[TR] Middle Sister - Hayden Glacier 12/28/2013

[leora]

Trip: Middle Sister - Hayden Glacier

 

Date: 12/28/2013

 

Trip Report:

At the urging of a fellow Cascade Climber reader, I'm writing this short trip report of our absolutely fabulous Middle Sister climb. If you like Animoto Videos, one of my partners created this wonderful "story" of our climb: Middle Sister Animoto video

 

As everyone has moaned about - this has been a low snow year, and in the case of Middle Sister, this means that we were able to drive all of the way to the Pole Creek Trailhead on Friday, 12/27/2013. The road had *some* ice over the last 2 to at most 3 miles before the trailhead. It appeared to me that a sedan might be able to get in, but I don't know for sure because we had a 4 wheel drive truck that we had in 4 wheel drive, because we didn't want to take any chances (and since we had it, we used it. . .).

 

The trail was clear the first little bit - maybe 1/2 mile, and then turned slick - we didn't have microspikes, so we just walked on the very edges of the trail, or around icy spots onto the crunchy snow. Sometimes, we had to walk gingerly. Plenty of people had been there before us, so there were plenty of tracks to follow, and through to the edge of the burn, they all mostly went to the same place, namely, the edge of the burn. . . This image gives an indication of the state of the trail:

 

We followed the trail until the wide opening just before Squaw creek. I'd been there in August, so I recognized this hill as the start of the climbers trail that leads to the base of the Hayden Glacier. We had to leave the packed down trail, and this was the first moment of doubt that we had that perhaps we should have brought our snowshoes? This consternation was short-lived, as soon as we topped the very little hill and continued up. Pretty easy going, even if we did sink down 6 inches or so. Here is a photo of where we diverged:

The continuation of trail #4074 is to the extreme left of this picture.

 

 

We followed the ridge the whole way up to about 6745ft, with no sign of the creek that had been there in August. There was the expected strong wind from the southwest that night, so we camped in the trees, with no water in sight. We made our little platform for our tent, and a wall on the southern side, and melted water for dinner and drinks. We were due east of North Sister.

 

Here's a photo of our view of North Sister:

 

In the morning we started out at 9am, with crampons on, and headed southwest. We headed for the 2nd ridge south of the east ridge of North Sister. We could have just headed for the big valley, but the ridge was fine. We continued to head for 3 saddles that were in line with the saddle between Prouty Point and the North Ridge of Middle Sister, and noticed that there appeared to have been a pair of climbers perhaps the day before.

 

This picture has our first view of the route:

 

At the final saddle that we came to that signaled that we were stepping onto the glacier, there was a beautiful gentle slope up. Here's the photo of that:

 

We all noticed that we needed to don more clothing, so stopped next to a broken up crevasse lip for shelter, donned our extra apparel, and continued up. I managed to choose the most difficult way up, which was solid ice, but we saw that there was a snow ramp that I could have taken, and noted that for our trip back down. The glacier was solid, and we just walked up it, unroped, to the saddle between Prouty Point and the North Ridge.

 

The North Ridge was mostly snow on the east side, rock in the middle (with snow), and ice barnacles and gargoyles to the west. The whole way up the ridge, I could hear (and see) one or another of the gargoyles tipping over and sending down an avalanche of ice onto the snowfield to the west of the ridge. We did rope up, here, and put in minimal protection. There was one place that was quite steep that we had to traverse to the west, just before the final approach to the summit. Here's a photo of that traverse:

 

Again, the unstable ice gargoyles were the biggest potential danger.

Here are two photos that attempt to show the texture of the slope:

and:

(And yes, that is the shadow of the mountain that you see.)

 

The rest of the trip to the summit was pretty easy and uneventful. The views at the top were stunning. We could see the beautiful array of Cascade mountains all around and spent some time enjoying the views. Here is the view that we saw:

 

And here it is, again, with everything labeled:

(Names are to the right of the mountain, unless there is a little arrow, and then the name is to the left of the mountain and the little arrow points at the mountain.)

 

On the way down, we again put in protection around the steep traverse. One of my partners' crampon broke, so we paid a little more attention to safety. We were able to go down on grippier snow covered areas, and he was able to stop the cramponless foot from sliding by nudging it up against a trekking pole planted on the ice. As soon as we were off of the glacier, we felt a little more "in control" but were still vigilant, and eventually made it back to the tent with no injuries, and at dusk.

 

The hike out was uneventful, except that we met a skier, who, after chatting with us for a couple of moments, realized that he'd taken a picture of two of us with Illumination Rock on Mount Hood, and let us know. We got his contact info and he sent us the link. I have to show off this photo, as I think that it's brilliant:

November 23rd, 2013 photo of Illumination Rock

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

We carried 1 picket, each, ostensibly for Crevasse Rescue (we didn't know what the glacier would be like), but we wound up using the pickets for pseudo-protecting the North Ridge.

 

Approach Notes:

Some amount of ice and snow on the last 2 or 3 miles to Pole Creek Trailhead. We had a 4 wheel drive truck and used the 4 wheel drive, but it *appeared* to me that a sedan maybe could have gotten in. Sorry that I didn't take a photo of the road conditions at all so that you could judge for yourself.

Edited January 8, 2014 by leora

[ScaredSilly]

Nice to see some winter adverturing. Looks pretty firm.