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Three Sisters Wilderness - Green Lakes Area

July 25, 2009 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: wake-up: 40F. Run start: 55F. Run end 80F.

Comments:
Woke up at 0600, mostly because the bottom fell out of the temp from 0400 to 0600, and it was cold as HELL! I got up, made some tea, and had a couple CLIFs and took in the sun basking the eastern slopes of South Sister and Broken top. Awesome.

Got BOOTS out of the sack and we had some more tea, got our gear together, and hit the trail. Casey gave us a ride to the trailhead at Green Lakes and by the time we got there (just about a mile) the sun had cleared the mountains and it was warm enough to ditch a couple layers. And like that, we were off.

We went up "Soda Popinski" Creek Trail, and went round-about to Green Lakes. The first couple miles were gentle uphill but it quickly increased into a steady, unrelenting 5% grade or so for the next 1.5-2 miles, but once we got to the ridgeline, we had incredible views of Bachelor, South and the Sparks Lake basin. A couple more miles -- albeit slow ones -- and we were at the Green Lakes plateau. It was maybe half-past 9 and it was pure sun and warm.

We had a nice water/CLIF stop at Green Lakes, then decided to make a big loop around the lake, which rests between the base of South Sister and Broken top. The trail on the east side was MONEY -- and I remarked to BOOTS that if that caliber trail went around the lake, I'd come up here and run 2-3 laps just for a long run! However, once we got to the far north side of the lake, the trail continued north and we had to blaze west through dirt and pumice in order to "find" a circumferential trail.

We sort of did, but it was more like a goat trail that ran along the base of Sister, with several snow melt/spring streams emptying into the basin. Narrow, poor footing abounded. Finally even that trail evaporated, leaving us to again blaze across a rock field back to the lake, where we found a pseudo-trail that took us back to our starting point. Not awful, but a bummer that there's not a true loop.

From there we'd been running 1:30. We gathered up our gear and headed down Fall Creek trail -- the main artery (and easier) up from the trailhead. We were crusing down that 'til I went around a switchback and tripped, banging both knees and, worst of all, tweaking my back a bit. The R sciatic had been well behaved since Fri, but that rattled it. From there we slowed down.

The descent was still quite nice, but with a couple miles to go I was fatiguing enough to not feel that great. We'd though about doing the long way around -- going farther west and taking the South Sister Climber back -- but that would've added on 3 miles or more, and by the time we reached that junction, we were 1:48 into the run, so we just flew straight down.

The last bit of trail was familiar, as Merkel and I ran some of it last July, 'til snowpack forced us back a couple mlies from the start. This year it was all dry and smooth sailing, with only a handful of groups we passed along the way -- not too many to make it annoying, which was nice.

Took a couple pics over a sweet footbridge over Fall Creek, just near the trailhead, then ran the road back to camp. Total run time of 2:09, which is just over 8:00 if you call it 16, which I will.

Post-run stretching, refuel, then ice + sharing a Black Butte in the creek. After that we made the food we'd bought for last night's dinner and cooked that up in the pure sun and, by then, pretty intense heat of the early afternoon. We ate, then escaped toward Bend with a great trail run, and only a touch of sunburn!

PM: Took in the Central Cascade Cycle race series, which took place in DT Bend last night. Very cool. Even cooler was having a VIP pass from KC that got us free Deschutes taps! GOOD DAY but tiring