This past weekend, I climbed Mt Hood - Oregon's highest mountain, with a couple of friends from work - Matt H, and Zak C. Last time I was up it was 2011 also with Matt H about a month later in May of that year. The weather this time was spectacular, however with the low snow year, the climbing was much more difficult. We left Bend about 12:30 AM friday night, and left the parking lot at Mt hood at 3 am. We hit the summit in 5 hours around 8 am. We were back down by 11:30 for lunch at the lodge before driving home.
In the pictures, if its not obvious, I am in the red jacket (blue in one sitting), Zak has the green jacket and Matt has the brown jacket. Notice in some of the pictures how blue the sky is. No camera filter - just shot with my iphone.
Jason and his family are friends of ours. He does firearms training for the forest service. His wife and son were out of town so he offered to take me out and try some shooting this afternoon. Here I am firing an AR-15 semi automatic. I did ok with this gun. The high caliber hand guns I tried later were a little more challenging to hit the target even when standing much closer.
On Sunday (Aug 24) my friend and work colleague Matt decided to climb to the summit of Broken Top (9175 ft). Broken top is one of the local volcanoes in the 3 Sisters Wilderness. Broken top is mostly class 2 with a small section of class 4 low class 5 scrambling/climbing near the summit. We did the Northwest Ridge route, that starts from Broken top trail head. The drive to the Broken top trail head is an interesting drive to begin with that you can likely get up with a 2 wheel drive BUT you will need high clearance. Its about 8-9 miles off the cascade lakes highway by Todd Lake and takes you up into some beautiful country with high country meadows and forest.
The hike from the trail head starts with approx 4.5 miles of relatively flat hiking to the Green lakes. It is some great hiking with views of the BT crater, high country meadows and views of Mt. Batchelor and sparks lake.
Just before arriving at Green lakes we headed Northeast cross-country up towards the northwest ridge of BT. The first picture in this set - you can see a view of the northwest ridge (coming up from the left in the picture) taken from the South sister trail (Moraine lake in the foreground) by one of the hikers in our group a couple weeks prior. As you head up to the NW ridge you get great views of South Sister. The last 2 in the set are from the lowest saddle when you ascend onto the NW ridge
Here is a great pano shot I took looking Northwest from the ridge (Matt in the shot)
Here are some shots of the ridge and summit
Some shots of the cross country descent and a great view of the Sisters and Green lakes that most people would not get since its not on the standard trail
The Three Sisters are a series of Volcanoes near Bend. South Sister is the highest of the three, closest to Bend and generally the least technical making it idea for those wishing to try a real mountain without technical climbing. It's still a good hike though at almost 5000 vertical feet of climbing and over 12 miles round trip. I was up it in 2011 almost to the day and this time doing it again with a group of eager guys from work. We left the Devils lake trail-head at 7 am. We made summit in about 4 hours. It took just over 2 to descend. Matt brought some ice cold beers for the parking lot when we returned. It was a little smoky on the way up due to the fires but it cleared up by the way down with a change in wind direction. Great time but everyone is going to be sore for the next couple days.
I had to travel to the east coast for a week and our first meeting was in Toronto so I came in a day early and dad came down to Toronto for the day to visit. We went to the CN Tower. Built in 76, neither of us had ever been up it. It held the record for the highest free standing structure in the world from when it was completed in 1976 until 2007. It is 553.33 M tall (1815 ft 5 inches). Inside, the highest you can get is the sky pod which is 447m (1465ft) or the equivalent of 147 stories. The video and most of the pictures of the city below are shot from the sky deck. The sky scrapers around look small.
The afternoon was spent drinking beers and having a late lunch down by the water. Overall a great day.
I am back in Bend for a week so went for a quick morning hike today up Tumalo Mountain. Perfect weather and excellent views of Mt Bachelor on the way up, and then from the top South Sister, Middle Sister and Broken top. (North Sister is hidden from view behind broken top)
Wednesday was my birthday and also my dads last day in before heading back to Canada, so I took the day off. We had a birthday lunch with the kids.
For dinner we got a babysitter for the kids and Kelly, Dad and I went out and tried another new pub for us. The Pelican in her Piety near Ogmore by the Sea. A little more expensive than the average pub but the food was excellent, well presented with a nice pub atmosphere.
