August 13, 2005: Linus invited everyone to his family's cabin near Sisters, Oregon, and so six of us (plus one well-behaved and happy dog) went on this hike up to the summit of Black Crater (map), the closest mountain to North Sister. The trail starts at Highway 242 -- just east of the massive Belknap lava flows -- and goes from about 4900' to 7250' in about 3.5 miles.
Black Crater is indeed an extinct volcano, but the crater on the north side of the summit is really a cirque -- a bowl scooped out by a glacier long after the volcanism died down. (The eastern side of the mountain has been gouged out even further and now contains a small lake, but we didn't get to see that part.) At the summit, there's a rough side trail that traverses the rocky lip of the "crater" for a quarter-mile or so -- it's a worthwhile detour.