South Sister Mt.

Date Hiked: 23 May 2024

Distance: 4.91 miles

Elevation: 3,501ft

Difficulty: Extra Hard

Features: Open meadow, significant and steep rock scrambles, mountain goats, beautiful views of inland mountains.

Description: South Sister was a major bucket list item for me, and the views were spectacular. We hiked through about a foot of snow up to Middle Sister and impromptu decided to summit South Sister also. We took the longer North Sister trail up to the saddle between North and Middle Sister, summited Middle Sister, climbed down the opposite side of Middle Sister, then up South Sister and back the same way. The down climb from Middle to South Sister was the most difficult part. It is a very steep rock scramble; we even found several climbing bolts anchored in the rocks. Be very careful, there are sliding rocks so a misstep or untrustworthy foothold would be bad. But if you aren’t afraid of heights and have confidence the scramble is very doable. I loved it, mildly sketchy rock scrambles are one of my favorite things to hike!!

The climb up South Sister was steep and snowy at times, but the view of inland snow-covered mountains was absolutely breathtaking. We took our time taking in the views of both summits because it was stunning, but the hike could certainly be done in much less time. Lots of penguin sliding down the trail was done on the way back down once back on the North Sister trail! Saw several mountain goats at the summit of South Sister.

A common trail is to do all Three Sisters in a loop. First up the steep North Sister Trail, down the back up to Middle Sister then South Sister, and down the backside of South Sister to a much smaller ridge line. However, we decided not to do that because there was too much snow on North Sister and the backside of South Sister. I have also heard that in the spring there is a lot of bushwacking required.