Highwoods: North and Middle peaks

Giant Spion Kop wind turbines are sprouting, marring the view shed of this rural area

The balanced rock below North Peak is a landmark 

The Pasque flowers were plentiful 

Snowfields below Middle Peak

Blow-down littered the route below North Peak

The Highwood Mountain Range, our Great Falls-area natural treasure, is as green as Ireland right now, with colorful flowers interspersed.  Now is the best time to see this Island Range.
At the suggestion of friend Gordon Whirry, I climbed North and Middle Peaks from the Geyser side on Memorial Day, managing to avoid the holiday crowds which I am sure swarmed the western part of the range in the Thain Creek are.
North Peak, 6,943 feet elevation and Middle Peak, 7,074 feet, are on a north-south ridge that also includes the highest peak in this range, Highwood Baldy, 7,670 feet.
This is an off-trail climb, but the ridge to the top of North Peak is easy to find from a divide between Highwood and Arrow creeks.  There is an ORV and cow path that goes along the ridge and veers to below the saddle between the two peaks.
If you choose to climb North Peak from that saddle, it is quite steep.  We ski it in the winter, and I don't know how we get up it.
There are a ton of dead trees littering the cow track.  I moved above them.  The beetle-killed trees in the Highwoods are blowing down and I can see a massive fire for this range in the future.
The view from the top of North Peak is slightly superior to that of the higher Middle Peak because from North you can see the Sweetgrass Hills.
Otherwise, I counted 10 mountain ranges that were in view:  Big and Little Belts, Highwoods, Snowies, Judiths, Moccasins, Bearspaws, Adels, Sweetgrass Hills, and Rocky Mountain Front.
There were large snow patches that were easy to skirt or walk through.
It is about a 500 foot descent to the saddle from the top of North Peak and another 700 feet up to the top of Middle Peak from there.
The wildflower show, particularly on Middle Peak was quite good, dominated by clusters of lavender Pasque flowers, and yellow biscuit root.  I think the flowers in the Front are more plentiful this year.
I drove up via the Spion Kop road, very well maintained because of its access to the missile silo, off Montana 200, west of Geyser.
Driving this way to the trailhead is 11 miles shorter than going through Geyser.
I found myself shocked and probably a little upset by the proliferation of wind turbines on the hillsides, a sort of visual pollution, and also a sort of industrialization of this very rural area.
After my hike I drove to Stanford and took the road to Square Butte and Geraldine and on to Fort Benton and then home, completing a traverse of the Highwoods.
This is a very scenic drive.