Soul Sister

I have been quite the busy boy lately. . .try to keep up as dates and adventures are not in exact order. I did something my mother would be jealous of. . .no, i did not have sex with George Clooney, i, now get this, went to see Phantom of the Opera and. . .i loved it. Yes, that's right, i loved Phantom of the Opera. It was showing at the Keller Auditorium and a co-worker asked me to join her. We had stellar seats, just 6 rows back from stage left. My only disappointment was when we looked down into the orchestra pit and found what appeared to be a shortage of musicians. I think one of the dudes had a Casio SK-8 keyboard, you know. . .the one that allowed you to record your own voice/noises and play it back in a variety of pitches. Regardless of the anorexic orchestra the play was fantastic.

Now back to the macho side of life. This past week i found myself at Black Butte Ranch for work. I was there to partake in what senior management calls the sales strategy meeting. Basically, we looked at lots of numbers and then brainstormed on ways to make the numbers bigger. Three-quarters of the meeting consisted of discussions on our group line of business, of which i have no idea about. So. . i payed attention a quarter of the time. Our first night there we participated in a murder mystery dinner at a rather bland restaurant in Redmond. We each had a role to play and mine just happened to be that of Dr. Rusty Blade; a plastic surgeon who botched a job on the local mayor's wife and was forced to treat gangsters and horses. I wasn't overly excited about acting and eating at the same time but after a few pints i was having flashbacks from my drama club days. Before the "acting" even started i was offering my services to one of the actresses. With stethoscope in hand, i continued to offer advice (jovially of course) and told her that i even had my sharpie with me. Hey. . .don't act like you've never seen Dr. 90210. I was pretty well warmed up and in full form when my "lines" were called. I said my provided lines and threw in a couple extras for good measure. My improv seemed to throw off my fellow thespians until they realized it was just going to happen, regardless of how many times they told me to stick to the lines. In the end it turned out that Dr. Rusty Blade was guilty of murdering the godfather's daughter (the same young lady i was offering my services to), a verdict i was quite pleased with. My colleagues enjoyed the dinner and i think my performance may have me invited to more dinner plays in the future. It was back to business the next two days. We finished up our hard work mid day on Friday. While everyone else headed back to the big city, i stayed in the area for the weekend.

A view from Black Butte Ranch's lodge before breakfast. From left to right, South Sister, Middle Sister and North Sister. The darker hump far right isn't much more than a hill it's just a lot closer.

The view after a night at the pub. The pointy mountain to the right is known as Three Fingered Jack.

Bend is by far one of my more favorite cities in Oregon. I spent most of Friday afternoon in Drake Park watching the river floaters stroll in from a day long, drunken (in most cases) float on the Dechuttes River. As the sun went down i spritzed on some Burt's Bee's spray and headed into downtown Bend. I wasn't really fit for the more glamorous places Bend has to offer so i strutted into a sausage filled dive bar. I fired up a conversation with a dude named Rick, who reminded me of my uncle Larry. We chatted, shared a few laughs and when he managed to scare off all 4 of the good looking women in the bar. . .i knew it was time for us to part ways. See. . .the problem with Bend, if one were to say Bend has a problem, is the 6 to 1 guy to girl ratio. The odds of being invited back to a residence to sleep were slim (aside from Rick's invite to stay on his sofa) so i head to the truck and started looking for a place to park for the night. Bend is pretty shiny so i decided to travel toward Saturday's destination, the Cascade Lakes Recreation Area. I pulled off onto a fire road and travelled into the vast wilderness of Central Oregon. Apparently, the wilderness was far more vast than i had expected because i spent the next 2 hours getting lost on fire roads and struggled to find my way back to a spot closer to the highway.

I woke the next morning to a couple of gunshots (not intended from me. . .at least not that i could tell) around 6.30am. I jumped behind the wheel and headed out to summit South Sister, standing at 10,363 feet. South Sister is part of the Cascade Mountain range. She is one of three sisters, South, Middle, and North. South Sister is only 3rd in elevation (by Oregon standards) behind Mt Jefferson and Mt Hood. The hike doesn't require much in the way of technical mountaineering skills but it is long and strenuous. The former fills the trail with anyone and everyone with an ounce of ambition the later leaves most of them huffing a puffing along the last push for the summit. The hike was absolutely majestic! It started with a moderate grade through an old fir forest. After a short but steep climb you pop out on an alpine plain that affords the hiker with rolling hills and views of Broken Top, Mt Bachelor, and South Sister. My guide book suggested that hikers skip a trip to the summit and turn around at Morraine Lake. I opted to tell the author to f' himself and went past the lake and push for the summit. I'll let my captions and pictures tell the rest of the story. . .

The token trail head sign.

My first view of South Sister as i popped out of the wooded start of the hike.

The view of Broken Top from the ridge above Morraine Lake.

A weather beaten tree along the alpine plain portion of the hike.

Another view of Broken Top (there are several).

Broken Top (again)

Another view of South Sister along the plain.

This view appeared on the way up. The gray rocky stuff is actually an old lava flow. It's hard to see but the rubble just left of the bottom center is an old cinder cone.

More of the trail as it heads upward.

A friendly chipmunk that showed up as i reached the false summit. Yes. . .there are such things as a false summit. You think you only have a few more steps and once you hit the top you see you've only gotten to the hardest part.

The view from said false summit. Mt Bachelor is to the left, Morraine Lake to the left-center and several other lakes along the horizon.

The view up toward the top from the false summit. I would venture a guess and say that the water in this little lake is pretty cold.

Those two dots just right of the center are people crossing the glacier. A little perspective.

A view looking back from the trail to the summit. Broken Top to the left, Mt. Bachelor to the right.

Another view of Broken Top on the last push to the summit. Check out that slope, it left a lot of more ambitious than fit hikers sucking wind along the side of the trail. Parts of this section were so riddled with downed hikers that it was hard to get around them.

This is the view looking back down to the false summit. It was all gravel and scree. Center you can see the trail heading up to the summit. Top left you can see Mt Bachelor with Green Lakes at it's feet. To the right you can get a good view of the cinder cone and old lava flow.

This is the view from along the summit's crater rim. Mt. Bachelor to left of center and Morraine Lake just right of center.

Another shot along the crater rim. There is a glacier that makes the crater home. Those little lumps you can see on the far side of the rim are people.

A look across the crater's glacier to the true summit of South Sisters, all 10,363 feet of it. The wall to the right of the pool is probably 100-200 feet tall.

The view from the summit looking north. The closest mountain is Middle Sister, next is North Sister. The picture doesn't really show but next visible is Mt. Jefferson and the day was beautiful enough to even get Mt. Hood in the view.

Another northward view from the summit. Same mountains visible.

Same picture but this time you can see Mt Jefferson just to the left of North Sister peak and if you look real close the white dot to the right of North Sister is Mt. Hood.

A final look back toward Broken Top as i headed back down into the wooded and final portion of the trail.

I think that's it for now. No upcoming adventures. I hope you enjoyed it. It's time for me to crack down at work and save up some time off for another trip.