YocumRidge

Yes, Justin, the Pole Creek TH is open and it is about 7 trail miles to the Chambers lakes. We did not take that trail though - we looped around for a while trying to avoid steep ridge sections and loose boulder fields (remember those where you step on one and a whole wall slides down from your feet). We camped well above the Camp lake just below the two ridges merge on the Middle. Since I was preoccupied with the idea of getting on the west face on the North, we started along the ridge and circled climbers left (west) at around 9000'and then up to the summit ridge. The descent was via the standard South ridge.

It's not me, Kenny - it's the Sisters area that does the trick.

Beautiful area! No clue whether West face on Middle has been climbed before, when and by whom. Most likely - yes, but not that it does matter much to me. Ore High does not specify any routes on the west face which does not mean anything.

Trip: Middle Sister - "North Sister West Face" variation Date: 6/21/2010 Trip Report: I have not climbed Sisters since 2005 so a repeat was in order. This time, West face on the North Sister with a variety of lines to choose from. And as always, with no objective danger of "demoralizing heaps of shifting television sets glued together with marbles and monkey poo". My partner – Frank Page (Camp_Chef on here) – is from WA and does not know what the “demoralizing heaps of television sets” mean but nevertheless wanted to join me. Enthusiastically thinking that the “occasional showers” forecasted for Sun would not interfere with the approach to our planned high camp at the saddle between North and Middle, we arrive at the Pole Creek TH. As promised, we are hit by a couple of showers and clouds below the tree line. Good enough, and we manage to get a glimpse of the North Sister in the distance, but only one that, like a ghost, is gone in a minute. Weather begins to change to being seriously unhappy and providing us with an awesome 5 feet visibility at times. It starts snowing, all is in a whiteout and the disappearing ski trail we follow threatens our happy ending. We spot a few pinnacles that I don’t remember to exist on the east approach to the Middle Sister in 2005, so we try to determine our location on a map according to which the North Sister indeed has quite a few thereof. We believe we are on the NE side of North. It becomes obvious we need to start traversing south - up and over the SE rib - and then head up west to the saddle. My happy mood is instantaneously destroyed in anticipation of a few more hours doing just that. We are making slow progress with all the switchbacks and constant gain/loss of elevation below what I think at the time was the Thayer Headwall. The fact the winds are sustained at 30 mph does not help either. We cross some ridge, and then another one at about 7800’. Gradually getting soaked, we both feel miserable and spent. We stumble upon a few flat bivy sites and feel ready to crash. Still unable to see through the snow, I reassure Frank that this must be the popular area where people who climb North via a standard SE ridge bivy. Our 7800' bivy site on the "North Sister": We entertain ourselves with wishful thinking of clear weather forecasted for Monday and if that is not going to be the case, we will get off the mountain in the morning, not a big deal. I do feel hypothermic though. Frank’s ingenious stove conveniently runs out of fuel right at this moment leaving us with crappy dinner and without water. Not good. We sleep and wake up to clear skies at 4 a.m. Wind prevails but we make the decision to start climbing. The strange thing however that strikes me is the Middle Sister we see to the south from our camp does not exactly look like the Middle Sister I remember. In the morning, with the "Middle Sister" behind: I don’t say anything to Frank and attribute this discrepancy to the effects of hypothermia and sick stomach. The mountain could have eroded or something, after all. On the bright side, the temps are below freezing, the sun is out, so we get the tools out and begin climbing on perfect icy crust. On the SW aspect of the "North Sister": Getting closer to the gendarmes: We look at more gendarmes above and to the west and again they look different from what I remember: for some bizarre reason they got transformed into rime ice towers like those on the Reid HW. To my surprise, there are no television sets falling on us. I conclude what an unusually cold spring we had this year that even the gendarmes are ice covered! I am much slower than Frank, in need of frequent stops and badly want to bail but don’t admit anything to him. At one point, I anchor myself to ice and just helplessly hang there on my tools. I know I can do better than that. Frank graciously offers to check out the route above and find the Bowling Alley. He returns and reports that there are more rime towers but there may be one potentially doable passage through them. The passage turns out to be better than we expected, with some solid alpine ice and good sticks. I start feeling better. Final stretch to the summit ridge: Finally, Frank screams from the above that he is on the summit ridge. I have no clue what freaking summit ridge he found on the North Sister, while he has to be in the Bowling Alley. I get up there to make sure for myself and see the North Sister to the north! Great, we have just climbed Middle Sister via the route we then called “North Sister west face”. On the summit: West Face of the true North Sister: We descend back to the camp, pack up and leave. On the descent: I get a closer look at the “Middle” Sister that turned out to be South Sister and see frozen ice on the headwall on the northwestern aspect. That is not due to hypothermia. Happy Summer in Oregon! Gear Notes: Pickets, 4 screws and C4s up to #0.5 brought for the North. 2 tools used on the Middle. Approach Notes: 20 miles total via the Pole Creek to the camp

Nice, thanks.

Why paint? Just sit and wait, the summer '10 in the PNW is a great beginning for the permanent glacier expansion.

A true genius indeed. Joe Barton for President 2012

Anyone been recently? Is there a boot/ski trail to Sunshine or X-country? I just got off the phone with the McKenzie RD and was told that the hwy 242 is partially closed to the Obsidian TH as is the road to the Pole Creek TH (2 miles closure) on the east side.

Drytooling at the Far Side?

"Pieces of ice" fall there all the time in what we thought not so dangerous conditions and the naturally triggered avys on the north side of the Coleman HW are not something unlikely: When we were up there, someone who hiked the CD route warned us to stay away from the "sketchy NR" because "an elephant sized ice chunk had just broke off the ice cliff and went down". We said it's perfect timing - we were on our way right there.

Yes, Pete, but the BP CEO Tony Hayward said the new containment operation is designed to "be essentially hurricane proof." And we believe everything he says - he is "essentially not full of sh*t". http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7039211.html

Grunau, since then did you become an artist?

I dont know about the last week but two weeks ago we were trying out some ice runnels in WA Pass and it looked like that:

Yes, two sharp tools are definitely needed as well as a dozen of screws for the crappy brittle ice we found on the NR two weeks ago: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=958757 We did not bother with the regular axes but we camped by the Colfax and traversed to the ramp via the Roman Nose (I wish we had some rock pro). The crevasses and a moat by the Coleman HW opened up and the snow bridges were all wet snow, so we run full belays across that sketchy section. There was NO snow on the top of the ridge - it was all ice and snice.

Yep , I hear ski boots work great for the OW action in Sierras: and on traverses: It is just a 5.7, right?

Does it have a gender?

No problems, Bill, but thanks anyway! I am still contemplating what's better though: to be hated by Pink or to be called a "troll/plonk" on RC when I asked a reasonable (I thought at the time) question about climbing overhangs.

And some dogs are certainly doing better than humans on the dog route. Oleg's dog runs Hood at 4 hrs C-to-C while I am not even close.

No probs with pushing your own limits but why to push the objective danger? Smith Rawks were nice and warm the last weekend.

Looking for a partner to climb Nisqually Cleaver (or Ice cliff - depending on conditions) and descend via Gib Chute or DC, weather permitting either on 29-30 or 30-31st May. Be in shape and have solid glacier and ice skills.

On skis? Core.

No probs, I'll get you a beer of your choice

Hey Bala, Looks sweet, thanks. I wish we had that boot track and better ice.

We did not bring any floatation. The Heliothrope trail was pretty broken up and icy below the tree line. Once we got on Coleman in pm, the snow softened up with wet postholes above the knee but was bearable. O/N freeze created a nice unbreakable crust and easy crossing of the Roman Nose. My worst was descending the Roosevelt glacier ramp with 4 feet of wet snow balling on crampons and kicking it off every two steps and trying to stay in balance at that and not to become a permanent red spot in the crevasses down below. But then again, it is something bailout masters do .

After trying three different lines, I would agree that the most doable was the one on the left of the ridge. Too bad we had to learn it hard way.