Independence Day, 2015

This fourth of July, I decided to do something very different than the past years. Years before, I usually went to watch the city’s fireworks show on a dragon-boat, or ended up spending Independence day overseas where it’s just another day in July. When in a different country, it is sometimes easy to nearly forget this holiday.
For the 4th this year, it was almost equally as easy to forget the special day, unless I recalled the reason we were climbing a volcano in the Oregon Cascades at 5pm on Saturday night. Being enveloped deep in nature, the brilliant colors of wildflowers and cricket chirping in surround sound, it was just another beautiful day away from cell service and civilization.
The weekend started Thursday night as we sped away from Portland, the town we call home, out to the deserts of Bend and the Sisters Wilderness Area. Camping next to a solidified lava pile (there were many of these) next to the road, we woke up to a beautiful day to start hiking in. The group split in two, three starting at Devils Lake Trail head to camp at Moraine Lake campground for Friday night and the second three driving to Green Lakes trail head to hike in 5 miles to Green Lakes campground.
I led the second group. Our plan was a little more ambitious than the first group’s – in fact, I wasn’t fully sure that we were going to be able to achieve our goal, as I had never hiked this many miles and achieved the projected elevation gains in just two days. The plan was to climb Broken Top on a little-advertised trail Friday, then meet the first group at Moraine lake to climb South Sister Saturday evening. It was a lofty goal – a total of 24 miles and about 17k feet of elevation change adding uphill and downhill totals.
But here I am, having completed both peaks within 36 hours, able to walk with slight soreness in my quads, a minor scrape on my wrist, and a ding-ed iphone case.

Broken Top
Luckily, the hike to Green Lakes was relatively mellow, with only 1k feet of elevation gain in ~5 miles. It only took us about two hours on a path well marked by dusty bootprints and a smattering of horse droppings. The trail led us along a beautiful stream that hurried between bends and turns, tumbling over ledges to produce spectacular waterfalls. Trees shaded the way, and a little breeze helped alleviate the heat of the sun. Finally reaching the lakes, my two friends and I found a protected campsite, set up camp and were ready to relax. It was a delight to lay in the hammock, then jump in the lake. Although the water was a bit breath-quenching at first, it didn’t take long before the warmth of the sun and clear lake water became comfortable and refreshing.
Nibbling on some dried food, we geared up to start hiking Broken Top. I laid out the map on the ground and discussed the route. The trail we were going to take wasn’t an official trail on the map, but I had read from previous hikers that there was some trail, and pointed to the general location we would find this. Estimating about a mile and a half to the top, we set off, bushwhacking our way up until we found the elusive trail. On the way down, I made note of where this trail meets the main path for others reading this blog. Here is a series of pictures as you approach where this trail deviates from the main circle around the main Green Lake.
[images to be added]
As we emerged from the timberline, views of the Sisters were breathtaking. Unfortunately we had started hiking up around 3pm which probably meant the sun was at its most intense, nearly cooking us alive. The alpine wind, higher elevations, and oodles of sunscreen were probably the only thing that prevented us from turning into fried human-bacon. We ascended relatively quickly, encountering small remains of snowfields that probably used to cover the whole west side of the mountain.
Despite the extreme conditions, we were in a jovial mood, rejoicing in the snow (snow-angles, check; UV treating melted snow, check; snow-yoga poses, check). Once on top of the ridge, the footing quickly changed from sandy-ashy slog to rocky terrain. I had never seen such a unique mix of rock types. Some literally looked like slabs of cast-iron cut into perfect shapes, others were shiny with porous hand hold-like pockets, and still others like rock from mars. The north side of Broken Top was steep and speckled with snow, some glaciers holding on towards the top. The route, being highly exposed, proved to keep us alert, always making us feel a sense of potential danger of falling to either side of the ridge.
At that point, the views to the north and west were incredible, distracting enough to make it hard to actually focus on the path ahead. Nearing the top, there was one part where we had to make a decision to scramble up a 5.4-5.5 rated part or just be satisfied with not reaching the tippy-top. We asked each other, and all three of us decided we were comfortable with going up. I led the way, and made it without any problem, as did the two behind me. Going around the true peak to the south, we made it to the very top. What awaited us was probably the best view you would ever get of the Three sisters, and the string of cascades all the way to Adams to the north, and Diamond peak to Thielsen in the south.
Completing a couple yoga poses at high altitude, we sat up at the top, inhaling the beauty of Mother Nature for about one hour. Finally stirring ourselves to go down, this part would be the true test of knee strength and endurance. It all started with a misstep which caused the suicidal-looking wrist scrape and landing on my iphone which I somehow managed to spare save for the ding on the front screen protector. It’s a miracle the screen itself was unharmed.
Finally at the bottom, we filtered some water, ate, and crashed for the night, but not before having a nice relaxing massage circle. The quads and hips were especially tight, knees beaten up.

South Sister
The morning greeted us with a relief of cloud cover, as we stumbled zombie-like out of our tents, taking our sweet time to eat, filter more water, pack up, and head out to meet our friends at Moraine Lake. Hiking out around 10:30am, we passed by some brilliant wildflower fields in the backdrop of the edge of a large igneous rock field. Turning right at the junction to Lake Moraine Trail, we passed many more of these rock monuments, finally to arrive by Lake Moraine. Our friends had accumulated two more heads, their group now a size of five.
Let me back up a little – the appearance of one of these new friends had been previously joked about, given the well known habit of this guy to show up at random times and locations. At least he showed up! He even brought grapes and carrots to share (accidentally forgetting his main source of food – wraps – in his fridge.)
After setting up the tent again, I took a sweet nap in my hammock, while the others swam, laid out in the sun, and socialized. At some point it actually started getting a little chilly; a cooler wind came in with more cloud cover. Actually this was sort of a blessing – the plan was to start ascending South Sister at around 3pm, hang out at the glaciated lake part of the way up, then arrive to the top for sunset and eventually the fireworks.
I will not describe the climb in much detail – the trail was pretty straightforward, though steep at times. The temperatures dropped as we went higher, finally to the lake we reached relatively quick. The ridge made its own weather, blowing wind like crazy. Basking in the sun on the rocks by the freezing lake, we had dinner, took some pictures, and contemplated how often we would stop on the rest of the way up given that we still had 4 hours till sunset. I think we ended up taking about 6 or 7 stops, successfully wasting enough time to reach the top 20 minutes before sunset. The colors were so vivid that I am not even going to try to describe it. Even the pictures don’t show the depth.
It seemed like we weren’t the only group to have the same firework-watching idea; the top of the mountain was close to a little village of people, some camping out, some just there for the show. After taking some pictures, we arrived to the true summit, and found a perfect spot out of the wind. Although the wind was no more, the lack of sun dipped temperatures much lower. Some of us were ill-prepared for this freezing situation, so like a group of penguins, we sat around/on top/next to each other waiting for the show to start.
Slowly, some residential pyromaniacs started shooting up fireworks, then the city ones started – first in Madras, then Redmond, and finally Bend too. Even the large show in Bend barely scratched the surface of the atmosphere. It is so different than when you’re up close. Then it seems like the explosions are way up in the sky, maybe even threatening airplanes! What I thought was the most interesting was the fact that you could see all three shows and more, just as if looking out of a plane window.
This was one experience I will not forget – the simplicity of eight people sitting next to each other, completely in the present, huddling in collective warmth, not caring whose lap you might be sitting on – it was somewhat of a survival situation, especially for those who forgot to bring full length pants and hats. It was a time when we had to be creative, MacGyver head covers out of abandoned gaiters, ankle covers out of shirts and bandanas.
One would think we could sit silently, just inhaling the peace of the situation and celebrating Independence Day, but it was but that – which actually made it a bit comical. Every couple of seconds someone would want to shift positions, complaining about a crooked arm, neck or leg. About ten minutes into the Bend fireworks, one of the previous latecomers whined: “so can we go now?” haha way to be impatient! Of course we stayed till the end, wouldn’t that be a bit disrespectful and at least a bit moronic – why climb all the way to the top on July 4th just to skimp on the full fireworks show?
Around 10:30pm, we untangled ourselves from each other and made our way back to the campsite in the dark. Not far into the descent, the moon came up, choking out part of the star light which had been spectacular in the beginning. Even as we descended, the West was still partially lit up from the sunset, Venus and Jupiter shockingly bright against the periwinkle sky.
We made it down in two hours, partially asphyxiated by the dust our feet kicked up in a hurry to reach the warmth and comfort of our sleeping bags. Once reaching the lake, and looking back up to the volcano, its illuminated face via moonlight still took my breath away. My friend and another member of our group took a midnight swim in the cool lake, washing off the layers of dust, finally retiring with the rest of us for the night.

While hiking out the remaining four plus miles to the car in the morning, we clearly didn’t want it to end, taking in one last time the stream, rocks, conifer trees, and each other’s company. Finally back at the parking lot, it was high-fives all around, praising the outhouse and flat pavement. Home, onward!

-Ildikó