[TR] Oregon Cascades - North Sister 2/17/2008

[olwilli]

Trip: Oregon Cascades - North Sister

 

Date: 2/17/2008

 

Trip Report:

My first trip report here, but on sunday my ski partner, kevin, and i headed into north sister with hopes of a great day! after a required stop at sisters bakery for the great maple bar we headed to pole creek trailhead. on the way out the door in the morning kevin said, oh, grab your skate skis and boots in case the roads not plowed all the way in..hmmmm. so we began to drive and it said 9 miles to pole creek TH and well we made it as far as 7 miles to go and close to 1900 feet of elevation gain left to the TH. so we parked and gave it a go. heading out in skate skis, with our AT Skis/boots strapped to the back made for heavy packs, but the firm snow allowed for fast travel and in no time we were at the trailhead. we left skate gear there, and skinned into the base of north sister. at the "lake" around 7600 feet we split ways. kevin has been eyeing the line on thayer glacier, route #2 (hourglass chute behind his head) in "oregon high" climbing book, a line that i'm not confident in skiing yet, so i chose the gully to the right of it. and i skied from about 9100 feet or so? kevin skied from very close to the summit and had a great ski (he'll post a report with pics later). but was very happy to see the mountain finally let him ski it after a handful of attempts. what a special day on a corn cycle in feb? can't beat that! fast travel conditions made us back to the car after leaving in less than 7 hours, and i somehow lost my ice axe while skiing through the trees (a light blue camp ice axe if anyone finds it!) hope the photos work here, but a great day to be out there and followed it up with a great meal at snocap in the nice town of sisters. (Hard time loading pics so we'll see how this works!) Cheers, Chris

{img]http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/515/medium/P2170059_2.jpg[/img]

 

Gear Notes:

Whippets/ice axes

 

Approach Notes:

skate skis/boots

AT Skis

 

 

[sweatinoutliquor]

Photos look good! Nice report too. and welcome to the site! I'd also like to comment on the excellent choice of maple bars at the bakery.

[jlag]

Nice photos.

 

so did he boot up through the choke on that chute? I'm just curious as you said he skiied from very close to the summit. The way to the summit is looker right from that hourglass. If he went straight up it he was still a LONG way from the summit. All those lines in there look awesome, it's just rare that it's safe enough to be in there. Nice work skating up the road, that adds some work for sure.

 

We're were up on S. Sister the same day and couldn't find anything soft above 8000 ft, mostly rime. How was the snow in the Thayer?

 

thanksf for the TR

 

JL

[letsroll]

Thanks for the stoke. Have been looking at a thayer ski as well. Damn hard to get that sucker in good enough shape.

[olwilli]

yeah, the snow was great corn! kevin skied to the right in the photo and yes he went up the hourglass and then veered lookers right and put skis on just below summit ramp. he should post a trip report later, but he said the top 2/3 were glorious corn and the Hourglass choke was very very icy, even he was side stepping! the chute i skied on the right, had ice in the middle where a sluff had taken the fresh snow off and then perfect corn and some snow a bit too soft. actually had a small little sluff that went for a few feet when i was skiing and the snow was very heavy and pulled me downslope just for a moment. but yes we hit it perfect and from the looks of other reports things were great! i had skied brokentop wednesday (with that dry powder on a firm base) and kevin skied broken top the day before (saturday) in perfect corn conditions nice to have spring corn in february and more snow on the way, should be a great weekend!

[warrior1515]

Nice work!!!

 

That is definitely a big approach, especially without sleds.