"I can't do this!" | "This is crazy!" | "Don't look up" | "Take 10 Steps" | "Take 20 Steps" | "I gotta stop!" | "This fu*%ing sucks!" | "This is awesome!" | "How much longer?" | "OMG, there's more?!" | "Wow, we've gone a long way"
These were all the thoughts going through our heads this weekend as we climbed South Sister Mountain! As the third highest mountain in Oregon, South Sister stands at 10,358 feet in elevation. We started our journey at 5:00 AM from Devil's Lake trail head. Sitting at about 5,400 feet, we were looking at a 12 mile hike round-trip.
From the start we were high with excitement for a view from the top! However, we quickly came to the realization that it wasn't going to be an easy hike. Climbing 5,000 feet in elevation is harder than it may sound! After the first 3 miles, we came to an opening that exposed an awesome glacier pool! A great place to rest and take everything in. It was awesome seeing how far we had gone, and the distance we still had yet to go! Seeing tiny dots in the distance (fellow hikers) told us that we still had a lot of work to do!! Eventually we would be those little dots in the distance for other hikers.
Reaching the "top" we realized that we still had to traverse a glacier to reach the true summit! Walking through snow in August was pretty surreal. Getting to the end of the glacier we had one last steep push to the very top. After climbing through the last bit of exposed rock and boulders we finally got our long awaited reward -- a 360 degree view of Oregon!
