South Sister is the pinnacle of Central Oregon peaks!
Wow, this was hard! But, beautiful today. Views up to Mt Hood! The trail is incredibly loose, I fell on my butt several times on the way down. 8 hours 15 minutes total hike: 4.5 hours up, 45 minutes exploring the rim, 3 hours coming back. Started at 7:15, it was cool and almost no one on the trail that early. I did the loop trail around the caldera, and trail should be considered loosely – there was a lot of cross countrying involved, some of which was a bit risky. But that was true of most of the trail. This was my 5th peak this summer, and I’m very glad I did the other peaks first, I think they really helped me prepare. This was the hardest hike I’ve done in at least 8 years. Great to see the glaciers, they’re amazing! One of the lakes is brown, I wonder why?! Note that I was able to get a mid-week permit after Labor Day pretty easily, but weekends are still pretty hard.
Congratulations, Scott! Looks like you had near-perfect conditions for what is a long, tough hike. Nice photos, too!
Thanks, Jeff! I had intended to do South Sister this Saturday. But a) it turns out that it’s a LOT easier to get a permit on a weekday, b) I have unexpectedly retired, and can get away on weekdays now, yay!, and c) with the wildfires, I’ve had a bunch of planned hikes that I canceled, and my sense is that it’s best to go whenever the skies are clear.