South Sister Summit hike is one of the most popular hiking trail in central Oregon. It is one of the mountain with summit above 10000 feet and easily accessible for amateur hikers. South Sister is located South West of Bend, just about 30 minutes away. Hiking on South Sister summit trail now requires a $1 permit per person. The permit is on sale 10 days before the hiking date and around 100 is available. There is also a parking fee of $5 at the trail head. There is also a payment station that accepts credit card.
We got to the trail head around 10PM on Friday. The parking lot was half full. We got prepared and got ready to start the hike. When we walked to the trail head, the original trail was closed for restoration. The trail head got moved to the left side of the vaulted toilet. This surprised us and the new trail was a little big longer.
After about an hour of hike, we got past the tree line and started to feel the wind blowing really hard. It almost felt like freezing point temperature and we had to put layers of clothing on us. Along the trail, there was also more snow patches than what we expected. We sometimes had to walk across the snow patch and find ourselves the trail again.
As we got to the glacier, the wind was blowing really hard. We had checked the weather before we left, it was 40mph wind. It was a horrible feeling with the wind and sand blowing towards our faces. Thus we decided to ascend without any rest so that we can hide in the crater at the top. It took us about 1.5 hours to get to the top due to the furious wind that was slowing us down. The wind felt like 50mph at the summit. It was insane.
However, all the effort to get to the top was worth it. There were clouds surrounding the North and Middle Sisters and the cloud was beautiful under the sun rise. We loved it and enjoyed our time at the summit.
We would definitely do this again but maybe decide based on the wind speed. 40mph wind is really not a fun experience.