Moraine Lake and South Sister, Oregon

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
8/27/2018	11.3 miles	7 hours 4 minutes	2,263'	37:37

Map: National Geographic, Bend, Three Sisters
Parking: See book
Directions: Day Hiking Bend and Central Oregon


Today was a good air quality day! We drove to the Moraine Lake area. We decided beforehand that hiking up South Sister was probably more than we could do at our current fitness level. If we had done it, we might have had to take a couple of days off to recover. I am working on getting more fit though! Hopefully this time next year I'll be in a better place.

This hike started out in the woods. It was in the 40's when we started, and was drizzling lightly. So cold! Glen got ahead of me, and later told me he saw 5 elk in the meadow. I completely missed them. However, he missed the view of South Sister in the meadow, as the clouds were starting to lift. Of course later on, we got epic views of South Sister, so he didn't miss out at all. The hike to Moraine Lake was not difficult. We descended down towards Moraine Lake - which we had to ourselves for most of the time. This is a popular hike, so we got lucky. There are 18 campsites that surround the lake. Oh, how I'd love to camp here and wake up to a view of South Sister! We sat down and had a snack, while enjoying the view of South Sister. The lake was very clear - I looked for fish, but didn't see any. There was a duck on the lake, so I assume there must be some. The clouds were clearing. We walked around the lake, but I wanted to do more. We decided to climb up a trail to a campsite (#3) which had a stunning view. Wow! We continued on and decided to start heading towards the South Sister summit to see the view from that trail. Then I wanted to hike all the way up South Sister! But, I knew we didn't have time at that point. We hiked up to around 7,100'. I think the summit is 10,300' so there was a still a lot of elevation to go. We did see some people coming down, and a few still heading up. We turned around when the trail started getting steep. Finishing the loop, the trail went steeply downhill. That part wasn't fun - it was hard on my knees.

This was an awesome, must do hike close to Bend.