North Sister, SE Ridge

The SE ridge approach to the summit block of North Sister offers a more direct line to the top than the standard on the Hayden glacier leading to the SW ridge route. While this is not recognized as a distinct route in the book Oregon High, the climb up until the last few hundred feet is completely different, and therefore it merits its own route description. While more direct, this route is still mostly loose scree in later season. This means the effort needed to reach the south ridge is about the same as the more standard Hayden Glacier Camp. The beautiful base camp for this route is at the head of Soap Creek, directly underneath the imposing east face of North sister. The hike in the base camp is about 4 miles and 1700 feet, compared to 5 miles and about 1500 feet for the standard Hayden Glacier camp. See this trip report on summitpost.com for full details on how to climb North Sister