South Sister Summit 8/28/08

Mom and I spontaneously decided to turn a mellow weekend backpack into a big adventure. Our goal was to backpack to Moiraine Lake, at the foot of South Sister (the 3rd highest mountain in Oregon, at 10,358ft), wake up the next morning, summit the mountain, and hike out. We woke up in Amity to cold, drippy skies, but by the time we'd crossed the cascades and rolled into Bend the rain shadow effect produced KAVU skies and temps in the 80's. The backpack up to Moiraine Lake proved to be beautiful, through oldgrowth ponderosa pine forests.

We found an incredible campsite on a ridge overlooking the lake, with great views of South Sister and Broken Top. The lake itself had an incredible turquoise hue. Probably one of the prettiest campsites I've ever camped at.





We intimidated ourselves by looking at the trail zigzagging its way up the face of South Sister, seemingly too steep to climb, although we knew that hundreds of people a day throughout the summer make it to the top. If you look close at the next picture, you can see the faint trail up to the summit.
We got up early the next day, ate some breakfast, and headed out. I was being very careful with my knee, having hurt it in Colorado several weeks before. We made great time up the steep trail. It started getting really steep and scrambly, and we were glad that we'd gotten off to such an early start.

Looking back at Mt. Bachelor and all of the beautiful cascade lakes.

Mom, with the toughest part of the hike still to come! Feeling good though!
The last .5 mile of the hike was pretty brutal, and slightly vertigo-inducing. We slogged through STEEP pumice fields, using our poles heavily to prevent sliding back down. The sun was hot at this point, and I think we were both starting to get a little dehydrated. Every now and then people would pass us coming down, saying how gorgeous it was at the top! That is what kept us going.

Finally we're there!!!
The gorgeous little lake in the glacier at the summit. We were surprised to see a glacier at the top, and sketched out by the sound of rushing water underneath it!! And even more sketched out by the numbskulls who were walking across the glacier!
Mom and I at the north side of the summit, with middle and north sister in the background.

Sketchy climb down from the north rim.
Bounding through ankle deep pumice on our way down. It was like skiing through powder, except it wasn't quite as soft.


One last view of a beautiful mountain.The look says it all. NOTHING like a cold Pelican IPA waiting in the car after a long hard hot hike.

All in all, an absolutely INCREDIBLE hike. I want to do it once a year. It seems that people tend to do this hike in a single day, but I would think that for all the pain, you miss out on one of the more incredible lakeside campsites I've ever seen. From the camp, we hiked 4 miles with 4000ft elevation gain to the summit, 4 miles back to our packs, and 2 miles out to the car. LOONG day, but so worth it!!!

Hart's Cove Trail Run

My mom and I decided to get out of the hot valley for a day and headed to a hike that we both couldn't believe we hadn't done before. We couldn't count the number of times we'd hiked Cascade Head, the gorgeous Nature Conservancy-owned bluff which shelters an endangered species of butterfly. However, we'd never hiked to Hart's Cove, just on the north side of Cascade Head, and featuring one of the waterfalls which so impressed Captain Cook (I think) when he named the area.

The weather turned grey, cold, and rainy when we drove through thick second-growth forest to the trail head. Freezing, we decided to just take off running down the super-steep first part of the hike! It was a blast, we both felt like deer running through the woods!

The steep part of the hike ended at a short creek crossing, where we got our first glimpse of the massive old-growth sitka spruce for which the area is known. We kept on running to Hart's Cove, and here I'll let the pics do the talking.





We finished off the day with IPA's at one of my favorite brewpubs - Pelican Brewery, on the beach at Pacific City.

Epic after-dinner entertainment

After dinner tonight, we sat out on the deck to watch the fireworks at the St. Paul Rodeo, approximately 20 miles away across the Willamette Valley. The fireworks were nice - small at that distance, but colorful. What made the evening though, was that SIMULTANEOUSLY an incredible lightning display was arcing through high elevation clouds to the north. The combination of fireworks and lightning was awesome - it was like God was saying, HA you think that is cool, well watch THIS!

Whetstone Mountain

After looking through our central Oregon cascades hiking guide, we decided that we'd pretty much done every hike listed within a 2 hour drive of Amity. Flipping to the back of the book, I found a list of hikes that the author deemed marginal, too difficult, not scenic enough, too long, too short, or too easy. I latched on to one that sounded interesting: Climbing Whetstone Mountain from the south, accessed via the Opal Creek Trail.

Whetstone Mountain is usually climbed as a short side hike from the Silver King Mountain trail in the Bull of the Woods Wilderness (Clackamas River headwaters). It is the highest point on a ridgeline that separates the Clackamas drainage from the headwaters of the Little North Santiam River. When I posted a query on the Portland hiking forum, no one had ever tried the hike from the south, but many people responded saying they had done the side hike and that the hike was gorgeous. That was enough for us to give it a shot.

We hiked from the Opal Creek trailhead about a half mile before turning uphill, and climbed steeply (~800 fpm) for about three miles. It was an adventure from the get-go, as it became clear that the trail had received no maintenance for quite some time. Deadfalls and blowdown covered the trail and constantly required scrambling over and ducking under logs.


We finally reached the ridgetop, and immediately noticed two things: One, a spectacular view of Mt Hood


And two, a LOT of snow on the ground. In fact, it was virtually impossible to find the trail.

We eventually just headed up the ridgeline as best we could, stumbling randomly upon the trail as the south face of the ridge became more exposed. We made the decision to push for the summit, even though the day was getting late. We hit heavy snow again a couple hundred feet from the top, which slowed our progress and made for some tense spots. The view at the top absolutely blew us away. 360 degree view of the major peaks of the cascades.

Battle Axe Creek canyon (Opal Creek trib) with Battle Axe Mountain and Mt. Jefferson in the background
Battle Axe Mountain and Mt. Jefferson

Looking out over the source of the Hot Springs Fork of the Collowash at Mt Hood

The beargrass and rhododendron blooms were gorgeous in the evening light as we head back down the trail.

All in all, a fantastic adventure, with a payoff of incredible views.

Opal Creek

I'd wanted to do Opal Creek for years. In fact, it's probably safe to say that it was the number one run I wanted to do after moving back west. I finally got on it today, at optimal flows and on a beautiful KAVU day in the mid-70s.

The crew was me, Darryl from Salem, and Russ from Tennessee. I didn't take a lot of pictures because we were booking down at a good clip, enjoying the fun ledges and boulder gardens.

What you get when the headwaters of a river include some of the largest stands of old-growth trees left in the state: turquoise water and a pristine river canyon

Ancient old growth logs wedged in the canyon below Big Fluffy, as viewed during the SKETCHY seal launch portage

Looking back upstream after the seal launch, which involved landing in the outflow of the waterfall in control so as to avoid the two logs that you can see in the river

Thors hammer and the largest and last rapid of the day, thors playroom. This rapid was FUN!!!! Only about half the rapid can be seen in this picture

Valley of the Giants

My parents and I were looking for a good close hike that we hadn't done, but would be short enough that we could make it back to McMinnville for a BBQ and Brew Festival in the granary district. We chose to explore a short hike in the Valley of the Giants - a tiny 55-acre patch of epic old growth Douglas Fir trees amidst the clearcut desolation of the Coast Range. The drive to the valley was traumatic - 20 miles of one lane gravel logging roads, with the most horrendous views on all sides. Yay Oregon, land of scenic beauty! It was easy to get depressed.


Once we arrived at the trailhead though, things immediately looked up...literally, as we were surrounded by massive trees. The trail was only about a mile loop total, but we took almost two hours. Every step we took revealed towering 400 year old 250 foot tall giant trees.



This guy had to be 10ft in diameter.

The North Fork of the Siletz ran through the Valley, which apparently had a 200fpm section just below what we could see from the trail. It was crystal clear and beautiful.


The giant trees, beautiful stream, and mellow hike left us feeling pretty magical. Too bad we had to drive back through this to get home...
All of the dust from the road left us pretty thirsty for one of these....YUM!
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