Letting Go of Middle Sister

Heidi has her list of volcanoes she wants to summit. It's her thing. I can't really say it's my thing; but I'm thankful it's hers, or we never would have met. (Story here) 

I relate to her desire to have goals - we need them to push us. And getting to put the check mark after an accomplishment is a great feeling. She has supported me in mine, and so I try my best to support her as well. Even though, as I said, I could live without peak bagging.

So I agreed to a trip to summit Middle Sister; BUT if we are driving all the way to Oregon, we have to do some regular hiking too. There are almost endless options in the Three Sisters Wilderness, so it shouldn't be too hard to come up with something, right?

Well, it shouldn't be too hard to pick a flavor at the Baskin-Robbins ice cream counter either, but most the time it is. Therefore, coming up with a plan to see as much as possible within our 6 day time frame was a difficult task.

Our final itinerary will be laid out below, but I'll tell you right here there is one thing we missed...summiting Middle Sister. Is Heidi disappointed? Not really. And honestly, I'm more proud of her for that than any of the goal check marks she's ever made. 

Knowing when the drive to accomplish something is pushing you too hard and making you unwise takes a different kind of strength and courage. Ambition can easily turn into obsession, as the classic tale of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick tries to teach us. Letting go of the need to "win" can be hard, but once you're able, it is also very freeing. (My own lesson here) So whatever your goals in life are, I wish you success...but also the wisdom to realize when they are not serving you well. Happy "sometimes you need to let the whale go" trails! 

TRAIL LOG:

Day 1) It's almost an 8 hour drive for us to get to the town of Sisters, so this was just a travel day. When we summited South Sister in 2023 we flew into Portland, so we were able to do a little hiking on day 1 that time. This time a spot at The Sisters Creekside Campground was in order. It's walking distance into town, so we made the most of it.

"The Barn" is the place to be in town

Day 2) It's a half hour drive to the Tam McArthur trailhead, which is where you start the Broken Top Loop. Thankfully it's not at the Broken Top TH (which it seems like it should be, doesn't it?) because we heard it is not very drive-able. We left poor Reba right there on the side of the road and hoped for the best because there is no parking lot. It's 4.7 miles and about 2K gain to get to Broken Hand, and then you have to decide to go left or right.

Can you see tiny Heidi about to go around Broken Hand?

Left is the standard way...but right looked shorter. Looking down on the snow field from above it looked really easy, but once there I was very uncomfortable with it.

Taking a slide down would not be good

 

Maybe I let my ambition get the best of me, but I followed Heidi across anyway. You keep gaining from here - I'm not sure how much, but we were really over it. Then you see No Name Lake and WOW.

So worth it. Heidi had her heart set on camping here, but WHERE? We passed a couple small spots along the ridge, but there was NO WAY we were walking down to the water and then back up. We half considered being bad and trying to camp within the half mile restriction from the lake, but wisdom prevailed and we kept going down until we found a legal spot. It must have been about 7 miles for the day. 

Day 3) Most people said doing this loop CCW was best, but because we weren't doing the whole loop and avoiding the burn area, we went CW. As we went down, down, down for the day, all I could think of was how miserable it would be to go up - plus we loved seeing No Name Lake from the top and enjoying the views from then on; so I think I'd advise CW even if you are doing the loop.

Anyway, we passed the Green Lakes, then started climbing again for a bit. We decided to go ahead and take the short detour to see Golden Lake, then continued on to camp at Park Meadow. It might have been close to 9 miles total including our detour, and I don't know the elevation number, but it was pretty minimal. 

One of the Green Lakes

 

Day 4) This day started with Heidi's sleeping bag giving itself a bath in the adjacent stream...you'll need to watch my YouTube video to get that story. After that excitement, we made sure to veer off the loop right after leaving camp and took the Green Lakes trail for 5 miles where we would meet Janet at the Pole Creek intersection.

Janet, who lives near Portland, made this whole plan possible because she had Sunday (this day) and Labor Day off. She's crazy enough to want to drive the 3 hours just for one night - plus then drive us back to our car...but we know hiking addicts ignore drive times. Anyway, we were all trying our best to figure out when to be at said trail intersection and hopefully not make the other party wait too long. (Janet had 2 miles to hike on the Pole Creek Trail) Unbelievably, we all arrived at the EXACT same time! Then it was up another 5 miles to stay at Camp Lake, where we were greeted with a naked man doing yoga on the beach. Never a dull moment! 10 miles for the day, with the just over 1k elevation at the end.

Sloth reunion!

Day 5) Thankfully, we had all discussed before bed what the logistics of going for the summit this day was going to look like, and had all agreed it was too big a whale to conquer in our time frame. People have summited from this lake (instead of the more common route you can find on Alltrails) but we learned from our previous trip together just how much our navigational skills are lacking -- it really does add on A LOT of time. Instead we had a leisurely morning, and then did an up and back to Chambers Lakes. 

We were a bit shocked as we looked at the trail leading up there...I know we were all seriously considering backing out...but many people do it WITH FULL PACKS; so we didn't want to be babies.

We gotta go up that?!

Ugh though! Not fun. But the rest of the 2 mile up and back was quite nice, and then it was pack up the stuff and head the 7 miles back to Janet's car. Nine miles total for the day, and then a whole lot of driving to pick up Reba (she was so dirty and not happy - but thankfully still there with no flat!) and then go to Janet's for the night. 

There were several stream crossings

Day 6) Drive the 4 hours home. There is no way I could have driven 8 hours after a full day of hiking - so THANK YOU JANET!!

Here's to not doing Middle Sister!!