Sisters sits on the dry east side of the Oregon Cascades, at about 3,200 feet, in a patch of ponderosa pine and sagebrush where the forest gives way to high desert. Above it rise the three volcanoes that gave the town its name, North, Middle and South Sister, each over ten thousand feet, snow-streaked even in summer. The town was built in a Western style, with false-front wooden buildings along the main street, boardwalks and murals, and it has the feel of a film set that happens to work.
Life here follows the calendar of events. In June the Sisters Rodeo draws cowboys and crowds, and in July the Outdoor Quilt Show, one of the largest of its kind in the world, hangs thousands of quilts on the town's buildings and fences. Beyond the festivals, the town is a cheerful mix of outdoor shops, bakeries and galleries, with a long tradition of ranching and logging, and mountain bikers, skiers and climbers who come for the Cascades.
The road that makes Sisters a rider's destination is Oregon Route 242, the old McKenzie Pass Highway. It climbs from the pines through increasingly bleak forest to a pass of about 5,300 feet, where a huge lava field, a sea of black basalt from Belknap Crater, spreads out around the road. At the summit, the Dee Wright Observatory, a lava-rock lookout, frames the peaks in its windows. The road is narrow, twisting, with tight hairpins, and closed to vehicles over thirty-five feet. It is shut by snow in winter, usually from November until about June, so check before you go. Beyond the pass, it plunges into old-growth forest down to the McKenzie River.
Sisters has fuel, a market and restaurants, and Redmond, about thirty kilometers east, has bigger stores and more hotels. The best months are July to early October, with clear air and warm days, though the pass can still be cold and windy. Summer afternoons sometimes bring thunderstorms, and wildfire smoke can fill the valleys in late summer. Early morning light on the Three Sisters is spectacular, and the air smells of warm pine and dust.