Broken Top 9,175' - NW Ridge (08-08-12)

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

I figured the trail leading up to greenlakes would have warmed my body up enough for the ascent to the ridge, but then I slowed down quite a bit and felt winded. It was a reminder that we were in fact gaining elevation again and couldn't continue the pace we had done on the trail. Reality slapped me hard and I handed over a couple pounds of weight to make my ascent easier. Before long we had acquired the ridge.

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

Bachelor Mountain 5953' (07-29-12)

Father/Son summit of Bachelor Mountain

I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and take my son out for a  hike. While looking on SummitPost I found this short hike that offered plenty of reward for little effort. The dirt road up features views from Mt. Adams down to Broken Top.

Zack and the snags

While this is a relatively easy hike, it was hard pacing myself to match my sons pace. He isn't nearly as accustomed to trail slogging as I am, especially when I am on flat terrain. Part way up you get into an old burn area with snags and a clearing. This would be a great place for a picnic or even an overnight stay (if you wanted).

Bachelor Mountain Trail sign

 After a short while past the clearing you come to a fork in the road. Stay left at the well marked sign, which is trail no. 420. Even though the SummitPost page says the trail is maintained I found myself ducking under branches and trampling over quite a bit of weeds and grass. A few times I had to hold the grass down so Zack could get through it.

Zack on some loose rock on Bachelor Mountain

 Having made it through the thicker forest area of the trail we came upon some nice loose rock to scramble over. The path was pretty well maintained but I stayed close to my son since I didn't want him falling.






We had a nice lunch on the summit, albeit a fast one, due to the horseflies that were bothering us. We even found what looked like an old indian petroglyph of a deer near the summit. We left it in hopes that it was real. The way back down was pretty uneventful. Zack started complaining about his legs but we kept on. Stopped for some ice cream in Idahna on the way back home.

Coffin Mountain and Lookout from the Bachelor Mountain trail.

View South from Bachelor Mountain

Final Stats:

Summit: Yes
Elevation Gain: 1100'
Round Trip Distance: 4 miles
Round Trip Time: 2-3 hours (Normally 1.5hours)

Middle Sister 10,047' - Hayden Glacier (07-22-12)

Laying on the summit of Middle Sister catching some sunshine

This was my first official climb with the Chemeketans. After lots of trouble with weather and scheduling earlier this year (cancelling Mt. Hood trips), I was excited to do a club climb. Usually I only climb with groups of 4 or less, so it was a new and welcome experience.

Heading up the snowfields

We left from the Pole Creek Trailhead around 11am. My pack was roughly 45lbs, but I was feeling strong and being in a group made me forget about the weight. The heat was beating down, with it being 70degrees or more. My brand new Mountain Hardware Stretch Bandana was coming in handy. I ended up using it almost the entire duration of the trip for one thing or another.

Almost 2 hours later, and a few breaks in between we made it to the turn off for the climbers trail. After this point we started hitting patches of snow and crossed a few creeks.

Water carves ice and snow

Things started getting really awesome here, scenery wise. With Broken Top to the south and the Three Sisters popping up it started reminding me why we were out there.

We decided to continue on past the normal place to camp at 6900' and instead climb the snow fields until we reached the toe of the Hayden Glacier, closer to 8000'.

Shortly after arriving we set up camp and found a nice pool of water. We decided to boil it just for safety's sake but I am sure it would have been ok to drink on it's own. After boiling water for the following day and storing it in the tent, I made quick work of a delicious Mountain House. We went over tying in for the following morning and also some basic glacier travel etiquette.

Camping at 8000'

The following morning we got up at 3:00am, roped in, and started a slow but steady climb up the Hayden Glacier. With such a light summit pack I never felt like I was working very hard. It was nice and made the trip more enjoyable. I got to turn around and see the sights quite regularly. One amazing site was seeing headlamps on other mountains around us. There was a group going up North Sister and I saw one headlamp turn on on South Sister's summit.

Heading up Hayden Glacier

Crux picture courtesy of Mike Pennington

When we reached the top of Hayden Glacier, we un-roped and took off our ice-axes/crampons. We scrambled up some poor scree/rocks until we were at the base of the crux move. The crux is a ~40degree pitch that most people bang in protection on. Being that it was a Chemeketan climb, there was no way we were doing without a few snow pickets. There were nice footsteps all the way up the pitch and quite honestly I felt safer here then some parts of my Mt. McLoughlin climb. Perhaps it was just knowing we were clipped into a rope, or maybe it was because of the club atmosphere.

Washington, Three Finger Jack, and Mt. Jefferson

Once we reached the top of the crux we unroped and did another scree climb til we reached the summit. We got out sweet summit photos and proceeded back down to camp. There was a group of Mazama's heading up as we were heading back down. After breaking down camp I threw my rain gear on and had a fun glissade, which seemed to save lots of time. After we got off the snow it was a long slog back to camp. I really enjoyed this trip and wish to be on future Chemeketan climbs.

Chemeketan team summit photo!

Final Stats:

Summit: Yes
Elevation Gain: 4747'
Round Trip Distance: 12+ miles
Round Trip Time: 24+ hours
FULL PHOTO ALBUM