Hunter reached a new high point this weekend by reaching the summit of South Sister - 10,358 ft! It took us 9 hours car to car including a nice lunch on the summit. The hike is 11.8 miles and gains 4,878 ft of elevation from the trailhead to summit. While not technical, it is a tough hike! I am really proud of him, and he is super excited about the accomplishment. The original plan was to train over the summer and maybe try it before it starts to snow again but he decided he would give it a go sooner and it went great.
This is my 3rd time up there. First time was in 2011 with Red. Second time was in August 2014 with some people from where I worked at that time. This year, for mid July, there was a lot of snow still on the mountain at pretty low elevations. I had hunter practice some ice axe techniques on the mid mountain snow fields where it was steep enough you didn't want to slide a long way, but also not any risk of injury. The snow also made for some fun on the descent!
This first set up shots is from where we broke out of the forest to a point on the mid mountain snowfields were we stopped for a snack.
From here the climb gets steeper util you get to the crater rim. You can see from the shots the cirque lake getting smaller and smaller as we climb.
Some shots from the summit! First is of Hunter actually on the highest point.
On the way down we stopped at the saddle and went down to get a better view of the cirque lake at 8850ft. Notice Hunter in the top of the first shot walking down to give you an idea of scale.
Some fun sliding on the way down. When there is snow the way down is much faster than the way up. It took us over 5 hours to summit and we were down in a little over 3.