd seen all day - a couple doing the loop in the opposite direction. I really love breakfast on the trail. It's nice to put in a few miles and get a new view before stopping to eat. Plus, my stomach seems to perennially wake up two hours after I do.

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One of many. Not actually Breakfast Spring, as there I was too busy eating oatmeal and mainlining coffee.

After passing Cayuse Crater, we got our first views of South Sister, and walked through a bunch of meadows on the way to Green Lakes. I'm not sure if they ever flower. If they do, it must be incredible.

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Hello there!

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Ever heard the one about the Tour de France cyclist who fell asleep during a long straight stretch?

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Dandelions! A criminally underrated flower.

We eventually got to Green Lakes, took the de rigueur lake + mountain pictures of Broken Top and South Sister, and scrounged around for some flowers. There are a few really nice patches of lupine and (more plentifully) paintbrush.

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Broken Top and the southern Green Lake (do the lakes have more individual names?).

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South Sister and The Big One in the Middle.

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And another.

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Lupine!

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Paintbrush!

We stopped for a break and a little food at the stream leading in to North Green Lake (again: do they have better names? if not, can we make some up?). It's a nice stream to know about, as it saves you from having to filter water from the lakes. After hanging out for a while, trying to start a conversation with some unresponsive geese, and wondering about several mosquito-related world records, we continued on up to the pass and down toward Park Meadow.

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Someone had hung prayer flags by the stream. I'd normally consider this trash, but somehow they seemed to be there for a good reason, and we left them alone.

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"Hey guys, any idea when the paintbrush peaks around here?"

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"Well, maybe if you were a little more conversational, you'd have more friends."

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South Sister and Krista doing "the pose," at the pass between Green Lakes and Park Meadow.

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South Sister, doing its pose, from a little down the trail. Notice the paintbrush?

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No? Here's a closer look. I really like the paintbrush / heather cohabitation thing.

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Broken Top, from around the same spot.

I'd been vaguely thinking about taking the side trail to Golden Lake, as we've never been there and I hear it's really pretty, but we somehow missed it completely and ended up down in Park Meadow before we realized we'd missed it. While filtering water at Park Creek, we ran into a pair of women who'd somehow missed the turnoff too. I guess maybe the trail's pretty small? Or maybe I'm just really unperceptive? We ran into a bunch of people headed there, so surely someone knows, but for the life of me I didn't see anything. Does anyone have a GPS track?

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Uh oh.

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Nice creek, though.

Ending up in Park Meadow created a dilemma: we didn't want to camp there, if just because of the ridiculously hungry mosquitoes, but continuing on meant entering the Pole Creek burn, where camping isn't allowed, and who wants to camp in a burn anyway? The women we'd been talking to decided to head up off trail, while we decided to keep going, get through the burn, and find a camping spot on the other side. This was a bad idea: although the official burn area stops at the Three Sisters Wilderness boundary, which here runs along Snow Creek about a mile and a half from Park Meadow, the actual burn keeps going several miles further, right up to Three Creek Lake. (If I'd been paying any attention to the views on Friday, I'd have known this.)

We could, of course, have just kept going to the car, but between the heat and almost immediately getting our lungs and noses full of ash, we were ready to call it a day when we hit Snow Creek. So we picked the barest spot possible and laid down our tent, making sure not to squish any of the fragile, hopeful regrowth. It was actually really cool. In 2012, when the fire started, we'd been camping at the Driftwood Campground at Three Creek Lake, and just missed being evacuated by a couple hours. We saw the beginnings of the fire as we were leaving Sisters, and the fire's somehow always felt sort of personal in a way that's difficult to explain. And it was poignant, in a way that's equally difficult to explain, to see the burn now, with little bits of green seeping in at the edges.

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Pole Creek Fire from our car, September 8, 2012.

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The burn now.

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I have no idea why the trees are bending that way.

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The beginning of regrowth.

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And more, along Snow Creek.

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Camp. This might be the most surreal place I've ever slept.

Sunday

We slept in a little Sunday, packed up gingerly - trying (and failing) not to get ash all over everything - then walked the three or four miles back to the car. We'd heard that Trail 4075, the most direct route back to Three Creek Lake, was in really poor shape, so we stayed on Trail 99 to the unmarked intersection with the trail to Three Creek Meadow, then followed that back. There's a nice trail between the horse campground at Three Creek Meadow and Three Creek Lake, which I'd definitely recommend taking if you want to avoid dealing with the ton of weekender traffic on the road.

When we got back to the car, we took a quick swim in Three Creek Lake to wash off some of the ash, then drove into Sisters, where I managed to eat half of a large pizza. I'm still not totally sure how that happened.

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UTurn
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by UTurn » July 29th, 2014, 5:22 am

Thank you for this most beautiful report. We will be circling the three sisters this coming weekend and it's great to get a look at the area right now. I appreciate all the good information you put in your narrative. And as always, your pictures are stunning!

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kepPNW
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by kepPNW » July 29th, 2014, 5:26 am

Great report! This is an area I simply must explore. Was the hooded parka in July due to the skeeters?
Karl
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retired jerry
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by retired jerry » July 29th, 2014, 5:47 am

Golden Lake trail junction is N44.11001 W121.71608

I think this is the trail junction:
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I have walked by it several times but never gone up to the lake. It's not very far or very much elevation gain. I'm sure it's much better than Park Meadow that I've camped at a couple times.

mandrake
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by mandrake » July 29th, 2014, 8:17 am

Great shot of the Lake-with-No-Name! Beautiful! Hasn't been a whole lot of melt in the last three weeks.
Sounds like y'all took the good route to get around Broken Hand -- yep, just drop south off the ridge before you get there and stay on gentler slopes.

Nice to see the southern slopes of Broken Top too with less snow & more green.

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Born2BBrad
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by Born2BBrad » July 29th, 2014, 8:52 am

Very well written TR with great pictures. I gotta get me up to them crater lakes. Maybe this year?

Hike on,
Brad
Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.
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RobinB
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by RobinB » July 29th, 2014, 10:21 am

Thanks, everyone!
UTurn wrote:We will be circling the three sisters this coming weekend...
Oh nice! After this trip, I'm itching to do the loop as well. I don't think you'll run into much snow, unless you take the shortcut between Green Lakes Pass and Camp Lake, but even then I'm not sure it will be an issue. I would bring some DEET, though.
kepPNW wrote:Was the hooded parka in July due to the skeeters?
It's actually a hooded sun shirt: Krista's got fair skin, and tends to burn really easily. I deal with it the usual way - long sleeve shirt and the silliest hat imaginable.
retired jerry wrote:Golden Lake trail junction is N44.11001 W121.71608
Perfect, thank you! It's a little higher up than I realized.

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kepPNW
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by kepPNW » July 29th, 2014, 10:54 am

RobinB wrote:
kepPNW wrote:Was the hooded parka in July due to the skeeters?
It's actually a hooded sun shirt
Nice! Couldn't quite tell.
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

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Roy
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by Roy » July 30th, 2014, 7:28 am

Thanks for the beautiful report my wife and I did a day hike from Three Creeks lake the day before you.The sky was a very intense blue and it was our first trip in on that trail. Since we have been on the summits of the whole family down there were looking at Broken Hand as future summit to hike up. My wife got a few mosquito bites that day near the trail head.

Its to bad about the ash on your trip but I bet that swim felt good :D

Thanks for sharing.
The downhill of the mind is harder than the uphill of the body. - Yuichiro Miura

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Peder
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Re: Loop Around Broken Top - July 25-27, 2014

Post by Peder » July 30th, 2014, 9:28 am

Lovely TR! I need to explore... Thank you for the inspiration.
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