Basic Alpine Climb - Middle Sister (Oregon)

Easy 5 mile trail to camp, hot and dry through the burnt forest. Set up camp in amongst the last stand of trees. Lots of good spots around. It took us 2 hours from the cars to camp.

We started at 5.15 am the next morning,  heading straight up from camp. Once we stepped on to the glacier we followed the snow up to the hogsback and stayed on top of the hogsback the entire way to the saddle.  Here we transitioned onto the rock and followed a small trail up the ridge and came to a steep icy slope, it was too icy early in the morning so we choose to take the loose rock to the right.  Easy but very loose scrambling, we stayed close together to avoid rock fall. Luckily for us we were the only party so far.  Pretty soon there was a small trail to follow again and a small snowfield up to the summit.  Stunning views ranging from Mt Shasta in the south to Mt Adams in the North.  It took us about 3 hours from camp to the summit. 

We had about 30 minutes on the summit before starting back down. In the loose section we split up and went 3 at a time to avoid kicking rocks on each other. One party watching us come down decided to try the icy snow instead, but we watched them turn around about halfway up the snow/ice. So the rock scramble seemed to be the right decision even if loose.  We were back in camp  at 11 am.  It took us just under 6 hours camp-summit-camp including summit break.  We packed up and hiked out. Camp to car took about 1.5 hours. 

This was a backup plan for Mt Olympus. It was cloudy and rainy in Washington, while we had glorious sunshine down in Oregon.