Climbing the other Sister had been on my mind quite a lot in the weeks since climbing the North Twin Sister. With the return of sweet summer weather Dr.Krumm(Denis), Al(Spectrum), Jackie and myself set off to the land where Darth Vader(Dick Cheney) still continues to make a fool of himself. The border guard on this trip was actually friendly and even wished us luck on our climb.....I took that as a good omen!
The South Twin Sister. Traverse is from right to left.
We arrived at our location only to see big red signs stating the forest was closed to the public due to extreme fire hazard-WTF. Seeing this was not the land of justice-lite we turned around and drove out....as we were driving we saw the water tank dude and asked him about the closure and he said it was no longer in effect. The day was not lost after all. After dropping the good Dr. and Al off at an undisclosed location J and I headed down the road in the truck. We made a speedy one hour cycle (Jackie unluckily stepped on a bunch of wasps when we stopped to pick up our packs-Ouch) to the walking trailhead and cruised up the trail that Krumm and Son had been improving for us. After about 30 mins we caught up to Al and the Dr. and were once again four.
A little schwacking here and there to find the trail found us at a talus field. Even the talus field consisted of mostly bomber rock. A wee bit more route finding and we arrived at the ridge of the South Twin Sister (A one hour hike from the TH). Once we gained the ridge we were met with many of Dr.Krumm's kinfolk. Many of his relatives (The Krummholz clan) were very very old. After a bit of cursing with the relatives we left them behind and found mostly rock of great quality.
The Three on the the approach to the ridge.
Dr.Krumm leaving the relatives behind.
Jackie leaving the Krummholz behind.
There were Ducks all over the place. We followed them as four for some distance and then I decided to climb the ridge crest. The ridge crest was of excellent quality with some great exposure and views. After a while the three joined up with me and we continued mostly along the ridge crest to the summit proper. The South Sister is very different from the North Sister in that the South has many ups and downs while the North is one continuous upwards journey....They may be twins but they are not identical. From ridge start to summit we spent 2.5 horrible hours of climbing very high friction super quality rock. Many summit shots later we began the descent.
Dr.Krumm and Jackie climbing to the ridge crest.
Dr. Krumm on some cool coloured rock.
The Three pulling the moves.
The Dr. and Al on the ridge crest.
Jackie and the Dr. on a very wide section of the ridge crest.
Guess who these guys are? They are one in the same. Classic photo of the Dr. back in the day and then today. I hope I am able bodied enough to bring my daughter up here in twenty years. You totally kick ass Dr.Krumm.
Ultimately we followed the ridge crest almost all the way down. The Three had the chance to climb what they missed on the way up. In the end we had climbed (both up and down) for 4.5 hours on this sweet ridge. Just short of meeting up with the relatives of Dr.Krumm we dropped down a wee bit of choss to the high meadow.
The summit shot.
Al and Krumm climbing up but actually heading back down the ridge.
Jackie with the true summit of the South Twin in the background.
Krumm.
Jackie.
Taking a rest in the shade above the meadow.
A quick watering of bodies and bottles in the creek and the Four headed down to the trailhead. At the TH we met up with one dude from B.C. and another from Ontarerrible who were going to spend a couple days doing both the Sisters. We gave them some beta about the South trail and how great the routes are and we hopped on our bikes for a super fast ride to the truck.
The Four back at the truck.
We made much better time than I had anticipated on our Sister trip. I was thinking it would be at least a 14 hour day because of the gruelling bike ride up and trying to find the trail to the ridge. But after all was said and done we spent about 10 hours out in the wilds including breaks.
I would totally head back to the Sister Range in the future to do more climbing as the rock is just so qual. Thanks for a superb trip Al, Dr.Krumm and Jackie.
Doing the South Twin Sister...Aug.18, 2009
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