Three Sisters PCT walk

We went for a walk-about in the wilderness of Three Sisters in Oregon, on our way to Portland. We planned for a quick four day trip out and around in a loop, connecting back to the PCT for the Northbound part of the loop. A quick hike in the volcanos of the Cascades, was our thought at the beginning.
We hiked out on day one and walked without many issues. We were feeling pretty great and enjoyed the different landscape and marveled at the lava flows. The night before, we discussed an alternate route up and over the pass between Middle and South Sisters, it was neither well worn, nor well plotted on a map (only one man's gps trackings of his own bush-wacking adventure). We played it by ear most of the morning, but by the time that we got to the fork in the road, it was a unanimous vote to go over.
The climb up to the pass was not easy, but not the worst: we planned to get up and over a single ridge to the other side, following only a gps line and some downloaded maps of the area on our smartphone. This route was going to shorten our time out there significantly, but we didn't care about time, we just wanted to hike with glaciers.
This begins the section of unpreparedness... First of all, there were three ridges instead of one, each with it's own challenges. The first ridge revealed the first of two lakes, where we had to climb an ice wall for 100' on a 75°-80° angle, without any crampons or ice ax. It was a scurried game of momentum and seconds of traction for Brian. I kept it safer and chipped out little (and I mean 1" X 3" toeholds) for about every step, keeping my feet turned all the way out to grip the wall. We hugged and together laughed as we cursed that wall at the top, sweat running down my wrist and towards my elbow from white knuckling my hiking poles for 15 minutes of hell. Thinking that we cleared a major obstacle and were on our way down, we walked lighter and faster. Instead, there was a huge crater with the second lake, surrounded by ancient lava flows and huge boulders to climb down and then inevitably up another ice wall (slightly less scary, since there was no real danger of sliding into the water, as with the last one). We cleared the second ridge to find one more ridge looming, luckily the last was far less treacherous and steep. We were by now aware that we were in over our heads slightly... well, not over, but we were without many snow and ice tools that we own and had already sent home, thinking that if we didn't need them in the High Sierras, we wouldn't need them at all: waterproof boots, gaiters to keep snow out of shoes, higher and thicker socks, sunglasses for Brian, maps, etc. The items that we most wished we had were our snowshoes, which were not on the supply list, but would have made life soooo much easier...
Finally we crossed over the three passes and saw the west side of the mountains. What we had missed seeing because of coming in from the Northeast, were the massive snow fields. We got to the PCT finally, after an hour of sliding and slipping and slushing through the snow down to another snow field where the trail should have been. By this point, we had been walking all day in the snow and ice, lava and quicksand in the craters, testing our limits and patience. We tried to follow where the gps said the trail should be, cutting off little bits where we could, to find a tiny campsite on some rocky soil. We built a fire ring and a fire to dry our shoes and insoles, had a good meal, met some other section hikers and went to bed.
The next day, we had 15 more miles to get out and back to our car. We walked through snow, snow and more snow. Slush, slush and... you get the idea... We playfully trudged on: sliding down on our feet, as though skiing, gaining momentum and running like cross country skiing, occasionally wiping out, and constantly staring with wonder at the huge amounts of snow. One of the highlights of the day was hearing Brian realize that he had never seen snow on his birthday in late July, let alone traversing 20' thick snowpack for the second day.
While it was novel, it didn't take long before the soaked shoes and constant difficulties with traversing snow on the side of the mountain began wearing on our nerves on the second day. Blisters were forming, our feet were pruny (for 5 hours two days in a row) before deciding to take a shortcut down to get out of the snow, by losing elevation. We followed a creek down another two hours and then a walk down the road to get to a place to catch a ride to our car: 5 miles away.
The climb and walk-about as a whole was a little hairy in spots and downright scary a few times, but we had a great time. We got to our car in time to drive to Bend, OR and get a hotel for a few days and innertube down their river and relax again.

Pictures below:
they are never posted in the order in which I upload them, unfortunately, so they are not in order. But note Brian's homemade glasses / snow blinders, because after two full days, his eyes were burning... and for three full days post-hike, the whites of his eyes were pink (not bloodshot, the whites were pink!)
Also, the shiny black rock pile is obsidian: a type of lava rock.