Three Sisters - North Peak

Kumo - sticking his tongue out - on top of North Sister

I drove up Sheep Creek FSR with aspirations of hiking to the top of Yellowstone Peak. TRIM maps show an old mining road going to 1550 metres on the northeast side of Yellowstone Peak. That leaves only about 400 metres of bushwhacking to the top. However, to get to this mining road you have to drive about 1.5 km up Curtis Creek FSR. Alas, the Curtis Creek bridge is no more – pulled by forestry as I discovered today, and not all that recently by the look of things. Sheep Creek is a big river, and pretty much in flood at this time of year, so crossing it was not an option. Luckily, I had a plan B - to hike to the top of the northern most of the Three Sisters Peaks that straddle the divide between Sheep Creek and Next Creek. An old miners trail, in reasonable repair, follows Panther Creek east to Panther Lake and continues to the ridge on the north side of the southern most, and highest of the Three Sisters Peaks. Kumo and I followed this until we were just below a blunt ridge between two drainages, and then we bushwhacked up slippery, wet bear grass to gain the saddle at the east end of the middle peak. From there, it was pretty easy to traverse north, mostly on snow, to the col between the northern and middle peaks. The final 250 metres to the top was a bit of a grunt as the ridge is relatively steep, but soon enough we were on top. The KMC has a summit register tucked into the summit cairn, but mine was only the second entry.