A delightful few days in Central Oregon hiking a few peaks new to us. We also tagged Peak 7459, Peak 6679 and Tumalo Mt. while we were at it over the next couple of days.

We first drove an access road leading to a TH for Broken Top, found a little side road and set up a car camp. We proceeded to hike cross-country up the south slope of Ball Butte, a peak neither of us had tried.

The terrain at this elevation, we started at 7,129′, is very open and easy to hike. Ball Butte tops out at 8,091′.

We made good time and soon were at the base of the peak:

We luckily hit upon a perfect day with clear skies and perfect temperatures for this kind of event. Here’s a nice view of Mt. Batchelor to the south:

Weather beaten white bark pine graced the area:

We reached a slightly sketchy ridge and carried on:

We got to a spot that was challenging to downclimb but managed it by backtracking a bit:

A few more views from the summit: Broken Top on the left and Broken Hand, the tilted mesa on the right.

A close-up of Broken Hand. I climbed this on Aug. 27, 2014. It’s not nearly as difficult as it may look! -Just harder to get to.

The next couple of days we climbed the other peaks and would have stayed longer but didn’t want to car camp again, preferring to clean up and shower. However, the local motels were taking extreme advantage of the high demand for rooms and the few we could find wanted north of $500/day!

All-in-all a great few days climbing and exploring. 12.0 miles total, and 3518 EG