South Sister

13 miles of hiking • 5500' elevation gain •

Drove out Friday after work and hit the trail at 11pm, aiming to catch the sunrise from the summit. Sadly, because of delays due to one member of the group not feeling well and another member opting to stop and take a bivy nap along the way, three of the four of us were at Lewis Tarn when the sun came up. I reached the summit at 7am and Joe about 20 minutes later. We spent about an hour on top and then headed down, whereupon we ran into Greg at the top of the last scree field - he'd been feeling ill and was lagging, unsure he'd summit. We turned around and walked him up to the top and spent another hour up there, then headed down to find Kam who'd stopped to nap on the plateau in the middle of the night while we went ahead. We ran into her above Lewis Tarn and continued down while she went up. Much glissading shenanigans commenced, followed by me getting separated from Joe and Greg after taking an alternate descent; then lots of running around in slush snow trying to find them, baking in the sun on the Moraine plateau, reconnecting and finally returning to the car around 3pm, sixteen hours after we'd left. Kam showed up after another couple of hours, and we somehow managed to drive home despite everyone being mostly without sleep for 36 hours.

Weather was incredibly balmy - we climbed all night in lightweight clothes, no hats, under a warm breeze, and no headlamps needed because the moon was so bright. Crampons were useful for better snow purchase; axe and snowshoes were dead weight. (We stashed the snowshoes behind a tree at the bottom of the plateau after it was obvious they were unnecessary.)

Amazing to be the first people on the summit at 7am; less amazing to encounter the hordes who came out during the day. Extremely hot, decently sunburned (despite sunscreen that apparently didn't work), and slush snow sucks.