The Three Sisters Loop
The perfect backpacking trip for a weekend in Central Oregon, especially if you do it in June and want to walk across miles and miles of snow fields
DAY 1 / 6 MILES: The antsiness has been lingering in my body and mind all day. Eagerness paired with impatience to get out of Sisters, Oregon and get up into the mountains to start this trip. Nothing against Sisters, that’s for sure, because it has actually been one of my favorite places of this whole roadtrip so far with its small walkable downtown, 7 day a week farmers market, and little creek running through the campground where we would take the dogs to cool off. It’s been 100+ degrees most days this week and it’s been hard to sleep, so the mountains are a hopeful reprieve from the heat and also that lack of sleep. That plus I’ve just been so anxious to sleep in a tent again. It has been a while since we’ve left the comforts and convenience of the truck camper and gone overnight into wilderness. Gone gone gone. The truck camper is luxurious and has all of the things but maybe that’s the reason.. it has all of the things. And sometimes all of the things feels like too much and I crave the simplicity of a backpack and my own two feet moving against the gritty earth beneath me.
By the time we manage to get to Pole Creek Trailhead it’s already 7 pm. Luckily it’s June 28th, the height of summer practically, so the sun isn’t about to set anytime soon. Up here in Oregon the sun seems to stay up far longer than it did in southern California during the same time of year, but I know the difference really can’t be more than an hour longer at most, and even this seems substantial for someone like me who likes to spend every available daylight hour outside when I can. I figure we have a good two or more hours of hiking to try to get as far as we can before dark, which turns out to be just the case as we walk, talk and eventually reach a campsite right as the sunset is turning the sky to dusk. It’s in a burn zone from a seemingly recent fire and soon enough everything I have brought along in my pack is covered in black ash and soot— my clothes, body, pack itself… dogs. Remi is supposed to sleep in the tent tonight and her fur is so dark it looks like she’s wearing a grey sweatsuit, except this sweatsuit rubs off on me and everything I own. We let her in anyway while Wilson makes himself comfortable in a corner of dirt and ash outside the tent, and we all drift off to sleep.
DAY 2 / 23.6 MILES
Snow. So much snow…is the long-story-short.
I wake up ready to do some mile-crushing and see some beautiful landscapes. I partially know where we will be walking for most of this day because I have already hiked these miles in the opposite direction, north bound, in 2022 on the Pacific Crest Trail. I know we’re going to hit the Obsidian Trail and some gorgeous wildflower meadows, and I tell this to Sam. Almost immediately after we join up with the PCT and begin hiking south we are confronted by a giant obstacle— a massive snow wall about our height and a half that rises straight up from the dirt footpath we had previously been walking on. From here on out, snow covers mostly every inch of the trail and instead of smooth sailing alongside wildflower meadows, we are walking on a blanketed winter wonderland.
I had downloaded the route on All Trails* prior to heading out Friday evening.
*Here’s that link if you want it: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/oregon/three-sisters-wilderness-area-trails
and Sam and I both had our phones on us, but my battery pack didn’t charge up nearly enough before we left. I usually like to have it fully charged so I don’t have to worry at all about using my phone to take photos, write notes, or navigate. Having a full, extra battery gives me peace of mind when everything else seems to be left up to chance (I’ve lost my phone over waterfalls, into rivers, down toilets, etc so when I do have a phone I want to make sure it isn’t a useless dead brick in my pocket) My extra battery was at maybe 11%, which is enough for like a 20% phone charge. Hm. This was bad because once we realized the route was covered in snow we needed to have that map out pretty much constantly in order to ensure we were on the right path; aka phone open constantly. Having two phones between us was going to be helpful for preserving phone battery, but could at least one phone make it the rest of today and all day tomorrow, while being used constantly, without running out of juice? Would they both die sometime tomorrow before we got back to the trailhead and would we be wandering around aimlessly in the snow-covered forest trying to find our way back through unfamiliar terrain without a map? Would I try to navigate by astronomical markers in the night if it came down to it? Probably not.
Like they say on the long trails, The Trail Provides. At some point in the afternoon we started following a set of footprints in the snow, cautiously at first because I’ve learned over the years not to trust your average ghost footprints. Often times they will have you more confused than you were before, leading you in circles or off a side trail or somewhere you weren’t intending to go. Following these prints and referencing the map every few hundred feet, I started to believe in this ghost and its footprints because it knew where it was going. The footprints always followed the red line on my map almost exactly, leading us to believe the ghost was probably using the same map with the same destination in mind.
Hours and hours of this go by, following the ghost, admiring the scenery, and trying to rely on our phone navigation less and less. We hike past ice-blue Gatorade colored snow melt and unburried chunks of obsidian. I feel unbelievably foolish for how greatly I underestimated the amount of snow that would be on this trail, yet at the same time I am so appreciative of the stunning world around me and the privilege I have been given to be able to traverse across this landscape on my own two feet. It feels better than a traditional summer experience on the loop— it feels more rewarding this way.
We walk across what would’ve been a meadow of grassland and wildflowers but instead now is a barren snowfield. It’s getting later in the afternoon and we will soon have to start looking for a dry, snow-free place to camp. Almost appearing out of the blue, we see a hiker. The ghost! Right before our eyes! This is whose tracks we had been following all day to avoid draining our phone batteries. Our navigation saving grace. And to add to this luck, we walk and talk for a bit and he offers up his extra battery to help with our lack-of-charge situation. We charge one of our phones and agree to meet him a couple miles ahead where he is planing to camp. We are temped to camp here too but knowing stopping early today would leave even more miles tomorrow we return his battery, thank him, and carry on across the snow. Before this encounter with our footprint ghost, we had only seen one other soul on our route all day. It had been an early season PCT hiker, who, when we asked if he needed any snacks or anything, replied “I’m ok, trying to pull a 40 today to reach the buffet…”. Such typical thru hiker fashion; huge mile days and unwavering food motivation.
The amount of physical effort it takes to move through the snow all day leaves me exhausted by the end of 23 miles and at the first sight of dry-dirt-patch-able-to-work-as-campsite, we rest.
DAY 3 / 17 MILES
This morning I woke up expecting the snow., anticipating it. I knew it was there and our only choice was to walk through it so the element of surprise this morning was much less than yesterday morning. It was beautiful. Everything about the pilgrimage of passing by each Sister, one by one, appreciating their towering beauty from down below was incredible. Yesterday, North and Middle Sister; today, South Sister. If it was any later in the season and the snow was..less.. I would’ve added a South Sister summit attempt to the weekend itinerary, but it just wasn’t in the cards this trip. With the technicality of steep snow travel on the mountain plus the remaining miles we still had to walk by the end of the day, it wasn’t doable. Next time, I’m hopeful.
As the day went on the snow got less and less and soon we were walking on mostly dry ground again. The extra battery life we were given by our ghost-turned-hiker friend turned out to be just enough to ensure we had navigation the whole way back to the trailhead, ending on 4% by the time we reached where we had parked. A little close for comfort, but with the last few miles of trail snow free we would have made it just fine without our maps, we just didn’t know the trail conditions. Snow adds such a challenge to navigation that, when the trail is visible and easy to follow, is otherwise mindless and meditative.
For a more typical experience, I’d recommend a trip on the Three Sisters Loop about a month later (late July) during a normal-heavy snow year. There will probably be much less snow and the trail will be easy to follow.
For something a bit more exciting, SEND IT as early as you want ;)
AND MOSQUITOS! You can't forget the mosquitos. Not on the snow but on the dry places - mozzie heaven