Snowpack in the sisters wilderness

[Kibble]

I'll be home in bend for the last week of march, and I'm hoping to do plenty of skiing. I want to get some info on the snowpack in the sisters wilderness, if it allows I'd love to ski south sister and/or broken top, I've never skied either without giant suncups!

 

Hopefully it is better than what we are dealing with in colorado right now...

[jlag]

Healthy snowpack in the C.O. right now. We just got a little dump so the corn during your stay should be ripe. Ya never know it could start snowing again, but it looks more like less precip. The road still won't be open so either your skinning from S. Sister or bumming rides will sledneckers. Hold up a PBR tall boy and ask for a ride. If you have a couple days S. Sister should be really good.

[Kibble]

Thanks for the good news!

 

I definitely wasn't planning on attempting south sister in one day. I'm hoping to camp near green lakes and ski south sister and broken top for a few days from the same camp. If I can convince my friends to join me!

[gapertimmy]

from st. patty's day on brokentop

 

a few more recent pics are here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gapertimmy/page2/

[Kibble]

Thanks for the pics but I was hoping to get some info about the safety of the snowpack. Here in colorado there are still buried hoar layers under the upper snowpack which has consolidated, making for some really dangerous avalanches if it does go. I am wondering if there is anything like that going on there in oregon.

[cluck]

Avi Forecast

 

Forecast only applies as far south as the Mount Hood area, but you can reasonably estimate the snowpack in the Sisters area from that.

[gapertimmy]

fwiw, from the pics you can see some avi activity occured a few weeks back after the last major storm cycle. given the recent weeks of spring-like freeze-thaw, things should be pretty stable.

 

additionally, if you are going to just be doing the standard route up/down south, you should be able to navigate around any terrain traps that you might encounter. there was some huge cornices/wet rollers cutting off above moraine lake last weekend.

 

given all the different aspects on Brokentop and South, you can usaually choose the safest aspect given whatever conditions you might encounter during your trip home.