South Sister

 

Our base camp at Moraine Lake - South Sister, OR 8/9/2013

Moraine Lake

Final rock/sand scramble to the summit

Middle and North Sister in the foreground with the rest of the Cascades in the background

 

After a few training hikes, we made it to the summit of South Sister. Marcus, Missy and I left Moraine Lake around 6 am, after one of the worst night's sleep I've ever had. Seriously. Who was the idiot that didn't bring a real sleeping bag or thermarest? This girl. Not my brightest moment, but rest assured I'll never make that mistake again. I think I thought to myself, "I always overheat and I love sleeping cold, how bad could it be?" Bad. I should have just tried to summit instead of going to sleep.... would have had an awesome sunrise!

Either way, it didn't ruin my trip. It felt awesome to reach the summit and I'm glad I did it. Next up? Mt. Adams.

Dog Mountain

 

Summit of Dog Mountain - Columbia River Gorge, Oregon 7/13/2013

Late season wild flowers on Dog Mountain

Final stretch to the summit

This was one of our final training hikes before our South Sister adventure. The entire loop isn't that long (6.9 mi round trip) but the elevation gain will get ya (2,800'). There was also poison oak everywhere... The views once we broke through the treeline were pretty fantastic. Again, my iPhone5 was much lighter than lugging my SLR around.

One of my friends (TRENT) complained the entire hike up, and once at the top his mood changed drastically. After taking in the view and swatting away the insane population of gnats/flies/bees at the summit, he frolicked and skipped the whole way down. And then promptly decided he was not going to hike South Sister. Man down!