Chambers Lakes, (Camp Lake) Three Sisters Wilderness, Oregon

I am lucky to live here, especially when I can ride into this kind of beauty on a sunny day at the end of October, and it being a relatively short drive from my house.

Camp Lake.

In 2011 I had tried to ride this trail for the first time, and I got to within a mile of the end, before I was brought up short by a giant snowdrift. In 2012 the Pole Creek fire swept through there, and the trailhead was not accessible for quite awhile.

From Sisters: Drive 1.5 miles west on Hwy 242 and take a left on Road 15. This is the same road that you take to get to Sisters Cow Camp.
It is 10.5 miles to the Pole Creek Trailhead and the road turns to gravel after the first 2 miles. Stay on the main road, the junctions are marked. This road used to be really washboard and slow going, but they were grading it while I was driving up there, so it was considerably better, but of course it depends on when you go.

The parking area has a couple of large spots for horse trailers, but the trick is getting turned around. I assumed there would be no one up there on a Wednesday in the fall, but boy was I wrong, the parking lot was almost full. If no cars are there you can easily turn around, but since that is not usually the case, there is a small side road you can use to back into.

A good large spot for parking trailers.

The always full parking lot.

The first part of the trail is the burned section but on the plus side, there are now views of North Sister that were not visible before the fire.

The Pole Creek Trailhead.

The burned section of the Pole Creek Trail.

Views of North Sister.

At the first trail junction you come to, stay straight, where the sign says Green Lakes.

First trail junction.

The next trail junction comes up right after crossing  Soap Creek, this is where you leave the Green Lakes Trail and go to the right towards Camp Lake/Chambers Lakes.

The third trail junction is just after you cross the north fork of Squaw Creek, which is filled with silt. Here you have the choice of a 1.6 round trip detour to visit Demaris Lake.
Or if extra mileage is not on your agenda, stay to the right here instead.

North fork of Squaw Creek.

The sign for the side trip to Demaris Lake or go right to Camp Lake.

Demaris Lake.

Eventually you will climb out of the forest and the views really get good from here.
You will have North Sister and Middle Sister on your right, off to the left will be Broken Top, then once you get to Camp Lake, South Sister looms above.

North Sister.

This is the area where I had to turn back in 2011, because it was full of snow.

Broken Top.

Middle Sister and North Sister.

The final destination is the beautiful gem that is Camp Lake. I spent an hour just walking around and checking out the whole area. I was prepared for it to be windy, since it's supposed to really blow most of the time, but I was lucky, and it was quite balmy and calm. The rest of the Chambers Lakes are up above Camp Lake but it's probably best to not continue on. The user trails that lead out of there are more for hikers than horses, steep, rocky and primitive.
This whole ride including the side trip to Demaris, is just under 16 miles.

South Sister.

Camp Lake. There is a trail that leads up the cliff but it's not really horse friendly.

Found some snow.

My good pony waits patiently for me to quit monkeying around on nearby hills.

Camp Lake from a nearby hill.

My friend Krista was doing an exploratory ride on the same day as me, but coming from the west on the PCT and we made a plan to see if she could make it into the area where I was, from her side, but although she got close, the trail was much too rocky and she had to dismount just to get down some sections of it.
So we did not see each other after all, but we both had great days in the wilderness!

Krista's photo: Trying to get Phoenix down some rocky trails. 

GPS COORDINATES TO POLE CREEK TH