It’s been a long while since I climbed the South Sister (way back in 2012).

Originally, I grabbed a permit to climb with my father. Unfortunately, he was not able to make it. This was probably for the best, as the conditions were less than optimal, but I didn’t know that when I started.

This was an impromptu climb, so I didn’t have any equipment and needed to be back to checkout of our room the next morning. Picked up some warm clothing and microspikes from REI and headed out to the trailhead in the middle of the night.

Starting about 1am, the first mile of the trail was fairly clear. Things significantly slowed down when I hit large sections of sloppy wet snow. In the dark, it also made route finding more difficult that expected. The snow did firm up once I hit the plateau. Lake moraine was completely hidden by deep snow.

In the dark, I did take one wrong turn and ended up going up and over Lewis Glacier Peak (9017′).

Most of the final accent was back on rock – or rather loose, annoying scree. It was quite a bit more slippery than I remembered.

Reached the summit just in time to watch the sun rise.