What you can see on the Three Sisters cam
The Three Sisters from the south, across the pine forest and pumice of the high Cascades, with the peaks almost one behind another. In summer they are streaked with snow above dark rock; from November everything in view is white.
Looking north from the top of the Outback lift
From the top of the Outback lift at the Mount Bachelor ski area, the camera looks north over pine forest to the Three Sisters. South Sister, the highest and youngest of the three, fills the middle of the horizon with its broad cone, and a lift tower and chairs stand on the left of the frame. In winter the slope in front is under snow and in use as a ski run.
It is the best view of the range from the south. Early morning gives the sharpest light on the peaks, before the haze builds.
Three ages of volcano in one view
The difference in shape is a difference in age. North Sister is the oldest, around 400,000 years, and glaciers have cut it back to a skeleton of its old plumbing — climbers call the summit block the Black Bear. South Sister is the youngest, with a crater that still holds a small lake, and its last eruptions were about two thousand years ago. Since 1997 satellites have measured a slow bulge in the ground a few kilometres west of it, a few centimetres a year, which is read as magma collecting at depth. It has not led to anything, and it is why the area is watched closely.
When to watch the Three Sisters
Oregon is on Pacific time, seven hours behind UTC in summer and eight in winter. July to September is the clear season; the rest of the year the camera is often in cloud, though winter mornings after a storm can be spectacular. The view faces north-west, so the light is best late in the day.
Around the Three Sisters
Bend is forty minutes east and is the base for the whole area. The Three Sisters Wilderness covers the peaks themselves, with the Green Lakes and Obsidian trails among the best known, and the Cascade Lakes Highway runs along their eastern foot.
Visiting the Three Sisters
South Sister is a walk-up in late summer, long and steep but needing no technical gear, from the Devils Lake trailhead. Middle and North Sister are proper climbs on loose rock and ice. Permits are needed for the wilderness trails in the summer season.
