3 Sisters – Day 1

Cappuccino and Scatman arrived on Friday afternoon followed by Jolly Rancher on Saturday. Last night (Saturday) we had a feast of salmon, fruit salad, rizzoto and good conversation around the dining room table along with The Professor. This morning everyone, but The Professor, headed out a little before 7 for a five day backpacking trip in the Three Sisters Wilderness.

Driving up to the Crossing Way Trailhead we wound through 84 miles of forest roads, all but the last 3 miles were paved. We were on the trail at 9:30 AM.

The four of us moved up through mixed old growth and 80 year old second growth forest. The temp was 77F. At about 1.5 miles in, I realized that I had not displayed my parks pass in the window of the car when we left the trailhead. So I walked back to the car while Scatman, Cappuccino, and JR waited. I got back to them after an hour and found Scat and JR talking to a Ranger. I showed him our permit which is all he needed to see and then we parted ways.

We continued on toward our goal of Mink Lake. We stopped at 12:30 for lunch having done about 3 of the 8.5 miles we planned to hike. We started to find our stride as the day wore on. As the temperature rose into the mid 80’s we were doing a little over two miles an hour.

We arrived at Mink Lake about 4:30. We checked out several campsites around the lake finally arriving at the campsite Sara and I stayed at last year. Unfortunately it was occupied, but we were able to set up camp nearby.

Dinner was had while sitting on a nearby log and and afterwards folks cleaned up in the lake.

It was a long, hard, and hot day, but we all made it through in pretty good shape.

Until tomorrow, safe travels and happy trails…