South Sister
We climbed South Sister in the Three Sisters Wilderness with Ethan over the 4th of July. He did great and we're incredibly proud of him. Besides summiting, he skied from 9500 feet till the snow ran out around 6000 feet, half a mile from the parking lot. I doubt any other five year old has accomplished that!
This was his first volcano climb, and involves roughly 5000 feet of elevation gain over 6 miles. The summit is 10,358 feet. We spent two nights on the mountain which accommodated Ethan's pace and gave him plenty of time to hang out and play in camp in the evening. We slept under the small pyramid with no net or floor and didn't have any trouble with bugs.
Shortly after leaving the trailhead we followed the boot pack well off the trail, then spent quite a while re-orienting once we realized we weren't where we should be. A ranger later told us people had been getting lost there all week and calling for rescue on their cell phones. I did my best to mark the correct direction on the trail at the critical juncture on the ski out. Why the rangers hadn't done this is beyond me.
I had initially tried strapping 2 pairs of skis and plastic boots to my pack, but ended up hiking in my boots and carrying Ethan's after about 10 minutes. Ski mountaineering with someone who can't carry their own gear is far more complicated than regular backpacking.
On summit day we were moving by 7am, which is pretty early for us. Everything just takes longer with a kid. Ethan had a total meltdown 30 minutes from camp. We hadn't eaten breakfast and he was just really hungry. After getting food in him he was great the rest of the day. I still feel bad, but we learned an important addition to the keep him fed rule.
We spent an enjoyable night in the desert at Smith Rock before the climb, and a night on the Crooked river afterwards, where Ethan and I both caught a bunch of little trout on my Tenkara rod.
After the desert, we headed back up to the north end of the Sisters and backpacked in to South Matthieu Lake. It's a short easy hike, very scenic, and the lake was surprisingly comfortable for swimming. Ethan got stung on the butt by a bee and we took him in the lake to cool off. The sunset was pretty fantastic, but the bugs were so bad I ended up joining Linette and Ethan in the 2 person tent.
