Indian Ridge Lookout - October 3 - 5, 2019

Staying in a lookout tower is one of the finest experiences you can have in the mountains. To wake up in a small cabin on a mountaintop, with the mountains spread out before you…there’s nothing finer. Of course, many folks feel this way, and reserving a lookout tower can be incredibly difficult. I was lucky to snag Indian Ridge for a Thursday and Friday nights the first weekend in October, and so a plan was assembled to meet up with friends to spend the weekend in the lookout.

Now take a look at the photo above. That looks pretty cool, right? To be alone with good friends on a mountaintop in the snow…it’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

Indian Ridge has no heat.

With that in mind, we knew we’d need to prepare for cold weather. The forecast said rain, so we came prepared for cold nights and what promised to be a memorable weekend in the mountains.

Wendy and I drove up on Thursday evening (her weekend is Friday and Saturday, so I have adopted this as my weekend too). Not long after we arrived, our friends made it there, and we were able to share some hot tea and dinner. It was sleeting and utterly nasty outside, so we all retired to the somewhat-friendly confines of the lookout.

When we woke the next morning, this is what we saw:

I can’t say we didn’t expect foul weather, considering it was sleeting when we went to bed the night before. We bundled up and went outside to go explore the snowy beauty:

It was so gorgeous outside! Wendy and I aren’t really snow people. We don’t snowshoe very often, we don’t ski and we rarely go anywhere in the snow in general. I think both of us prefer the dry, open spaces of the desert in winter to the snowy mountains. But I do love them once I am there, in the snow. Perhaps I should try harder.

After some time curled up in our sleeping bags back in the lookout waiting for it to warm up, we decided to drive down to the valley below to go hiking. This was always the original plan for the weekend, to stay high and hike low. Cold weather has a way of sapping your motivation though, and we figured we should go explore before we ended up stuck inside the lookout all day.

The nearest hike to the lookout is the French Pete Creek Trail. This is one of the classic hikes of the western slopes of the Three Sisters Wilderness. I first hiked French Pete Creek in March 1992…an eternity ago. This was long before the fires, and long before all the bridges had disappeared from the hike. It was one of the most interesting hikes I had ever done up to that point. The second crossing of French Pete Creek was waist-deep, but we made it to the 5-mile marker. What an adventure! This is what I had to say in my hiking journal:

French Pete Creek 3/22/1992

10.4 miles

1,000 feet elevation gain

Note: Wading that rocky creek is very, very cold!

Yes, I kept a hiking journal. You shouldn’t be surprised.

Anyway, it warmed up as we drove back into the valley, and the weather looked pleasant for hiking. We decided to hike only to the first creek crossing before turning around to explore more of the valley. It felt good to be back in the Three Sisters Wilderness again:

As it was meant to happen, I would end up in the Three Sisters Wilderness again the next weekend. But that’s a different story for a different post.

Signs of damage from the 2017 fire were apparent immediately. As I’ve stated repeatedly in my writing, I don’t mind hiking in fire-damaged forest. The damage here did not match my memories of how verdant French Pete Creek was though, and it actually made me a little sad. This is a sample of what the trail looks like now:

There was still beauty everywhere, though. We sat down for a little while when we reached the first creek crossing and marveled at how beautiful it was in spite of the lost bridge and fire damage:

I still remember the huge downed cedar that formed the bridge over the creek here. I’ve looked through our photo albums and I can’t find any photos from our hike here in 1992, so it will have to live on in my memory.

Anyway, on the way back Wendy and I lagged behind our friends so I could take some photos of the side creeks. I like how this one turned out:

The sun started to come out when we got to the trailhead, so we decided to go check out Cougar Hot Springs. Somehow I had never been there before, and of course we didn’t pack anything to go to a hot springs. Our friends went and soaked anyway while Wendy and I sat there and chilled.

Cougar Hot Springs. I made sure to snap this photo while all humans were out of view. There were actually a lot of people here.

After Cougar Hot Springs, we drove back up to Indian Ridge for what figured to be a more pleasant evening. Along the way, we passed a wondrous display of fall color that we hadn’t noticed on our drive in the night before:

As promised, this evening was far more pleasant than Thursday night had been. We heated up dinner, made a fire and shared some beers. It was still very cold, but at least this time it wasn’t sleeting on us.

Right before sunset the sun finally came out for good, and it was GLORIOUS:

That night it was a lot warmer inside the lookout, but it was never warm. Let me be clear about this: I am NEVER staying in another lookout this late in the year that doesn’t have a heat source. Thankfully most of them do.

The next morning was bright and beautiful from the start. We had to leave, but the warm and beautiful weather made it tough. Finally, at last, the mountains came out:

It was great to see the Three Sisters after two days of knowing they were out there, behind all the clouds. Our friends decided to leave before us to go explore some more. We were sad to see them go, but so happy that they were able to join us. I snapped a photo of them right before they left:

We love you guys, and we can’t wait to go see you as soon as possible!

After they left, it was up to Wendy and I to close down the lookout. We were sad to go, but we had another adventure ahead of us for that day! We were going to go hike Marion Lake, one of my favorite places in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness. I’ll get to that in my next post. For now, here’s one more photo of Indian Ridge Lookout before we left:

I managed to snag three lookout towers that fall, and we only ended up staying in one of them. With that being said, let me elaborate on some tricks to booking lookout towers:

1. Don’t book based on when you want to go, book based on what is available (if anything is).

2. Be on recreation.gov at 7AM (well, a few minutes before actually), ready to book six months in advance. Reservations go on sale six months in advance, and you need to be ready to snag whatever is available, even if it isn’t your first choice.

3. Look for cancellations. The only time I’ve managed to stay at Green Ridge, the holy grail of Oregon lookout towers, was on a cancellation that one of my friends snagged.

4. Have your friends help you. We share lookout tower bookings.

5. Be willing to book days you don’t need to get the days you want.

6. Last but not least, be patient!

As luck would have it, I managed to book Hager Mountain Lookout for this weekend. I was pretty excited, as I had never succeeded at booking Hager Mountain before. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lookout is now closed to the public. So it goes.

That’s the thing with lookout towers: cherish them when you’re able to stay there. As I said at the start of this post, staying in a lookout tower is one of the finest experiences you can have in the mountains. It doesn’t happen very often…savor the experience.

Demaris and Camp Lakes - July 2019

We don’t go backpacking very often. For those of you who follow my writing and my hikes, this might be hard to believe. But my wife and I work very different work schedules (at least we did, before the pandemic), and getting away for a whole weekend can be a challenge for us. So when we do go backpacking, we try to make it somewhere special. Our only backpacking trip in 2019 was to Camp and Demaris Lakes, in the Three Sisters Wilderness. What a wonderful adventure this was!

Over the course of 2019, I made it a point to try and visit the Mount Jefferson and Three Sisters Wilderness Areas as much as possible. Starting in 2020 (at least, this the plan), many trailheads will require a limited entry permit, and all overnight trips will require a permit. As of this writing the details of this plan are still somewhat fluid, but you can follow along at this link. We wanted to make sure to get one more backpacking trip in the Three Sisters Wilderness before the permit system.

We initially looked into camping off-trail somewhere on the slopes of North Sister before deciding on Demaris Lake. I had never been to Camp Lake and I really wanted to make sure to get there before the permit system, but Demaris Lake looked inviting and not that crowded. This turned out to be the correct decision.

We spent the night before at Three Creek Lake, which was much busier than expected. The following morning we drove back through Sisters and down to the Pole Creek Trailhead, where we started the hike.

North Sister from the Pole Creek Trailhead.

The first few miles of the Pole Creek Trail pass through terrain recovering from the Pole Creek Fire. Indeed, the fire here in 2012 started not far from the trailhead. My buddy Keith was along for this trip, and he remembered the hike in being a “dusty hellscape” when he hiked through on the way to Middle Sister several years before. As it turned out., it wasn’t that bad:

The next few miles through the burn passed by pretty fast, as the trail was not all that difficult. A little over 3 miles from the trailhead, we abruptly left the burn and entered the friendly confines of a high mountain forest.

At 4 miles from the trailhead, the trail crosses the North Fork of Whychus Creek. I was expecting a difficult crossing, but it turned out to be pretty easy:

The trail meets the junction with the Demaris Lake Trail immediately after the crossing. Here, we turned left to hike down to Demaris Lake.

Up to this point we’d seen a lot of other hikers and climbers, but once on the trail down to Demaris Lake we didn’t see anyone. I guess it’s worth pointing out at this point that Demaris Lake does not enjoy the sparkling reputation that Camp Lake and the Chambers Lakes do. Pretty much the only thing I knew about Demaris Lake up to this point was this note in William L. Sullivan’s classic book 100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades:

Demaris Lake is a somewhat closer goal. Though less spectacular, this lake is a good choice on days when wind or threatening weather make the Chambers Lakes uninviting. A sign at the North Fork of Whychus Creek indicates the 0.8 mile side trail. Round-trip distance from the Pole Creek Trailhead is 10.8 miles.

When we reached the lake, we found it to be quite pleasant. There was a somewhat obstructed view of South Sister from the head of the lake, and a few mediocre campsites. With a lot of time on our hands, we decided to circle the lake and look for the best campsite possible. We found exactly what we were looking for on the opposite side of the lake, where there is space enough for several tents. We set up camp and then took a nice long lunch. After lunch, it was time to go check out Camp Lake.

We made our way back to the main trail and began the final climb into the Chambers Lakes basin. The views began to open up south towards Broken Top:

North and Middle Sister towered over us, close at hand:

The last half-mile or so to Camp Lake seemed like it took forever, but we finally made it there. It was every bit as beautiful as I had heard:

Camp Lake

As he always does, Keith had to go swim in Camp Lake. I’ve never seen him pass up a chance to swim, and even though I could see snowdrifts on the far end of the lake, I knew he’d go for it.

Keith swimming in Camp Lake. He said it wasn’t as cold as it looked. I don’t believe him.

When he was done with his swim, the three of us went exploring a bit. Camp Lake is located at an elevation of around 7,000 feet so I wasn’t surprised to see snow all over the place still.

This snowbank is the South Fork of Whychus Creek. Keith actually crawled into the snow cave there. He’s a braver man than me!

Camp Lake was busier than I expected. It’s 7.5 miles into the lake, and many folks continue further into the basin. It looked cold and windy up there, and I was glad we were camped at Demaris Lake instead. We had to stop at the lakeshore before we left for more photos:

As we left, the photo lighting kept getting better and better. I have seen some truly spectacular photos of Camp Lake, and I’m sure it would have been amazing to be up there that night. But as I mentioned, it was also crowded, and it would have almost certainly been cold. I think we made the right choice.

Back at Demaris Lake, we had lots of time to explore. As it turned out, Demaris Lake sits in a small basin ringed by cliffs. Just 100 yards or so from our campsite we reached the edge of a cliff. From here, we turned and followed the cliffs a bit to an amazing view of South Sister:

I’m not sure what was blowing over South Sister, whether it was smoke or dust. This was a phenomenal view. We explored the cliffs up here for awhile, looking for a view, any view of the waterfall we could hear in the vicinity. We never found even an obstructed view of the falls. A friend of mine gave me directions for getting to the base of the falls, but that wasn’t in the cards for this evening.

We went back to camp and made dinner, and went to bed early, tired and happy.

The next morning I had every intention of sleeping in. Wendy woke up early, as she always does, and went down to the lakeshore. She came back to let me know that the sunlight was lighting up North Sister, visible across the lake. I hauled myself out of bed to take some photos:

We followed the trail back out to the cliffs, so we could see the morning light illuminate South Sister:

I could have spent a couple of days just exploring this little basin, looking for views and trying to make my way down to the base of the falls here. But as mentioned, we didn’t have any time left. So we packed up camp and hit the trail by 10AM. On our way out we stopped at the lake’s outlet again to marvel at the view of South Sister across the lake:

It was breathtaking. If I’m being honest, I know everyone loves Camp Lake, but I loved Demaris Lake even more. I would absolutely come back here and camp again, with more time to explore the area.

As it turned out, I ended up at the Pole Creek Trailhead again the next weekend…but that’s a different story for a different day.