Monday, August 25, 2008

Finding Other Summits


I didn't get to climb the South Sister.  Trolling Google Images, I found this lovely photo of the   South Sister and Moraine Lake.  Getting the kids to Moraine Lake while some adults in our party continued on to summit the mountain had been the ultimate goal of Summit Summer.  The deal breaker was the thunder, the rain, heavy clouds and cold.  The week in the mountains began with a thunderstorm that moved through the area leaving 3 days of cold and rain in its wake.  We weren't exactly toughing it out, though.  My parents purchased a share in a vacation 'cabin' in 1976 in a Central Oregon resort and we have been visiting there ever since.  We checked the forecast online before we headed east and threw in jackets.  Frankly, after the VERY hot wedding events that preceded our trip, the mountain cold was a welcome reprieve. 

Summit Summer began in the spring when El Professor and I were looking ahead to the first June in several years where we didn't have to wrap up the crazy end-of-the-school-year by furthering the frenzy with a 'travel requiring' June family reunion or vacation/gathering.  Knowing that we would be heading to Central Oregon in August, I suggested that we take up a hiking/walking routine and summit Black Butte.  Last June we gathered with extended family in Central Oregon to celebrate my parent's 50th and El Professor and I were too out of shape to join in this very hike.  It's only a 4 miler, but the first two miles are UPHILL to the fire watch tower and to a panoramic view of the area.  I ran up much of it when I was in high school.  From the top the view is amazing.  My hilarious twin seconded the Summit Summer idea with a further challenge--that we throw in the South Sister summit as well.  She scrambled to the top of the peak last summer and texted me from the top.  I was hooked on the idea. This third highest peak in Oregon is one that doesn't require anything more than a decent pair of shoes, water, Power bars, good weather, and stamina.  Maybe next summer.  

Our week in the mountains began with a wonderful accomplishment, though.  El Professor and I took our two kids and one of my nieces to the top of Black Butte.  We hiked right up there. No sore muscles, no 'I'm dying' panting.  We broke a good sweat but it was not problem...a big change from last summer.  Our original goal was met.  (Unfortunately, my photos are on my niece's computer faraway--I'm going to mail her my thumb drive as she's not quite sure how to upload the photos to Costco.  :-))  From Black Butte we surveyed the South Sister--shrouded in an ominous looking cloud bank along with the North Sister, Broken Top, Mount Washington, Three Fingered Jack, Mount Jefferson.  I was disappointed that the kids couldn't see the mountains that I informed them of, pointing to each cloud bank and naming the mountain hidden there.  We did see the expanse of Central Oregon all around us, however, including the 'smokes' of the wildfires sparked by the recent lightning.  
The Cupola on top of Black Butte with Three Fingered Jack in the distance. 

Black Butte--a perfect cone shaped 'cinder cone'.  

The Big Day of our South Sister hike dawned chilly and rainy.  By now we had contented ourselves with a different hike beginning closer by, on the McKenzie Pass which had just opened the week before after remaining closed all summer as the heavy winter snows receded.  A cousin and her family were added to the ever growing hike group which now included both of my sisters, one nephew, three nieces and two brother-in-laws.  We wound up the mountain road to the pass to find the temperature to be 40 with heavy misty, moisty rain.  We opted for Plan B and headed 70 miles east to Newberry Crater where we were able to take the kids on the Obsidian Trail.  After years of arrowhead hunting in El Professor's childhood home I have wanted our kids to see one possible source of the obsidian for those arrowheads.  Newberry Crater is a shield volcano, sloping up out of the Eastern Oregon plateau differently than the rugged, heaved up composite volcanoes of the Cascade Range.  A few years ago we went on an expedition/tour that mountain bikes down the sloping Newberry Mountain stopping regularly to plunge into Paulina Creek on natural rock water slides.  On this cold, cloudy day, though, we walked the Obsidian Trail,  a short 'hike' where you enter a moonscape of pumice and rocks ribboned with obsidian. 
Ariel view of Newberry Mountain. 




By the time we returned to the 'cabin' in the late afternoon, the weather had cleared and the mountains stood clear and awesome.   I've seen them hundreds of times in their formation dividing Oregon into 'the wet side' and 'the dry side', and still their beauty takes my breath away.  I felt a sick disappointment about what could have been as I viewed the now clear South Sister, knowing that the right time and the right weather didn't coincide for us this time around.   Then, we hatched a plan.  'Hike' was now becoming a dreaded word for the kids, who were ready to spend a sunny day hanging out at the resort pool, riding bikes, etc.  A 'walk in the woods', early the next morning was pitched, now that the weather would be favorable, and then we would spend the rest of the day swimming at the resort.   We would take my nephew since my hilarious twin needed to attend a wedding that day.  It would be fun.  

The day of 'the walk in the woods' dawned chilly and clear.  Lovely.  We packed water, Power bars and all of the 'hike food', band aids, moleskin, etc. I had carefully stockpiled for the now defunct South Sister hike.  We gathered up my nephew and my almost-16-year-old niece decided to join us as well.  Ten had to hide in the back end of the car as our tiny 'Matrix' is only a 'five bun' car.  We drove back up the McKenzie Pass to find the misty, moisty rain had given way to clear skies and warming temperatures.  We set off on 'our walk'.  It was a 6 miler and was listed as 'easy' in the hike book. We'd be out by lunch.   A walk in the woods, we thought.  We were on a lake loop which was supposed to bring us to an awesome viewpoint where we would see the mountains now free from their inclimate shrouds.  

It was on this 'walk in the woods' that magic began to happen.   It came in the form of four cousins giggling and bonding in the deep, shady woods, gradually and then outright hiking up a forested ridge to an amazing wonderland of lava and alpine lakes. By the second lake we had gone 4.5 miles (my niece had a pedometer) and had not encountered the fabled viewpoint.  Clearly, this was going to be more than a six miler and it was past lunch time--the magic began wearing thin.  At the urging of some other hikers we decided to take a short, arduous side trail up Scott's Ridge where the view was supposed to be amazing.  After a scramble up the magic returned.  For El Professor and myself, it was the view.  So amazing.  So rewarding.  To some degree it satiated my disappointment about the South Sister hike.  We were on the shoulder of the Cascades with the North Sister to our left and Mount Washington, Three Fingered Jack and Mount Jefferson extending out on our right.  For the kids, it was the snow field.  They played and tumbled while I marveled at the great form of the North Sister just behind their alpine playground.   Wet and invigorated, we started back down the ridge, stopping to yell into the lava flow and listen to our echo. We named the spot 'Echo Ridge' and continued on our loop.  We found the fabled viewpoint, confirming our suspicion that we had been hiking the loop backward from the directions in the hike book.  We hiked along a high ridge drinking in the mountain view before descending back into the woods.  It was downhill most of the way and the cousins chatted, ran, walked and commented on what a great hike it had been.  My niece's pedometer measured our journey to be over 8.5 miles.  We made it out in time for a short swim and dinner. 
South Mattieu Lake with Scott's Ridge and The North Sister in the background.  
 









Postscript--remember Selma?  At the beginning of Summit Summer I mentioned my easily annoyed knee (which is doing better) and 'Selma', the name I gave to an almond sized cyst that literally appeared overnight on top of my left foot.  I had decided to live peaceably, if possible, with Selma as getting a cyst carved off my foot seemed like a Summit Summer squasher.  I purchased hiking/walking shoes with a wide toebox, good for avoiding downhill toe smashing and Selma contact.  My retired-surgeon-dad determined that Selma was probably a ganglion cyst and I decided to consider having her removed if she was still around in the fall.  Well, during the rehearsal for my niece's outdoor wedding I was sent through the maze of gardens at the event center to look for the wedding coordinator who was lost in some other venue.  I hoofed it in my black wedge, 'Selma friendly' shoes to look for her.  Upon my return (with the wedding coordinator) to the rehearsal I felt a familiar knawing of 'Selma pain'.  I kicked off my shoe to rub Selma a bit, but she was gone.  Just like that.  The cyst had burst and my foot had instantly returned to a lump free state, the pain was fleeting.  I mentioned it to my retired-surgeon-dad who was sitting nearby.  He nonchalantly mentioned that they do that.  He also quipped that one old method of treatment for a ganglion cyst is to 'whack it with the family bible'.  

4 comments:

Cherie said...

Some of our favorite places! So glad you got to do that hiking and spending time with your family! Yay!

Glad, too, that Selma took a hike!

Whacking it with family Bible works! My dad has done that a time or two, though I think he used a dictionary.

Beautiful photos!

deanna said...

Yay for Selma's demise and for you making the best of the end to Summit Summer! We had a similar experience a couple years ago with not doing South Sister, and I think we've been on that last hike, or one nearby. Maybe next year for each of us doing the big hike. We'll get Cherie to come, too. ;o)

thebookbaglady said...

A group hike would be so, so great!! El Professor and I are already sold on the idea and we have a few other recruits as well. One of them is a physical therapist who has already instructed me in some quad working lunges. After the hike down Eagle Peak I literally could BARELY walk for three days!!

travelin' nan said...

Gretchen,
Way to get out there in nature!
My recent adventures made me think of the difference between how I viewed camping etc., as a kid and now...Now, I see the beauty of the landscape and surroundings. When I was a kid, I was having so much fun just being, and moving that I didn't see the glory of God's creation.