North and Middle Sister Circumnavigation Trail Run

Date of Run:
September, 24, 2021

Distance:
Approximately 35 miles round trip

Elevation gain:
Approximately 5800 feet

Start/Finish:
Pole Creek Trailhead

Duration:
10 hours, 58 minutes

Logistics:
Central Cascades Wilderness Permit required to be in the area overnight, must fill out self-issue day-use permit, or have reserved permit, depending on the initial trailhead. 

Trip Report:
My Quaranteamers and I had planned to circumnavigate all Three Sisters in the Fall of 2020, then everything caught on fire, so we pushed it to 2021.  We were ready, willing and able in the Fall of 2021, but received some last minute Beta informing us there was 5 miles of blow-down* on what would be 5 of our last 8 miles of the trek in the dark. This sounded appealing to NO ONE, so we settled on a circumnavigation run around North and Middle Sisters instead, and it did NOT disappoint!  



Now, the thing about us is that we have dogs, lots of dogs, sometimes they even outnumber us, so we had to plan our route around them and their well-being, because that’s what we do!  We chose to do the run after September 15th because it would be cooler for all of us, but also because after that time we don’t need to have the dogs on leash in the Sisters area. (We do reel them in when we encounter other people!)  

I’ll take a moment here to say this trail is NOT for all dogs!  Our dogs train with us, so they are acclimated to doing 25-40 mile runs in one go. We would NOT take them if they were not in shape/capable!  There is a lot of sand and lava on this trail and it can be VERY rough on dog feet.  Our dogs’ paws are used to this terrain, and we probably had more doggie first aid with us than human first aid! The same goes for humans! There can be a lot of hot, open sandy areas with no shade, as well as loose lava rock and micro debris that can get into shoes.  Short gaiters are good idea! (unfortunately I forgot mine!) Also, pay attention to the weather, things can get kinda wild on the West side of the Mountains with very little notice! 



We started early in the morning at Pole Creek trailhead, so as to make it through the several miles of burned trail and hot lava fire sand early in the morning, making it more comfortable for all parties involved.  We headed west to the junction with the Green Lakes trail, then north on the Scott Pass trail toward Scott Pass, cutting back south when we hit the PCT after a quick stop at South Matthieu Lake to tank up both dogs and humans.


Morning sunrise lighting up North and Middle Sister


Running through the Pole Creek burn.


Lava fields near Scott Pass

The next part of the trail took us south through a Mars-like Lava filled landscape toward Yapoah Crater.  Having not seen a single other human in the first 12 or so miles, we were quite surprised to see another trail runner just up ahead of us in the meadow past Yapoah Crater, who seemed like he had materialized out of nowhere. As I watched the runner slog up the hills in front of us I started to become pretty convinced that I recognized the runner’s gait, so I pushed a little harder to catch up to him!  Sure enough, it was a VERY good friend of mine, who I hadn’t seen in a couple years (thank you Pandemic….) and who had run several road relay races with me and the very people I was running with that day, many times!  That, of course, was years in the past and long before we all took up long distance trail running! As if no time had passed, we collected our friend and he ran the next 8 or so miles with us, up and over Opie Dilldock Pass, past the Little Brother and most of North Sister, until he had to leave us to catch his trail back to his car. 


Rounding the base of Yapoah Crater, headed south toward North Sister


Meadow south of Yapoah Crater


Descending Opie Dilldock Pass

We then pushed through the Obsidian area, pausing to take in the amazing views and beautiful fall colors, then rounded the bottom of our loop at Reese Lake. We took a quick water and swim break, before leaving the PCT and headed East on a pretty easy to follow trail that took us on our route between Middle and South Sisters. Here we encountered the other-worldly landscape of the Chambers Lakes area. Having personally summited South Sister 25 times in as many years, I had never been into this basin that I had looked down on at the top of every one of those climbs, and it was something to behold!


Nearing the Obsidian area


Breaking for a quick dip.


Snacktime!


Approaching the top of our circle, South Sister in the background


Looking down on the Chambers Lakes area between Middle and South Sister

Also, entering this basin meant we had about 12 miles left to go and we were moving into the late afternoon, so we didn’t have much time to linger! We carried on, up, up, up over steep hills, then dropped down into the basin, up the hills again, down into the basin again. This went on for 2 or 3 rounds until we had the last of Chambers Lakes down the hill behind us and Camp Lake, at the base of Middle Sister, at the bottom of the hill in front of us. Since dogs and humans were still in high spirits, we were not out of snacks, were making good time, had plenty of daylight left and only a few miles to go, we took one last extended swim and water break at Camp Lake. We took the Camp Lake trail to the Green Lakes trail and headed north until we met back up with the Pole Creek trail, which took us back to our cars, and, more important, the surprise batch of homemade cookies that awaited us!  


Basin between Middle and South Sister


Final descent to Camp Lake


Last views of Middle and North Sister

*As of September 2022, the blowdown has been removed from the trail.  Current conditions are that most of the trail is under feet of snow as of May 25, 2023.

Gear: 
Salomon Active Skin 8 running vest, Katadyn BeFree 0.6 L Water Filter bottle, Platypus 3 L bladder, Clothing for the changing Fall Mountain conditions, including gloves, ear warmer, light jacket, brimmed hat, light pants, long sleeve shirt/sunshirt

First Aid:
bandaids, etc., sunscreen, lip balm with sunscreen, sunglasses, emergency blanket

Snacks:
Trail Butter, Cliff Shot Gel and Cliff Shot Blocks, homemade energy bars, dried dates

Dog Supplies:
Doggie water bowl, high protein calorie dense snacks, doggie first aid (Vet wrap, paw protector, clotting agent), poo bags, Ruffwear Quickdraw leashes