Standing on the summit block of Broken Top |
Broken Top had been on my "list" ever since seeing it while hiking up South Sister in 2011. It was so unique looking that I even posed in a picture halfway up South Sister pointing at Broken Top calling it out. "I WILL BE BACK". Of course at the time I wasn't fully sure how I would manage to climb it, since I was just starting to get into mountaineering/climbing.
View from Cascade Lakes Scenic Highway heading West |
We decided on doing an "up and back" of Broken Top, leaving the Salem area really early and being back late. It was a day of extremes for us. We hadn't noticed since we were inside the car, but it was a cool 34 degrees outside at the Green Lakes/Fall Creek trailhead. We weren't expecting this at all and by the time we returned to the car that afternoon it was a very hot 80 degrees.
Sunrise over Broken Top from Green Lakes |
The green lakes trail was beautiful, and we bombed through it rather quickly. I think it would be a nice trail to take the family on and overnight camp at Green Lakes. After getting small glimpses of Broken Top from the Trail we were delighted to get this view of the mountain near green lakes just before the turn out to the summit trail.
Northwest ridge of Broken Top |
The dad helping his kid climb the crux |
Making our way up the ridge was fun and exciting. There were a few times where the "path" wasn't obvious and we definitely did some class 3 scrambling to make our way up. After about an hour and a half we came up to the "crux", which is a 10-15' nose of solid rock. Here we encountered a dad with his two sons, and an older gentlemen who had already scrambled his way to the summit. The dad seemed to be a bit in over his head with the kids and so we offered to help. We weren't worried about time and figured it would be better to lend a helping hand then hear a bad story later or worse, have to assist in a rescue. I belayed Mason up the nose and he didn't have time to set protection. For his comfort level it wasn't necessary. Once on top Mason belayed the kids and then the dad up. I followed shortly after.
After the nose climb we traversed along the exposed ramp and over and through the exposed catwalk. The dad decided to clip his kids into his harness (not sure how I feel about this, but I guess it was safer then nothing...unless he slipped of course). At this point there was a really nice exposed class 4 climb up to the summit. This portion was actually the most puckering to me, but it wasn't bad.
At the summit of Broken Top with the Sisters photo bombing us |
Down climbing from the summit block |
Walking back across the catwalk |
Thumbs up! |
After a successful summit we down climbed from the block and returned back to the nose. Mason set up a rappel off of a sling. There was a HUGE rock to use as a rap anchor. We let the dad rap down first then we tied the kids in and belayed them down. I rapped down and Mason followed closely behind, stopping for a minute to pose. We gathered up all of our gear and made our way partway down the ridge. We quickly realized it would be MUCH easier to skree ski all the way down the mountain so we did. It was a little nerve racking but I went with the flow and we got down in record time.
We refilled our water at green lakes and marched back to the trail head.
Broken Top in the afternoon from Green Lakes after a successful summit |
Final Stats:
Summit: Yes
Elevation Gain: 3700'
Round Trip Distance: 12+ miles
Round Trip Time: 8.5 hours
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