Friday the 13^th sounded like a perfect day heading up South Sister and finishing the challenge. The forecast was calling for clear skies, but high wind. We were prepared, packed tons of layers, warm jackets, gloves, beanies and tons of food and Gatorade. Camped the night before at busy Devil’s lake campground. Got woken up around 5am with cars rolling in and hikers starting their hike. After packing the camping gear, we started our hike around 7am. First we crossed the highway and filled out our free permit. Then the hike starts with about 2 miles uphill in the forest, followed with maybe less than 1 mile with flat plateau. Beautiful views of Broken Top and Moraine Lake. Then the climb starts! Uphill and onward, the wind kicked in fully once we reached the little glacier lake below South Sister. You can clearly see the summit rim from there and the “trail”. It is pretty much sufferfest on scree all the way up with some small snow patches to cross. By the time we reached the crater rim, the wind was out in full speed, gusting at 30-35mph. We took a break inside one of the wind shelters and then proceeded to the summit. It was very windy, but beautiful views. After crossing the rim back, we descended pretty quickly. Total time of our hike was about 9 hours.