Type: Snow, Alpine, 1000 ft (303 m), Grade III
FA: unknown
Page Views: 3,387 total · 30/month
Shared By: Sam Bedell on Nov 26, 2014
Admins: Micah Klesick, Nate Ball

You & This Route


19 Opinions
Your To-Do List: Add To-Do ·
Your Star Rating:
Rating Rating Rating Rating Rating      Clear Rating
Your Difficulty Rating:
-none- Change
Your Ticks:Add New Tick
-none-
Use onX Backcountry to explore the terrain in 3D, view recent satellite imagery, and more. Now available in onX Backcountry Mobile apps! For more information see this post.

Description Suggest change

This is the standard route up North Sister. You start from the saddle between Middle and North at about 9,000 ft and follow the ridge. In summer this ridge is really unpleasant and potentially dangerous class 2-3. There are a couple gendarmes on the ridge that provide route finding difficulties. Once at the summit pinnacle you traverse left (ideally on steep snow) for a couple hundred feet to the "bowling alley," a 4th class gully that leads to the true summit.

In winter/spring conditions this route is a fun alpine climb with steep snow and rime that can easily be simul-soloed in a day from Pole Creek TH. Approaching this way can also give you the opportunity to go directly to the ridge crest up one of the SE facing gullies, adding more steep snow and making for a shorter, more direct climb by cutting the corner and avoiding the lower half of the ridge.

Protection Suggest change

perhaps pickets in winter, otherwise none

Photos

loading