Sisters is a small town at the foot of the Cascades, framed by the snow-capped peaks of the Three Sisters volcanoes. Its entire downtown is built in an Old West theme — wooden boardwalks, false-front buildings — and it works better than you'd expect, giving the place genuine character rather than feeling like a gimmick.
The town is best known for the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, held on the second Saturday of July, which draws tens of thousands of visitors to see quilts draped across buildings and fences throughout downtown. The Sisters Rodeo in early June and the Sisters Folk Festival in September are the other big annual events. The rest of the year, Sisters serves as a base for outdoor pursuits: Hoodoo Ski Area is a short drive west on Highway 20, trailheads for the Three Sisters Wilderness are scattered along the roads leading into the mountains, and the climbing and hiking at Smith Rock east of town is world-class. The surrounding ponderosa pine forests are beautiful year-round.