Oregon's South Sister

No one ever said climbing mountains was easy and Oregon’s South Sister is no exception. I began the trip as I begin all my trips, with a mountain. This time it was South Sister. When I was packing for the three day and two night backpacking trip I packed what I always pack. Two pairs of long johns, an extra pair of socks, hat, gloves (even these were a stretch for me), sunscreen, stove, water filter, sleeping pad, 20º F sleeping back, three season water proof tent, etc. After seven years of backpacking in Colorado I have never needed any more or any less. As I was standing over my pack, cramming in a few last minute items (toothbrush and toothpaste, lighter, Advil) my mom stuck her head in the room and said, “I was just watching the news and they said to expect snow at elevations of 7,000 or more. Are you still going to go?”
Of course I was still going to go. I had picked my mountain and that was that. To combat the snowy doom that lay before me I added an extra pair of socks and an extra pair of long johns, a scarf and the down liner to my water proof jacket. As an afterthought and without much confidence I packed my waterproof pants. I have packed them many times and never needed them.
As I was walking out the door after hugs and kisses from mom and dad (yes I am 31 and living with my parents), Dad asks, “Are you bringing your snow boots?”
I smile as if he is joking. Yeah right. Let me take a moment to point out some of the differences between backpacking and car camping. The first main difference is that in car camping, well, you have a car. In backpacking, you don’t. The other differences pretty much stem from there, that is to say that when you car camp you can pretty much bring an extra of everything, an outfit for every season, a pair of shoes for every activity. You can certainly take anything you want on a backpacking adventure provided that you are willing to carry it for many miles on your back. As far as that goes I am a minimalist. Just the basics. No camping chairs or flip-flops, no fancy back country cuisine for me. Nope. No extra shoes, no extra anything if I can help it. After all, this wasn’t Mt. Everest, this was South Sister.
The drive from Portland to Mt. Bachelor was beautiful, as always. I wonder, though, where Bend went. It seems to have gotten swallowed up by a larger Californian city. Some mysteries are not for solving I suppose.
The trail starts at the Green Lakes trailhead and passes for 3 or so miles through dense forest. All along my right is a talkative creek tumbling through lots of little waterfalls. When I finally reach Moraine Lake the wind chill is definitely below freezing and I have put on my wool hat. I want to stop and put on my gloves too because the wind, like a vampire, is sucking the blood from my fingers, but I am not ready to relinquish my load just yet. What I am ready to do is find a campsite, but at first glance there aren’t any to be found. I hike all around the lake and spot zero signs of the little posts with the tent carved into them. Finally I ask someone coming off the trail that leads to the summit, the trail I will take the next day. I follow his directions up a trail along a ridge into the woods. Of course all the sites are taken. It is labor day weekend after all. I end up camping well beyond the lake (where I have to go to pump my water) on a ridge with a spectacular view.
After setting up my little one person tent and walking half a mile to the lake to pump water I decide it is time for dinner. I have camped with people who make a point of creating fantastic meals in the back country (one of my favorites was the MacNasty, Mac’n’Cheese with tuna fish, that didn’t live up to its name at all). I have never been one of these people. For one, I will eat just about anything. Secondly, I don’t have that much patience. Thirdly, cooking good food in the back country requires more forethought than I have the motivation for. So for me it is sardines, avocado, cheese (Irish Cheddar is my favorite) and Bavarian rye bread with sunflower seeds. For snacks I bring nuts, raisins, sesame sticks. You know, snack food. Breakfast is the only meal where I actually cook something: oatmeal. Instant of course. The one luxury I do allow myself is tea, in the morning and in the evening.
This evening after eating my simple little meal attended by many doting ants, I sit in front of the tent boiling water for tea and watching the sunset. Here I will note that making tea serves two functions, one of which is obviously to create an enjoyable beverage. The other is for warming your hands when you can’t have a fire, which I couldn’t. I mentioned previously that the wind had sucked the life out of my hands. Well by the time I sat down to make tea several of my fingers were completely numb despite my gloves. A few minutes in front of my little camp stove warmed them right up. By the time the tea was done and I was wearing three pairs of long johns, three pairs of socks, two long sleeve shirts and my jacket with the down liner, and of course my hat and gloves ,I was starting to feel down right cozy. I drink my tea and watch the sun go down on broken top. The peaks glow as red as embers as if the lava that formed these lands were come back to life.

All night long, sleep comes and goes. I always expect it to be a little chilly in the back country, but even mummified as I was, the chill crept in. I manage to catch enough z’s though, and I wake up in the morning ready to execute my plan of action. First things first: breakfast. I open the door of the vestibule and a thick layer of frost flakes off. I thought it was cold in the tent, but coming out in the early morning makes the tent feel like a sauna. I make tea and then oatmeal with the rest of my tea water. Then it is down to the lake to pump water for the ascent. Then back to the site to drop off the filter and get ready to go. I take my B vitamins and apply sunscreen. The sun is barely above the lowest peaks and I still feel like I am getting a late start. I remind myself that this isn’t Colorado, and I don’t have to worry about monsoons. Still, urgency drives me. Gotta get on the trail. I am about to leave and I look down at my jacket, which I have just shed. I always take my jacket, wear it for the first fifteen minutes, get hot from hiking and then carry it the entire rest of the way. Today I decide, screw the jacket. I don’t want to pack the weight.
The hike to the summit of South Sister starts along a sloping ridge looking down on Moraine Lake and across at Broken Top. From here you really begin to see how lava shaped the land. The slope isn’t that steep yet. The morning chill is like a vice and I hike fast and hard to ward it off. After about a half a mile of gradual slope the trail abruptly turns to an almost 90º angle and continues this way for the remainder of the three miles to the top. It is at about this point also that I notice the clouds off to the west. They are still a good ways off, but anyone who has ever spent any time around mountains knows that the sky can be deceiving and the weather changes swift and fickle. I begin to worry. This worrying takes the form of me cursing myself for not bringing my jacket. “You idiot!” “You know better!” “Freaking amateur!” This followed by the swift decision. If I don’t have my jacket it just means I’m going to have to summit this mountain as fast as I can. In retrospect it is good that I left my jacket, otherwise I would have taken my time and gotten stuck in a blizzard on the side of a mountain. Jacket or no jacket, getting stuck in a snow storm is never any fun.
There isn’t much else to say about getting to the top. It pretty much went like this. One foot in front of the other. Usually people tell you not to look down, but in this case it was don’t look up. If you look up you will see how far you have left to go, and there were points where my view of the right angle trail was very discouraging. All the while I am climbing one laborious step at a time up the steep red-faced South Sister, I am aware of the clouds rolling in below me and of the cutting blades of the wind. Every time I want to stop for more than a few breaths I look down at the clouds and think of what the cold wind will do to any precipitation it touches. There will definitely be snow, it is only a matter of when.
When I finally make the summit I linger for a total of two minutes, enough time to drink a packet of electrolytes, take a few pictures and adjust my wool hat against the biting wind. Coming down I pass a group I had seen at the top.
“Didn’t hold your attention?” one of them asks.
I immediately want to protest. Are you kidding? It is spectacularly beautiful up here. But when you are racing against the wind which is driving an army of snow laden clouds in your direction, time is of the essence and I don’t waste any trying to explain myself.
“I am worried about those clouds,” I say, and continue my descent.
About a half an hour later it begins to snow and I am half way down the mountain. Better than being on the summit I think. The same man who referred to my attention deficit disorder remarks to me, “Good call on the early dismount.”
I want to laugh but gravity is pulling on me and John Mayer is singing in my head. The last couple of miles I am running, sliding, glissading, and snow is flying horizontal to the ground, pushed by wind that is (I was told later) 0º.
When I get back to my camp site the sun is shining. I have, for the moment, outrun the snow. Wind driven, intermittent flurries tell me that my respite won’t last long, and I need to hurry. I get everything loaded into my pack in fifteen minutes flat and head for the trail.
For a while the wind chases me, breathing snow through the trees, but after a while it stops. It appears the storm has snagged on the west side of South Sister and I am heading east, toward the dry side, where it is as sunny as can be, though a little chilly.
All in all I hiked a total of 14.4 miles and climbed 4,900 feet. This was the longest, steepest, coldest mountain I have ever climbed and I loved every minute of it.