On Tuesday, July 9, 2024, we summited Middle Sister near Canmore, Alberta.
I thought about climbing Middle Sister for years. I moved to Calgary in 1998 and on my first shopping trip to MEC, I bought a copy of Gillean Daffern’s Kananaskis Trail Guide. It was very exciting to start exploring the mountains with some hiking and backpacking.
I read the trail guide cover-to-cover and when I read the description of the hike to the top of Middle Sister, I couldn’t believe such a huge, steep mountain could be climbed safely without ropes. I hoped I would get up the courage to try it one day.
Many years later and after many drives on the highway between Canmore and Calgary, gazing up at the summit each time, I finally made it to the top. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so emotional on a summit. Maybe it was the jaw-dropping views, the perfect blue-sky weather, sharing the experience with Dan, or the fact that after so much time, I was finally on the top but I admit, I shed a tear or two when we reached the summit.
Maybe I was just relieved that the long slog up the mountain was over. Regardless, it was a memorable experience.
(I prefer recording on FATMAP but I thought my phone would not have enough battery power to both navigate on AllTrails and record on FATMAP. So I chose to only use AllTrails. Turns out, even that was too much for my old phone. I’m getting a new phone with a better battery so in the future, I’ll be back to sharing my recordings from FATMAP.)
Beta:
- This is an out-and-back route, descending the same way as the ascent.
- Parking: At the gate at the end of Three Sisters Parkway.
- Elevation gain: 1,467 meters
- Distance: a bit more than 17.4 km to the top and back
- Difficulty: Steep hiking off-trail over snow, scree, and loose rocks. No route-finding issues if following the AllTrails map.
- Gear: no special gear was needed at this time of year.
Permit Required
A Kananaskis Conservation Pass is required to park at the trailhead.
Helpful Apps
- AllTrails – Middle Sister Trail
- FATMAP
[2025 UPATE: FATMAP was purchased by Strava who shut it down, saying they planned to replace it with a similar mapping function inside their app. So far, I am not aware of any such function. Thanks for nothing, Strava.]
Books
- Scrambles In the Canadian Rockies by Alan Kane
- Kananaskis Country Trail Guide, Volume 3 by Gillean Daffern
Trip Report
I wasn’t sure what to expect on the approach hike up Stewart Creek. I had read about flood damage in 2013. It had been described as a long, tedious slog. I wasn’t sure if we would be crawling over big piles of fallen trees clogging the stream gorge or grovelling up steep hillsides to avoid them. It turned out to be neither. I was pleasantly surprised.
Parking is by a closed gate at the end of Three Sisters Parkway. The hike starts on the road on the other side of the gate.
After a couple of kilometers of easy road walking, a helpful sign with a map points the way.
The road then heads toward the creek and follows the left side, past some pools.
Here, looking back at the pools.
The road/trail is wide and easy, continuing up the creek.
Eventually it crosses a narrow bridge onto a mountain biking trail called Cloudnine.
The route up Middle Sister turns away from the mountain bike trails here. Once again, a helpful sign leaves no doubt about which way to go.
Dan had mentioned the night before that we should ride our bikes for the first few kilometers but we decided in the end to just hike. I didn’t think much about it on the way in but as we hiked out at the end of the day, I sure wished we had the bikes there waiting.
Stewart Creek Section
The route rejoins the creek on the right side.
We soon crossed to the left side.
We picked our way up the creek, sometimes finding a trail, sometimes following cairns.
Occassional piles of deadfall were easy to avoid.
We found the trail at the top of this bank.
Abruptly, there was no more water in the creekbed. The route continues up over dry stones and boulders.
Where the creek diverges into two upper branches, the route takes the right branch beneath Little Sister. The AllTrails route map was helpful here and I was glad I remembered to download it.
After a lot of time spent picking our way up the rocks in the creek bed, we are rewarded with a trail up on the left side. Also, there was once again water in the creek.
The creek was lovely here with little pools and waterfalls. The water, fed by melting snow, was cool and refreshing on such a hot day. We stopped on the way down to dunk our heads and soak our tired feet.
The trail led to a little bit of ugly traversing across a steep, loose slope above the creek.
And once again, a cool reward.
We dropped back down to the creek to hike on the snow. It was soft enough to provide good footing but not so soft that we sunk down. Easy walking here!
We were close to the end of the creek here. In front of us, on the left side of the photo, the valley ends in a headwall. The route up Middle Sister is on the right.
We didn’t want to stop walking on the snow so we left the AllTrails route and followed the snow up to the right onto a slope above the creek bed.
Scree Slope Section
The route then heads up a talus covered slope. This section is, in my opinion, the most frustrating part of the route. It is steep and it’s hard find places to walk where you don’t slide on the loose rocks.
If you persevere up the slope and make your way around and above the light-coloured cliff band, you will find a big cairn marking a nice trail up there. The frustrating grovelling up through the loose rock is done. The trail is pretty solid in most places and it will take you all the way to the summit.
The trail goes across to the long snow patch in the distance. It comes up on the left side of the snow patch and crosses it about halfway up. In the distance, there is a summit which we mistakenly assumed was the top of the mountain. The trail takes you to the top of it but the work is not quite done there.
The trail crosses a little snow patch on the way.
Notice how the slope ahead with the long snow patch looks a lot less steep now that we are closer to it.
Near the top of the false summit, we didn’t realize it wasn’t the actual top until we were quite close. There was a big wind lip of snow on the col between Middle Sister and Big Sister. We had to hike up the wind lip to get onto the summit route. Fortunately, the snow was not too mushy.
On the summit ridge, the walking is easier and the views are spectacular.
It feels so good to finally cross this one off the list. It was a long day but the route was better than I expected. We got lucky with a gorgeous warm blue-sky day and that always makes the hard work seem a little more worth it.
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Reach the peak!
Read about our other summits:
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