South Sister

I climbed the South Sister up near Bend, Oregon, yesterday with my uncle and cousin and a bunch of other people, continuing my quest to climb every semi-difficult peak within a reasonable distance from my home. I think it and McLoughlin were the only two which fit that criteria. So I'm done, I guess.

It was a fun climb though. We woke up at four in the morning after carbo loading the night before with Katie, a girl my Uncle John works with at Les Schwab. We packed up all our stuff (except my turkey sandwich, which I left in the fridge on accident) and drove to a parking lot, where we met everyone else coming on the hike. John said he thought ten people would show, at most. We ended up with sixteen in the parking lot, a huge group. One of the other hikers had invited a few people, who had invited a few other people, and we had sixteen when it was all said and done (and a dog, who will play an important part in our story later on).

We got on the trail around six thirty or seven, and about a mile in one of our hikers decided to turn around. She had been battling the flu all week and didn't quite feel up to it. The rest of us carried on, eventually splitting into smaller groups. I hiked with Uncle John and Sean most of the way, responsibly bringing up the rear. The hike began in a rich forest which gradually petered out into rock and snow. We three stopped near the treeline to take a drink of John's patented energy mix, called Full Blown Extreme. We couldn't keep from laughing about the name every time it came up, but after drinking some of it the hike definitely got easier. Mostly because the unicorns bounding across the snow and the blood vessels bursting in my eyes were distracting me from the pain in my legs.

After a long scramble over loose rock, we finally climbed into the caldera on top of the mountain. South Sister is an active volcano, growing by some ridiculous amount of millimeters per year, and the caldera on top definitely supported its status as a volcano. The trail led us around the caldera about halfway to the real peak of the mountain at 10,358 feet. Woohoo! We took some pictures and had lunch with our group.

The hike down wasn't too eventful, aside from the various aches and pains which began presenting themselves as the day wore on, most notably the chafing. Uncle John calls the trail the "Howdy-Hi trail" because there are so many people, and we certainly greeted plenty of people. Sean and I told everyone we met they were almost there, even the ones at the trailhead. I think they appreciated the gesture.

Near the top of the mountain, there is a large glacier off to one side of the trail called the Lewis Glacier. I decided I would slide down it. I jumped off the path and ran down onto the snow. As I ran and slid, I was sure to steer clear of man-eating crevasses, of which I saw at least one. The snow wasn't great for sliding. I kept running and sliding, but I would eventually slow to a stop. After about two hundred yards I reached the bottom of the glacier and climbed back up to the trail. Immediately some cool hiker dudes asked me, "Was that as fun as it looked!?" Several more greetings along the lines of "Righteous, dude!" and "Sick moves, man!" followed. When Uncle John caught up, he told me it was a pretty dangerous move, and repeated what my football coach told me once, that I'm the dumbest 4.0 student he's ever met. It's a title I wear with pride. Apparently my other uncle, John's brother, Dan, did a similar move once and ended up spending the night up on the mountain with his friend, who fell into a crevasse and broke his leg. I'm glad I didn't know that before I ran down the glacier.

Sean and I made it down the mountain at about the same time. We jogged many of the steep parts. It's easier and faster to let gravity do the work rather than resist with every step. We waited for about ten minutes, and Uncle John and Sean's uncle, Carlos, showed up together. We all got a drink from the cooler and sat around waiting for the rest of the group and talking. I walked into a nearby lake.

We realized after about a half hour at the bottom that there might be a problem with a couple of the girls with whom we were hiking. They were the first on top, but everyone else had reached the bottom and they were nowhere in sight. Uncle John called them and discovered that their dog was refusing to walk any further. The rocks must have been really hard on his feet at the top, and he was really hot. John organized a rescue party and headed back up the mountain.

I'm not sure what happened up there because Sean and I were asleep in the car. But the smell of John's shirt corroborated his story of carrying the seventy-pound dog, with Carlos, for over a mile down the trail. The girls were very happy for his help and immediately rushed the dog off for emergency veterinary care. If such a thing exists, we're not really sure.

So all in all, the trip was a huge success and I'm very grateful to Uncle John for taking me up with him. The hike was 11 miles roundtrip, with a 4900 foot elevation gain. So that's 9800 feet elevation gain roundtrip. Pretty serious stuff.