South Sisters - August 16th 2014

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hiker4fun
Posts: 175
Joined: March 11th, 2014, 12:13 pm

South Sisters - August 16th 2014

Post by hiker4fun » September 1st, 2014, 1:24 am

It's been a couple of weeks since we went to South Sisters. At last, I found time to post a TR on that.

As planned before, I did this hike on August 16th along with couple of other friends. It was a gorgeous day to hike and it showed up in the crowd.

We stayed in Bend the previous night and started at 6 from Bend. It took about 45 minutes to reach the Devil's lake TH, as we missed direction inside of Bend itself and somehow found our way to the TH.

We got a glimpse of Mt.Bachelor from some distance and were cruising towards Devil's lake and all of a sudden we got this view. Since I was driving, I had no issues to stop the car immediately to take some pictures. :lol:

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After few pictures, my friends urged me to move on. Of course, I did, by moving on to the other side of the road for some more pictures. For those of you who have gone to this area multiple times, it may not be a big deal. Since it's the 1st time for me, it was quite a scene to leave without taking more pictures. :)


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A view of Mt.Bachelor from that spot.


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Anyways, we went straight to Devil's lake TH after that. We could see cars lined up on the highway itself and it was full of cars inside. To our luck, we noticed that people started parking on the sides of the drive way, and we promptly parked on that side, which was straight opposite to the Restroom at the entrance of the TH.

We finished the formalities of Parking permit. Since it's a popular TH, I hope they provide a wash basin, at least a common one outside the restroom.


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After checking everything out, we started at 7:15 and spent 5 minutes in filling up the wilderness permit.

Once again, I thank all the people who gave ideas and suggestions here, as well as online. We didn't miss anything.


It was cold in the morning, true to the forecast. So, warm clothes were on and was needed for the 1st stretch under the trees. In a contrast to our Table mountain hike, we have been seeing people on both directions here right from the beginning.

While it wasn't too steep, it wasn't easy also. But, it was good enough to warm the body. :)


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I spotted a deer about 15 minutes into the hike. Before I could grab the camera to take pictures, it went hiding. I yelled at my friends behind me to take a look at it, but they had other things to worry about, hiking being the major one. :)

Anyways, here is a picture of the clear sky which is what we were hoping for, when we planned this hike.


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Our goal was to have a break near Moraine lake for breakfast. However, we had couple of minor stops for some water before that itself.


Here is a 1st glimpse of the South Sisters, after we started the hike.


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We had our break at a junction which leads to Moraine lake on one side and had our breakfast.

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The next stretch is the most easiest stretch of the hike, thru the flat trail with Moraine Lake on the right. By this time, I took off the jacket as it was warm enough.


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Moraine Lake on the right. Our original plan was to hike up to the lake the previous night and camp here. But, we ended up with a different plan to stay in Bend. Hopefully, I will get a chance to camp there sometime in the future. :)


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By this time, my friends went well past me as I started to act like a tourist in enjoying the views and taking a lot of pictures. I was totally fine with it. I wanted to enjoy the views. All thru the flat stretch, I kept glancing at Bachelor, Broken Top, of course South Sisters, Moraine lake again and again.

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Here is Broken Top. I want to do a hike on this one for sure, but don't know how far one can go without doing any technical climbing. That's for a different topic I guess. :?


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After being a tourist for an hour or so, things started a bit serious as we approached the trees and it started to resemble something like a hike again.

Then came the beginning of the fun part ;)

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The rocks have become a steady staple and there were frequent rests in the name of waiting for friends.

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A glimpse of the traveled path.


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I kept walking on the scree part, and started to hear from people about bottlenecks. Well, it's certainly not the Hillary step :D, but there is a small portion of this scree where we had to crawl thru the rocks and go. It did delay few minutes for people, but nothing major, considering the fact there might have been 1000 people on that trail on that day. :)


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After few snack bars and quite a bit of water, we pushed ourselves to the 1st False Summit. I had a mild sense of doubt that one of my friends who was hiking after years might say enough is enough. So, I didn't want to wait for too long. When another friend talked about taking some pictures there, I told him that we can do it on our way back. Yes, I was mean. :(

Side note : I took the pictures on the way down, as promised.

Anyways, here is a picture of Lewis Glacier on the way up from the 1st False Summit.


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The Cinder Ridge wasn't too bad to hike, but it felt like you are at the same spot after walking a bit. I had some mild cramps before the 1st summit, and it started to act a bit more frequently. I had to take quite a bit of break and had lots of fluids. Having a lot of liquid stuff on the 45L bag helps in such cases I guess. :D


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Did I say there were about 1000 people on the trail? Don't trust me. See a sample here. ;)


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I started to realize that the gap between me and my friends were widening. However, with so many people on that trail, I didn't feel bad about it.

I could see Moraine lake and far beyond that. Weather gods were very kind to us on that day.


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I kept looking at the 2nd False Summit and marched on, contrary to my friends who didn't want to see up and just concentrated on the hike.

Since I had a lead in reaching the 2nd False Summit, I dropped the bag and poles and had a glance at the actual summit and the glacier at the top and relaxed for quite some time.


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Of course, I started taking some picture while I was waiting for them to come.


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What's the cone shaped mountain next to this one?


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While I wanted to walk on top of the glacier to the actual summit, we ended up walking around the rim, except for a small stretch where we walked on the glacier.

Here is the reference marker of the actual summit.


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That's me taking the picture.

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I climbed up on the rock at the peak, but left the camera with my friend and hence no picture from the top of the rock. It was really windy and I climbed down in a minute or so. It was supposed to be in the 45 with a 9 to 10 mph wind. It was perfect to enjoy, but wasn't light enough to stand there for long.

Then we went to the side to have a look at the siblings. What a view !!! I wish I had more time looking at these other sisters from there. :(

I believe the one behind the North Sister is Mt Jefferson.

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Noticed a memorial of some sort.

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We had our lunch at the crater rim, enjoying the view of Broken Top and Bachelor.

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I didn't feel like coming back, but had to. My only grudge is that I left my DSLR at home in the best interests of my

shoulder and the memory card on my GoPro filled up even before reaching Moraine lake. I blame poor planning on the later

one. I am still torn about whether I was ok without the DSLR or if I should have taken it. If I go there again on good

weather, I am shedding some items and carry the DSLR instead. :)


After spending quite a bit of time in the crater, it was almost too late to start coming down. My cramp was gone, but some

knee pain was there to contend with. So, we grudginly started down and paced ourselves and came down in a relaxed (slow, more appropriately) and came down almost at dusk time.

All in all, it was a fantastic experience for us. It was tiring, no doubt, but it was worth it. Hoping for many more trips in that area.

I am sure you would have done or seen many TRs on this mountain, but I hope it wasn't too boring. :)

Kudos to all the people who hiked that day for keeping it clean. I didn't see a single piece of trash anywhere despite having so many people and I observed it for over 12 hours on that day. Thank you. :)

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UTurn
Posts: 332
Joined: May 26th, 2013, 7:22 pm

Re: South Sisters - August 16th 2014

Post by UTurn » September 1st, 2014, 5:19 am

This was great timing for me to read this trip report. I'm heading up there in 2 weeks! Thanks for sharing because now I'm feeling encouraged that I can do this and even more excited!

Nice report. :D

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adamschneider
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Re: South Sisters - August 16th 2014

Post by adamschneider » September 1st, 2014, 7:20 am

You can get ALMOST to the summit of Broken Top without any technical climbing at all. Then, the very last section is POSSIBLE without roping up, but it's a loooong way down if you screw up, so most (but not all) people use protection there.

hiker4fun
Posts: 175
Joined: March 11th, 2014, 12:13 pm

Re: South Sisters - August 16th 2014

Post by hiker4fun » September 1st, 2014, 9:36 am

UTurn wrote:This was great timing for me to read this trip report. I'm heading up there in 2 weeks! Thanks for sharing because now I'm feeling encouraged that I can do this and even more excited!

Nice report. :D
Thanks. Now I feel my TR was worth it. :) I noticed all kinds of people right from some 6-8 yrs old to people in the 60s doing this. I hope the weather stays good in 2 weeks and you will enjoy it for sure. Have fun. :)

adamschneider wrote:You can get ALMOST to the summit of Broken Top without any technical climbing at all. Then, the very last section is POSSIBLE without roping up, but it's a loooong way down if you screw up, so most (but not all) people use protection there.
Thanks for this information. I guess I will have to read more about it and possibly do it without going to the summit.

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ewbadz
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Joined: September 10th, 2010, 8:04 pm

Re: South Sisters - August 16th 2014

Post by ewbadz » September 1st, 2014, 2:27 pm

Nice TR, looks like you had great weather!

Second Adam about Broken Top... That last bit is possible without protection but you need to be comfortable with lots of exposure. A friend and I did it last year w/o protection. Going up was no problem but downclimbing did make me pucker a couple times!

It's still a fun hike/scramble up to the base of the summit block and the views are awesome!

Again great pics!

hiker4fun
Posts: 175
Joined: March 11th, 2014, 12:13 pm

Re: South Sisters - August 16th 2014

Post by hiker4fun » September 2nd, 2014, 6:44 am

ewbadz wrote:Nice TR, looks like you had great weather!

Second Adam about Broken Top... That last bit is possible without protection but you need to be comfortable with lots of exposure. A friend and I did it last year w/o protection. Going up was no problem but downclimbing did make me pucker a couple times!

It's still a fun hike/scramble up to the base of the summit block and the views are awesome!

Again great pics!

Thanks for the info on Broken Top. Yes, it was great weather on that day, one more reason why I didn't want to leave that place. :) Thanks.

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