Bend, Oregon...our favorite so far!!!

We arrived in Bend, OR from our first Harvest Host on October 2 for a week! (Side note: I did create a new album for Harvest Hosts that we will be staying at as one-night stopovers.) We had been looking forward to Bend…it was a very busy week! We stayed at Bend-Sunriver Thousand Trails RV Park, which was pretty cool; although since it was going to be such a busy week we didn’t feel like we spent a lot of time there! It was a great park though and the location was awesome! We will definitely go back for some pickleball!!!

We knew we wanted to check out the lava fields, go to Smith Rock State Park to hike Misery Trail (see if it’s as miserable as we’ve heard) in addition to checking out downtown Bend, which is the Brewery city of Oregon. But first, we always like to go to the Visitor’s Centre to get a lay of the land and see what they recommend.

It was at the Visitor’s Centre in Sunriver where we were fortunate enough to arrive in time for an interpretative walking tour through the lava flows of the Newberry volcano guided by Park Ranger Charlie. We were standing on the edge of one of the largest volcanoes in North America! Newberry volcano and its apron of lava flows cover nearly 1,200 square miles. With scores of eruptions dating back as far as 400,000 years and as recently as 1,300 years ago, Newberry has had a measurable impact on Oregon and the surrounding lands with deposits from its most explosive eruptions reaching as far as Idaho to the northeast and San Francisco Bay to the southwest. Newberry volcano has almost 400 cinder cones, more than any other volcano in the world! In the distance we could see what looked like mountains but soon learned that they were actually lava buttes created by cinder cones, which is the simplest type of volcano built from particles and blobs of gas-charged lava spewing violently into the air, breaking into small fragments and solidifying as cinders around the vent to form an oval shaped cone.

During the interpretative tour through the lava flow we could see up above the “Lava Butte” which is one of these cinder cones created about 7,000 years ago as a result of the Newberry volcano. We had to hike to the top and check it out. It was incredible walking around the edge of the caldera (volcanic crater) of Lava Butte. Next stop Newberry National Volcanic Monument, where it all began!

At almost 8,000 feet elevation the views were incredible. We were now standing on top of one of the largest volcanic craters in North America! This crater now holds two alpine lakes and largest obsidian flow in Oregon. We were actually looking down at the lakes and the obsidian flow. It was amazing!

From our viewpoint, it looked like the lava was flowing, slowed and solidified just minutes ago. We didn’t know at time, but there was a walking trail through the lava flow we were looking at (the Obsidian Flow Trail). No words really! Obsidian is basically a liquid that is cooled without crystallizing, solid glass! We were absolutely blown away walking through this half mile trail of lava flow!

Another huge highlight for us in Bend was Smith Rock State Park for a couple of reasons! First of all, Barry’s daughter, Jenn, and her boyfriend, Graeme love to rock climb. Jenn recommended we start watching “Reel Rock” on youtube. She thought we would enjoy it. We were hooked! Reel Rock is videos about rock climbers who made their marks in the sport of rock climbing dating back to the 70s up to the present. It’s following some of them from the beginning of their rock climbing careers.

We soon learned that Smith Rock was considered by many to be the birthplace of American sport climbing so we obviously had to go there when we were in Bend.

Also about Smith Rock, Reese Witherspoon played Oregon author Cheryl Strayed in her memoir adaption and filmed rock scrambling scenes here that doubled for the Pacific Crest Trail in California.

As well, we heard about the Misery Trail hike at Smith Rock State Park and we were so excited to hike it to see how “miserable” it was. The miserable part was the hike up to the top. The incredible part was the top!!

Once we hit the top, which feels like top of the world, we looped down around down the back of the mountain where we got to see a lot of the popular climbing routes we heard about and soooo many climbers! It was so amazing! So glad we had the opportunity to hike this.

One additional thing that was on my list was the Lava Tube Caves! Unfortunately they closed on September 15, 2 weeks before our arrival, to allow the bats in the cave to breed in peace. Totally get it! We did happen to find Redmond Caves Recreation Site that hosts 5 caves formed by volcanic flows from a single lava tube from Newberry Caldera that collapsed to form the 5 caves. We toured about a bit in three of them. However, it doesn’t take going in very dark to be in complete darkness. We had our headlamps and phones, but it was still quite dark. Creepy, scary but very cool!

Our final thing that we wanted to do this trip in Bend was to explore the downtown. One thing that is very popular in Bend is floating, canoeing, or kayaking down the Deschutes River. Since we were there in October we opted not to, but I did want to take some time to watch the locals surfing at the Bend whitewater park section of the river. Just fun to watch! There are many parks that the Deschutes River runs through in Bend, all of which are so beautiful; however, we didn’t realize how long a walk it would be to the whitewater section of the river so we didn’t have a ton of time to explore the downtown. However, we did take time to stop into a local brewery for Barry’s IPA fix!

Bend is a fun, very walkable town with lots of shops, cafés, breweries…tons to do! The Old Mill District of Bend was also very interesting. We were fortunate enough to be in downtown on a Thursday, which is the only day where the Farmer’s Market is in full swing. Check out the rest of the pics under the Photos tab...there's so much more!

We absolutely loved our stay in Bend Oregon and will definitely go back. So much more to see, explore and experience! Next…to the Redwoods!