Visit Wilderness

Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.

Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, Minnesota

Why Visit Wilderness?

While wilderness can be appreciated from afar—through online content, television, or books—nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Activities like camping, hiking, or hunting allow you to fully enjoy the recreational, ecological, spiritual, and health benefits that wilderness areas offer. These areas provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” chances to observe wildlife, moments to renew and refresh, and the physical benefits of outdoor exercise. In many wilderness areas, you can even bring your well-behaved dog.

Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.

The high, snowcapped Three Sisters (North Sister at 10,085 feet, Middle Sister at 10,047 feet, and South Sister at 10,358 feet) embellish the eastern side of this Wilderness, the second largest in Oregon. If you include Broken Top at 9,175 feet just to the south, you have 14 glaciers offering perhaps the best example of the effects of glaciation in the Pacific Northwest. Collier Glacier, between North and Middle Sister, is the largest sheet of ice in Oregon.

Here is a fabulous volcanically formed landscape of lava fields, waterfalls, alpine meadows, lakes and streams teeming with brook and rainbow trout, and a lush forest of Douglas fir, silver fir, subalpine fir, mountain hemlock, western hemlock, lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine, and true fir. The headwaters of the Wild and Scenic Squaw Creek likewise emerge here.

Only State Highway 242 separates Three Sisters Wilderness from Mount Washington Wilderness to the north. Waldo Lake Wilderness shares the southern boundary. You'll find about 260 miles of trails, including 40 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail running north-south, and human traffic in multitudes estimated to exceed every other Wilderness in the state. Green Lakes, Obsidian, Sunshine, Erma Bell Lakes, and the climbing trail to South Sister are especially used and abused. The Chambers Lakes Trail leads 7.1 miles from Pole Creek to Chambers Lakes, all the while encompassed by the dramatic glaciers of South and Middle Sister, where ice can appear year-round, the growth is limited to wind-twisted pines, and the rock-rimmed beauty will take your breath away.

Leave No Trace

How to follow the seven standard Leave No Trace principles differs in different parts of the country (desert vs. Rocky Mountains). Click on any of the principles listed below to learn more about how they apply in the Three Sisters Wilderness.

Plan Ahead and Prepare
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
Dispose of Waste Properly
Leave What You Find
Minimize Campfire Impacts
Respect Wildlife
Be Considerate of Other Visitors

For more information on Leave No Trace, Visit the Leave No Trace, Inc. website.

Location

Maps

Digital and paper maps are critical tools for wilderness visitors. Online maps can help you plan and prepare for your visit ahead of time. You can also carry digital maps with you on your GPS unit or other handheld GPS device. Having a paper map with you in the backcountry, as well as solid orienteering skills, however, ensures that you can still route-find in the event that your electronic device fails.

Online Maps

Interactive Map of the Three Sisters Wilderness
FS Topographic Map
Google Earth

Oregon Wildernesses

Printed Maps

Fetching MyTopo from Database
Three Sisters Wilderness Georeferenced Permit Map
Three Sisters Wilderness Dog Leash Restrictions Map
Green Lakes Management Area Designated Site Locations Map
Matthieu Lakes Management Area Map
Moraine Lake Management Area Designated Site Locations Map

USGS Store

Rules & Regulations

Motorized equipment and equipment used for mechanical transport is generally prohibited in all wilderness areas. This includes the use of motor vehicles, motorboats, motorized equipment, bicycles, hang gliders, wagons, carts, portage wheels, and the landing of aircraft including helicopters.

Wilderness-Specific Regulations

Learn more about why regulations may be necessary in wilderness.

Contacts

Applicable Wilderness Law(s)

Public Law 88-577

Date: September 3, 1964
Acreage: 196,708 acres

The Wilderness Act - Public law 88-577 (9/3/1964) To establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the permanent good of the whole people, and for other purposes

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 88-577 or special provisions for 88-577 or legislative history for 88-577.

Public Law 95-237

Date: February 24, 1978
Acreage: 45,400 acres

Endangered American Wilderness Act - Public law 95-237 (2/24/1978) To designate certain endangered public lands for preservation as wilderness, and for other purposes

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 95-237 or special provisions for 95-237 or legislative history for 95-237.

Public Law 98-328

Date: June 26, 1984
Acreage: 38,100 acres

Oregon Wilderness Act of 1984 - Public law 98-328 (6/26/1984) To designate certain national forest system lands in the State of Oregon for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System, and for other purposes

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 98-328 or special provisions for 98-328 or legislative history for 98-328.

Want to Volunteer for Wilderness?

People who volunteer their time to steward our wilderness areas are an essential part of wilderness management. Contact the following groups to inquire about volunteer opportunities. Groups are listed alphabetically by the state(s) in which the wilderness is located.