North Sister

I drove down to the trail head early on Saturday morning to meet my guide at the trail head and we hiked to just over 7,000 ft. and setup camp at the bottom of the snow field that we intended to use as the start of our climb. The weather was warm so I spent most of the afternoon sleeping under scrub brush resting up for what would be an early start.


We took a route that started on the snowfield on the far right of the picture below and then climbed up the rock ridge at the top before traversing across two other ridges on the other side of the mountain before gaining the final rock pitch and short snow field to the summit.

We got up at 1 am and were climbing by 2 am. We quickly busted out the crampons and ice axe for the steep climb up the snow field and started climbing up the rock ridge at 8,200 ft. by 4 am. It was the first time I’ve ever done significant rock climbing with crampons. Sparks would fly off of the metal points in the dark. We neared the final ridge to the summit at dawn

My guide scouting the route to the summit.

Setting protection on the way to the summit.

The summit of North Sister. We climbed up the snow field in the foreground before traversing out on the exposed cliff, climbed up the rock wall and then front pointed up the snow at the top. The mountain has two pinnacles with the second being just out of view behind the ridgeline on the left.

Self portrait on the summit – 6 am!

View from the summit. The final pitch of snow climbing is visible in the foreground.

The view back down off the summit.

From the summit you could see all of the major volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest. Although this photo is too small to make out all of the detail, it was clear enough to see Mt. Washington, Three Fingered Jack, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. Saint Helens, and Mt. Rainier. It was perfect weather for a great climb. I had on a single long sleeve base layer the entire trip, even when we started climbing at night.

We were back down to camp by 9 am, at the car by 12:15, and I was home with Carmen and the dogs by 4 pm. Pretty great weekend overall despite being a long hard climb. The soreness is starting to fade a bit now… anyone else up for Smith Rock next month?