 | About 2 hours from the trailhead (these 2 hours started off with a log crossing over the Middle Fork, then involved a bit of trail, then some 'schwacking up the creek valley), we broke out into the open. Finally, we got our first views of Little Sister—in the photo to the left, Little Sister is the half-cut-off peak on the right side of the photo. It's still a ways off - about 4000 more feet to go! From where we exited treeline, we traversed the talus field, went up the drainage, and then ascended snowfields to the col just left (east) of Little Sister. |
 | Ascending the talus-filled gully that's on the right in the previous photo. Pretty mellow travel as far as North Cascades go. |
 | Above the talus gully we hit snow. In this photo you can see a pretty straightforward snow ascent towards Little Sister (Little Sister is the summit just left of center). |
 | And up our little army of 7 went. The snow was firm and perfect for quick travel. We left our snowshoes here and strapped on crampons. |
 | It's a really aesthetic approach. |
 | South Twin Sister to the west. Someday I'll climb it. |
 | A cool ridge pinnacle and Lincoln Peak and Mount Baker in the distance. The Twin Sisters Range is just southwest of Mount Baker. |
 | This is Little Sister's north side. We did not ascend this side, but instead we climbed through the col that's to the left/east (shown in the next photo), and wrapped around to the south side and up. |
 | Approaching the col on the east side of Little Sister. |
 | The top bit of snow getting up to the col was a bit steep, but the snow was in great condition for cramponing up it.
When we passed back through the col on the way back, we rappelled through this steep section, which would have been pretty sketchy to downclimb with single axes. We had two 60 m ropes with us since we did not know what the upper part of the climb would be like. Because the conditions were so good, we did not use the ropes on our way to the summit. A single 60m rope would have been fine for the rappel back down from the col. |
 | This photo shows the south side of Little Sister. We traversed across the snow and went up a snow and rock slope/gully. In the photo, Stefan and Eric are heading up this slope/gully. |
 | A photo taken looking up the slope/gully. |
 | Looking down the snowy slopes. |
 | There was a bit of mixed climbing as we neared the summit, but the snow was in good condition and the rock was reasonably solid, so we made quick work of it. |
 | Eric on the summit. Go Seahawks! (The Seahawks were in the SuperBowl the next day.) |
 | After a 30 minute break on the summit, we reversed the route. On the approach, the rest of them had stayed on the south side of the main creek (Green Creek) and had found a bit of a trail on this side. I had taken the north side of the creek and had encountered a fair amount of snowshoe-attracting alder and brush. So we took the south side on the way out. In this photo Lindsay is crossing Green Creek on a log to get to the south side of the creek shortly after we had dove below treeline. |
 | The final obstacle of the day was crossing the Middle Fork in the dark. In the morning, we had all discovered a nice—albeit slippery—log crossing about 1/8 mile upstream. But on the way back, the prospect of the beer in the back of Stefan's trunk (and Coke in the back of my car for me, since I don't drink alcohol) trumped wet boots, so we just walked through the Middle Fork. |
2017 Update: The photo on the right of "Green Creek Wall" was taken on the approach up along Green Creek as we made our way towards Little Sister. As you can see in this photo and in other photos in this trip report, the rock in the Twin Sisters area is dunite, which makes for fun climbing. At the time I took this photo, I did not know that a climbing route existed on this wall, but in August 2017, I climbed Mythic Wall (5.10a, 7p) which ascends the steep section in the middle of the photo to the top of a subsummit of Mythic Peak.
