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I have been on North Sister twice. The first time I made the summit by climbing via the standard route on the south ridge. The second time we ran out of time due to a long episode of route finding on the southeast ridge. On that climb we made it across the snow traverse to the bottom of the bowling alley but decided to turn around when the weather started to turn bad and time was looking like an issue. It turned out to be just as much of an adventure though as the successful climb. |
This
is the ridge, on the left, that we took up to get to the
summit. As you may be able to see from the following
pictures there was no snow and the route was horriblle loose
rock. An ugly scramble over loose rocks. But still quite an
adventure.
North
Sister and Middle Sister form our camp below the Southeast
ridge. It is a beautiful spot.
The
climbing is not all that difficult from here on up but you
just need to be careful. Route finding can be difficult.
Snow on the ridge would be a benefit to cover up the scree
and loose rock.
More
of the Southeast Ridge route Abbey
scrambling up the loose rock.
This is probably one of
the only good reasons to climb the southeast ridge. The view
is awesome. That is Broken top, South Sister and Middle
Sister with the Hayden Glacier spread out below Middle
Sister.
By
the time you get to here it is a relief to get to the ridge
where the rock is a little less scrabbly.
There
are several gendarmes to work your way around on the way to
the summit.
After gaining the south
ridge we started following tracks and trails and we got to
this spot and found that we were not on the route any more
and had to backtrack. But it was probably the best view of
the whole climb. Worth the lost time (maybe). But probably
spent our summit time.
The snow traverse.
These are photos from the crux traverse of the climb. The last photo of the series is a photo borrowed from someone elses climb. It shows the variability of the snow on the traverse. We had a lot more snow on the traverse this year than I saw when I first climbed the mountain 5 years before. The first steep pitch to gain the main traverse was a good 50 degree pitch. There are steep gulleys that if you slipped would drop you a thousand feet to the Collier Glacier.
The
Bowling alley. I guess because there are rocks rolling
down it like balls in a bowling alley. But really only if
there are people there to drop them on you. I climbed
up on the right side of the chute and found quite good
bouldering all the way to the top.
The rock is not all that
bad up here as you gain the summit. Or maybe you are used to
it by the time you have made it this far.
The
Collier Glacier from near the summit.
The
south summit, which sits atop the bowling alley.
