The Three Sisters Volcano Traverse
Bend, Oregon: a small centrally located town surrounded by volcanoes big and small- buttes, cinder cones, shields and more. Three of which- Faith, Hope and Charity- can be traversed on skis in as little as a day. After watching the sun set over these giant spires again and again, I learned of and became inspired by this feat. On my latest mission to chase high pressure systems across the Pacific Northwest Coast, skiing volcanoes from California to Canada, I decided to link in the Three Sisters traverse with a single partner.
The view of the Three Sisters Volcanoes from Broken Top Volcano in the Three Sisters Wilderness
Some people attempt to ski the three in less than a 24 hour period. Dustin, a Rainier Mountain Guide, and I decided to carry heavy(ish) packs and camp out in between Middle and South sister, because being outside in the elements is why we like doing this stuff in the first place. Starting at Dutchman Flats across the street from Mt. Bachelor Ski Area we dropped a car at 12:30 am on May 24th and drove to Pole Creek Campground off of the 15 road outside of Sisters, Oregon.
Our hike began around 3:00 am and we crested the tree line shortly after dawn's break.
From there the trail became obsolete and we navigated the undulating terrain gaining North Sister's "terrible traverse" and beyond.
The northern most Sister is the well known crux of the entire trip. She's steep, chossy, and unforgiving: Faith is her name: fitting as line up requires a great deal of faith in both your abilities and the weather. The "bowling alley" is an 80 degree, 80 foot east facing chute that leads you directly to the summit of North. This route is ideally ascended before the sun after a night producing a solid refreeze. Neither of those variables played out which took this ascent route out of the cards for our party of two. Instead of turning around, we wanted to give the west rim a shot.
Dropping our skis and camping gear, we traversed free-solo above crevasses belly to the wall on the 60-70 degree pitch of snow ice.
After getting to a notch on the north west rim, 80 feet from the summit, class 2 water ice created an obstacle that couldn't be avoided. In a more perfect scenario time wise, climbing the 100 foot pitch could have been accomplished. However, it would have left us traversing the exposed snow ice route under the sun kissed rock and ice towering above waiting to let loose.
One hundred icy feet from the summit, we turned around and continued to make the way back to our skis and descend the south east chute where we skied perfect corn snow.
Trying our best to hi-mark up to the east ridge of middle sister we eventually transitioned back to skins and summited Middle Sister via the north ridge. The winds were steady and strong and we were tired from our 1.5 hour nap the night prior.
Time lapse of clouds rolling over Middle Sister volcano: the next objective after North Sister
Successfully summiting Middle Sister; only one more summit to bid.
Skiing more corn down the south ridge of Middle was a well deserved treat.
Digging out our bivy and melting water were the last two tasks of the day.
Sitting in my sleeping bag on the snow, I shoved my face full of cheese, bread and chocolate. As my body digested the soon to be energy, I fell asleep to the quickly moving clouds and barely setting sun: 7:00pm the eyelids shut- an hour and a half before sunset.
Waking up with the sun, we ascended South Sister via the West Ridge. Contemplating the North Ridge climb, we nixed the option to ascend South via Prouty Glacier due to crevasse exposure. We had a rope for placing protection and rappelling but not pulleys, prusiks, or rope minding devices which would be necessary for any crevasse rescue.
At the top of South, clouds rolled in and out of the picture. I was fixated on linking Broken Top volcano into our traverse. Due to weather, timing, and our food rations dwindling we decided against bidding a fourth summit on this adventure. I proceeded to climb Broken Top a day later with two rad ladies I met in the mountains: the best place to meet a friend.