Collier Loop Part 1: Scott Trail and 4-In-1 Cone

North Sister, Middle Sister, and Little Brother from Four-In-One Cone

Distance: 4.8 miles one way

Maximum Elevation: 6270 feet

Minimum Elevation: 4760 feet

Total Elevation Gain: 1600 feet

Directions: From McKenzie Bridge, head east on Highway 126. Turn right onto Highway 242/Old McKenzie Pass. Between mileposts 71 and 72, turn left at the sign for Scott Lake. Take an immediate right into the Scott Trail parking area. 

When summer weather opens the gates to the winding Highway 242, drivers can access a moonscape of high-altitude lava fields and cinder cones under the shadow of the majestic Three Sisters. Views from the top of the pass are incredible, but heading out on foot into its midst is even better. 

North and Middle Sister from lava fields

Scott Trail gets you into the thick of it. Named after Captain Felix Scott who blazed it as a wagon route 153 years ago, it meanders under mountain hemlock forests, climbs over a jagged lava flow, and ends in a beautiful blue lupine meadow as it junctions with the Pacific Crest Trail. 

Turning right (south) onto the PCT takes you on a 15-mile loop to cover some of the coolest country in the northwest region of the Three Sisters Wilderness. 

Before getting there, however, don’t miss Four-In-One Cone, where a .8-mile side-trip heads up to four craters stuck together by a long, cinder ridge yielding views of the all the Cascade peaks from the Middle Sister in the south to Mount Hood in the North. 

Front left to back right: Belknap Crater (Little Beltknap is the dark mound to its right), Mount Washington, Three Fingered Jack, Mount Jefferson. Mount hood is the small white tip just to the right of Jefferson. It's much easier to see in person.

The trail begins at the Scott Lake trailhead. It heads east, crosses the highway, and continues on to a junction .3 miles from the car. The left trail continues the adventure. Going right is a connector trail to the Obsidian Trailhead (Part 3 of Collier Loop, coming soon). Don’t pass up the tiny wild strawberries along the trail in midsummer. They might be smaller than your thumbnail, but a ripe one packs the flavor of a whole crate of the domestic kind. As the elevation increases, mountain blueberries and huckleberries also join the trailside buffet. 

Conks!

In three miles from the car, prepare to cross a river of lava – thankfully frozen. By scrabbling up its craggy chunks of broken surface rock, you may be rewarded in views of the surrounding mountains. Otherwise, hike another mile and a half, crossing a tree island in the middle of the basalt flow and following the flow to cinder fields dotted with trees, and find a rock cairn. To your left will be a mound of charcoal-grey cinders. Here, a trail veers off left towards the mound’s crest. Slog up the dune-like terrain, and find yourself atop Four-In-One Cone.

North Sister, Middle Sister, and Little Brother are the behemoths dominating your southern view. Mount Washington, Three-Fingered Jack, Mount Jefferson, and Mount Hood are the peaks visible to the north. 

My brother Smeagol-posing atop a lava crag

After heading back down the cone (classified as such only geologically; geometrically you’d think it more a weird, elongated blob), continue a final .8 mile to the PCT junction; the meadows surrounding yielding a great view of the North and Middle sister. 

Here, a choice is to be made. You can make the trip an out-and-back by just retracing the route back to the car. You can head 6 miles north on the PCT, passing the Matthieu Lakes and Yapoah Crater, to McKenzie Pass. By doing so, you’d probably need a car shuttle to get back to the Scott Trail parking lot. Or, you can head south on the PCT to complete the 17-mile loop, heading down the PCT for three miles to Glacier Creek, then heading west on Glacier Creek 4.8 miles to the Obsidian trailhead and taking the .6-mile connector back to Scott Trail and the car.

The second part of this loop, the Pacific Crest Trail section, can be found here.

For more High Cascade adventures, check out my Cascade Crest page here.

The meadows at the Scott-PCT junction