TLDR: 10 Day Big Backpacking Trip for 2025, Aug 21-30th, Green Lakes to Horse Lake. Camping at Green, Moraine, Sisters Mirror and Horse Lakes. Devon and I backpacked the entire trip, Ryan Joined at Green Lakes, Rain & Emmett Joined at Horse Lake. Excellent longer distance comfort+ style trip with great wilderness experiences overall for all who attended.
- Trip Type: 10 Day Longer Distance Comfort+
- Trip Dates: 21st – 30th of August, 2025
- Trip Location: Three Sisters Wilderness (Cascade Lakes)
- Permit Required: Multiple Central Cascades Wilderness Overnight Permits
- Distance: Approx 20 Miles Single Direction
- Party Members: Devon, Chris, Ryan (Partial), Rain & Emmett (Parial)
- Camping Options: Abundant
- Weather: Sunny, Cloudy, Thunderstormy, Smokey
- Other Conditions: Abundant Wildlife, Berries Started at Sisters Mirror, Dry and Hot if not Cloudy/Smokey
- Bonus Points: Chris – 1 (Trip Point), Devon – 2 (Trip Point, Game Champion)
- Demerits: 0
- Pack Weights: Devon – 73, Chris 66 (Starting weights)
And then there was French Toast, was the entry that I placed into the backpacking journal on this epic 10 day comfort+ style backpacking trip led by the Grand Larson. For the first time in many years Devon spearheaded an extended backpacking trip into the Three Sisters wilderness. The trip featured amazing wilderness experiences and equally amazing food and quality friends/family time in the Oregon Wilderness.
The structure of the trip started with Devon going on the entire adventure with friends joining him at different points during the 10 day hike. He solidified his idea way back in April when the Central Cascade Overnight Wilderness permits opened up for reservations (which during the process he learned a single person can only make 3 advanced reservations at a time). As the trip grew closer it became clear that I was going to be able to join for the entire trip, with business duties being light enough (and reliable remote connectivity a possibility now from Starlink Mini). Supporting crew included Ryan joining from Sat – Tue at Green Lakes with a couple of days of food and resupplies taking us through the middle portion of the trip. Rain and Emmett joined during the last portion on Thursday at Horse Lake with additional food such as French Toast and other deliciousness, through the hike out and provided a shuttle up to Devon’s car at Green Lakes TH.
During the Green Lakes portion of the trip we did a lot of day hiking, but did not make summit South Sister. Everyone in the group has summited before, with Ryan doing so just a few weeks prior, but it didn’t work out on this trip. There were at least one or two good weather days that would have allowed it, though had we made it a priority. With smoke in the air, thunderstorms other days and a couple of lingering foot issues for Devon and I at this point – we chose an easier path including: Lots of Wilderness Disc Golf, the shoulder of Broken Top at 7800 ft, a viewpoint pass halfway to Golden Lake and Park Meadow and the waterfall at the base of South Sister.
The Wilderness Disc Golf Green Lakes Memorial Classic 2025 Edition 36-hole tournament was held during the trip. This is a dynamic event in the series which has been hosted in the Green Lakes basin in years past (all informal of course). This year’s tournament was epic with the first 18 holes played up and down the shoulder of Broken Top. At a maximum elevation around 7800ft, this course challenged players and provided a stellar combination of epic long throw par 5’s and technical par 3’s alike. The second course took players to a 7000ft pass between Green Lakes Basin and Park Meadow, with views of Prouty and Lewis glaciers and the summit of South Sister. Our tournament champion from both days, shockingly enough was Devon! During the trip he was the overall gaming champion from discs to dice and displayed amazing skill (and some luck). He was able to maintain good accuracy at distance and especially close up, with several long under-par shots and some spectacular short distance throws of 30 feet or more, even landing on top of a downed log target at one point (not just striking the target, but actually making the disc rest on the top from a distant throw, wow!)
While the new Central Oregon Cascades permit system has its challenges overall, I do see it as an improvement. The challenges are primarily related to timing of purchases and availability of passes. A significant portion of the permits are released for reservation on April 1 at 7AM (these are required in most wilderness areas and from most trail heads between June 15 and October 15 for both day hiking and overnight, specific rules and requirements vary by trailhead. See Willamette National Forest | Central Cascades Wilderness Permits | Forest Service for info). Now consider how difficult it is to coordinate any type of trips, much less long duration multi-entry and exit trips spanning different lake basins for August, when it’s April 1. It’s extremely difficult! Also there are challenges with availability, limitations on the total number of advance reservations and more. Luckily there are permits released on a rolling basis later in the year as a fallback, but overall it is a logistical challenge for sure. Challenges aside, the permit system is controlling the total user count at sites. A good example is the Green Lakes Basin which just prior to the permit was an absolute Zoo at almost all times during the accessible season. I’m not exaggerating when I say that in those years, hiking in meant you passed parked outside the trailhead lot (up to .5 miles away) and hiked past a steady stream (like ants) of hundreds of people exiting or entering each day.
After several days at Green Lakes with Ryan joining for a portion, it was time to head south for our first major move. Note that when arriving at Green Lakes our preferred spot wasn’t open and so we took a somewhat less desirable location I am dubbing “slopetown” due to the lack of flat surfaces. So technically the move towards Moraine lake would be our third camp setup. The path from Green Lakes to Moraine doesn’t branch off for a couple of miles – so we were able to hike with Ryan for about an hour before parting ways. The weather had turned interesting again on this portion (migrating between sunny, partly cloudy, smokey and then thunderstorms) – as we had flashes of lighting and booms of thunder echoing above our footsteps.
Moraine Lake is one of those amazing places to visit on a day trip or a summit attempt of the South Sister, but not a location that you usually spend multiple nights at. The lake is spectacular and the views of the mountain are really dramatic, with the light that we had during our stay quite atmospheric. Devon and I along with several friends have stayed here multiple times in the past, with some great stories between us of those past adventures. Upon our arrival we found most of the less dramatic campsites on the SE side of the lake to be free. We explored the most amazing spots (1 – 3), which are located on a high Moraine with impressive mountain views, to find two of the three were taken. With that noted, we chose not to squeeze in to spot 2 with fairly close neighbors and a bit of an down and up slog with our heavy packs, in moving from our spot (7 I believe).
One of the realities of camping at Moraine is the substantial downhill/uphill trek to the lake, depending on your spot. Nearly all of the spots closest to the lake will require this hike and so it is recommended to bring a water bladder of some type. So our afternoon was spent exploring a little bit, making the trek for water and playing a few exciting games like ‘throw-the pumice into bullseye rings in the dirt’. Sunset was pretty nice to watch from our perch as well, as noted the light was pretty ethereal and atmospheric casting a nice glow and interesting light to watch fade.
The next day we were scheduled to move to Sisters Mirror lake, so we were up and packed early for the move. The hike between Moraine and Sisters Mirror is not long and does go through varied terrain, starting in the open of Moriane Lake and taking you by small buttes and connecting trails which provide access to the Wickiup Plains and Rock Mesa areas. After this section, you drop a bit in elevation and head into thicker, older forested areas which also connect to the PCT. This PCT connection is where things start to get busy again as we started to see a bunch of people, many of them appearing to be thru-hikers. Once we arrived at the Sisters Mirror lakes, we found one of the nice spots away from the main trail a bit, and setup for the afternoon/evening. Plenty of the thru-hikers chose short visits to lounge on the grass as the PCT hits the lake, and some camped in the area. We only saw just a couple of free willies from nude bathers – so at least that was kept to a minimum.
Since we got to the lake early enough, we were able to spend the afternoon exploring around the area. Sisters Mirror has several smaller lakes clustered together in the area that can be fun to explore. These include Lancelot, Bounty, Denude and Camelot Lakes. We found most of these (I don’t know if we actually made it to Lancelot Lake). Each has it’s own charm and we were also able to find berries for the first time on the trip while making this day hike. So possibly the best part about finding those berries was they enabled us to make Mounty Cristos! That delicious, delicious mountain delicacy made in this case from; Pancake Mix, Tortillas, Canadian Bacon, Cheese, Fresh Berries and Maple Syrup… YUM! We’ve only made these a handful of times out on trips, and the meal was born in the Oregon Wilderness so it was a nice dinner to enjoy while out on the trail again.
Navigation on this hike was primarily using my Gaia GPS app on the iPhone which has worked well as a single device solution. I still have some learning to do on the app, regarding routing and whatnot (at one point on the trip I had the route reversed thinking we had elevation gain instead of loss one day) – but it provides great options for layered views and pre-loading routes, plus tracks hikes actively and works well offline (as long as you have pre-downloaded maps for your area). The reason I mention this is also to highlight how well it worked, against say the ~10 year old Rhino GPS Devon takes which is almost in pieces and the screen is hard to read. He used that GPS to navigate to Denude lake the next morning – except he never was able to find the lake. So anyway – the Rhino has served us well for many years but the future might just be those smart phone based solutions.
The next day it was onto meet Rain and Emmett at Horse Lake, which was an exciting day. This route takes you past a few small, pretty lakes and past Red Hill which can be a fun side hike and it daunting when going the opposite direction after a resupply (learned from a big trip we took through the area many moons ago). After Red Hill you drop into Horse Lake basin and we arrived by early afternoon. Luckily there was only one other group at the lake, and they didn’t appear to care about grabbing the best spot on the peninsula – which Devon was able to secure for us. Unfortunately at this point on the trip my back decided to do it’s thing and cause me some discomfort for the remaining days of the trip. Of course that was somewhat limiting for me, but didn’t impact my overall ability to enjoy the trip and all-in-all wasn’t nearly as bad as it can be.
Rain and Emmett arrived later in the afternoon without issue, with Devon and I hiking to meet them at a trail junction prior to the lake. Our timing was pretty good, with sporadic text updates being sent prior to meeting up, making our wait only about 30 minutes or so before their arrival. With a couple of days together at Horse Lake we did spend some time day hiking around the area and made it over to Sunset lake at one point, where the group swam a little bit. Unfortunately it was pretty smokey out the last couple days of the trip, which always puts a little bit of a weird feeling in the air due to the limited visibility and heavy smell, but no big deal overall.
Rain did bring an amazing treat for us to have here at Horse; Backpacking French Toast! That was all her idea, and it worked great! She planned it out perfectly and it isn’t that common that get a brand new backpacking food. This was certainly a special one, doable on stoves only (no fires on this trip) and it was absolutely wonderful to have after the 9 days we’d been out backpacking on the trip. From this point we took off the next day and headed out to catch the Ducks game as best we could (I don’t think we had a lot of luck in that regard). Overall it was a great trip, a reminder of the big trips we used to do in the past and I am glad that we were all able to spend time together in the Oregon wilderness backpacking as friends and family again on a longer trip.
