North Sister- Direct E. Butt

[Billy]

Yesterday we attempted the East Buttress of North Sister. We wanted to climb the entire buttress from the bottom to the top as I'm not sure if its been done. The guidebook shows that the route bypasses the whole lower section, so we thought maybe we could climb some new pitches on the lower half and make it a complete ascent.

 

The ice at the lower toe wasn't completely in, so we skirted around to the north side and climbed two 70 meter pitches of WI3 stepped terrain with some mixed thrown in. Another pitch of 60 meter of 55 deg neve/ice led us onto to the top of the lower east buttress. Decent rock anchors were used for belays.

 

Then we unroped and climbed up the ridge to where it looked like it would merge into the main face. It didn't. We found ourselves crowned out on the high point of the lower buttress. We had to downclimb off the north side and get on to the main East Buttress Route. This feature is not apparent from any of the photos that I've seen before.

 

Then we entered the normal East Buttress route as shown in the guidebook. This section (300 meters) was completely awesome 50-55 deg neve, with several short ice steps which we climbed unroped as the wind was howling and we wanted to keep moving. The gulley system narrows and then begins to get technical again. The mixed pitches above looked like the business and had thin ice over rock. At this point we decided not climb ourselves into a black hole, as we only had one rope for retreat and felt like these pitched looked time consuming to summit out on Glisan Pinnacle. It was late in the day and we decided that we didn't want to have to be looking for the trail in the woods in the dark. We downclimbed this couloir section as anchors are hard to come by.

 

When we got back down, we could see that we had got to within 3 or 4 pitches of Glisan Pinnacle. It would have been really cool to have made it, but sometimes it just doesn't feel right.

 

The complete ascent of the route is surely one of the finest winter routes of its type in Oregon. I haven't heard of anyone ever climbing the lower buttress before, but who knows.

 

There is ice everywhere in the Sisters and the NE Face of Middle looks sweet. Mixed climbing abounds everywhere. Right now, it is too cold in the mountains for ice formation, but there is a lot there already, and when it gets warmer again and then colder, things are going to improve.

 

Also, you can drive to Pole Creek trailhead and there is barely enough snow to ski on at the start of the trail. I'd imagine that it is possible to drive to the Pamelia Lake trailhead for Jefferson as well.

 

 

[Alex]

very cool. I've tried the Early Morning Couloir and did NE Shoulder, I like N Sister.

[iain]

I assume you can drive into Pole Creek at the this point...?

[texplorer]

Billy, maybe a good thing you turned back. Was talking to a friend who was up there last weekend and said that the upper pitches on both glisan and the true summit were pretty heavily rimed up. He said that it was tricky climbing and probably no way to get pro in so they retreated. Anyway, nice TR.

[wayne]

Good work Billy! It is good to see you had the guts to try and the sense to know when to bail. I have looked at that buttress . The rock has very sweet coloring in the summer, It looks like a winter only type deal too. I can say for sure the ice rts on middle ,e face. and sou sis , nface are great climbs and recommended highly