Middle Sister, Hayden Glacier-North Ridge 1-25-15

It was either Hood, or Middle Sister….We chose the Middle Sister, and I’m glad we did. Such a beautiful place this time of year. Deb and I left the Pole Creek trailhead at 6:20am Sunday. We were on the summit at about 1:00pm, and back to the truck at 6:00pm. There was no snow at the trailhead (5300’). The snow was patchy for a couple of mile in, and sustained after that. The trail is covered with snow, so it was cross country most of the way. I was actually surprised on how much snow there was once above 6500’. The saddle was snowed over with no rocks exposed. We needed snowshoes for the approach, but were able to switch to crampons at about 7200’. Once we crossed over to the northwest side, it turned to ice. The crux of the north ridge was very icy and we were glad we brought the second tool. We tagged the summit (10047’), then the tedious down-climb back to the saddle. It was nice to get back to the east side, on the soft snow. It was a bit breezy at the saddle, but the wind was not too cold. We descended back down to 7200’, where we had ditched our snowshoes on the way up. There we switched from crampons, back to snowshoes, and headed back to the trailhead. We almost beat darkness, but had to turn the headlamps on about 15 minutes before getting back to the truck…
Fun climb with my partner Deb.

After hiking in the dark for a couple of miles, the sun popped up…