We went back to Central Oregon again this past weekend, for Broken Top. We entered the trailhead in the afternoon and camped at Green Lakes (5 miles, 1200 feet elevation gain). We took off at 5:20 the next morning. The trail to the northwest ridge wasn’t very obvious. We wasted about 1 mile. It was about 10am when we arrived the summit block. It was a 5.2 climb. The climb isn’t too hard, but very exposed. One could easily fall 2500 feet all the way down to the Green Lakes. Setting up anchor and belaying took us way too much time, especially so as Yinan has to share my harness. We got back to the camp at 6:15pm. We broke camp and packed and left at 7:15pm. Then we sprinted our way out. The 5 miles only took us 1 hour and 45 minutes :).

On our way back to Bend, we hit a deer. We saw the deer, but it was too late to brake. We got off to look at the deer but it was gone. I don’t think we killed it, but it must have been injured. By the time we got back to Redmond, it was already 7:30 in the morning. This was a very long day. I haven’t made up the deprivation of sleep yet although it’s already Wednesday.