Broken Top/Northwest Ridge

Route conditions:

Day 1 – Mt Bachelor.  We climbed the ridge just left of the Summit ski lift.  We mostly followed the marked trail.  From the upper lift station the true summit is about 15 minutes to climber’s right on an obvious boot path.  We descended on snow to the intermediate lift station, and then took the road/trail down to the parking lot and then TH.

Time: 2h55m TH to summit; 5h car to car.

 Day 2 – South Sister.  The trail becomes more of an obvious scramble boot path as one ascends.  There are multiple boot paths up the rock and scree slope to the base of the Lewis Glacier.  Boot path switchbacking up the scree slope along the edge of the Lewis Glacier to the crater rim.  Crater was completely snow covered. We descended snowfields down to the large plateau around 6900ft. From there followed the trail back to the TH.

Time: 5h20m TH to summit; 9h45m car to car

 Day 3 – Broken Top.  We found the climber’s path marked as a campsite by a small stream. Followed the boot path interrupted by snow patches up to the obvious saddle on the northwest ridge.  There are boot paths on either side of the ridgeline pretty much all of the way up to the summit block.  The exposure on the ridgeline was not as great as it looked from South Sister – moderate.  There is a step at the base of the summit block that looks to be 5^th class.  We traversed below this band to the notch below the false summit – almost to the saddle where 11 o’clock couloir exits.  We scrambled to the ridgeline from there and then traversed mostly climber’s left along the ridgeline until we got to the standard route along the summit ridge – very exposed on very loose and unreliable volcanic rock.  From there it was an easy scramble to the summit.  We found a good rappel station (2 new slings + rap ring) by following a bootpath below the summit right on the northwest ridgeline. Short rappel with a single 30m rope.  We descended the ridgeline until about 8300ft, then descended scree & snow gulley to about 7400ft, where we intersected our approach path.

Do not recommend the route we took on the summit block.  There appears to be a climbable break in the rock band a couple hundred feet climber’s right of the ridgeline – we did not explore that band up close.  Alternatively, climbing the short class 5 section directly along the ridgeline would be quicker than the way we went.

Time: 6h20m TH to summit; 10h25m car to car.