The high desert of Deschutes County is a stark contrast to our home on the lush green Oregon coast. In August of 2008, we thoroughly enjoyed a weeks vacation there exploring the many geologic formations dominating the landscape.
Having spent much of my childhood in NE Oregon, I love getting the opportunity to visit the dry side of the state.
My bride and I enjoyed a 2008 summer vacation to the Bend area. We absorbed the sights and sounds, from the popular trails of Shevlin Regional Park in town to breath-taking views at 8000 feet atop Paulina Peak, the highest point along the rim of Newberry Crater. I found geocaches at these and other nearby sites such as Lava Butte, Lava River Cave and the High Desert Museum.
On one day, while my wife attended a meeting at Central Oregon Community College, I hiked and geocached among the myriad of trails in Shevlin Park. The central defining feature in this park is Tumalo Creek winding through and nurturing a wooded riparian zone providing a cool reprieve from the summer heat. One especially enjoyable cache hunt, Awaken Bacon, led to a rocky knoll affording a great overlook to the park. This would be an awesome place to take in a sunrise!
One of the more interesting caches was one I didn’t actually find! The Lava River Cave Earthcache (what is an earthcache?) required walking at least half way through this mile-long lava tube. We turned back when confronted with a small opening where we needed to get down on our hands and knees to get through! Not today!
I also really enjoyed the short quarter-mile hike out from the Paulina Peak viewpoint to the very edge of the crater rim to find the Almost 8000 geocache. Rugged rock formations out there on the edge! Love that tight feeling in my stomach peering down a steep cliff!
Geocaching with our grandchildren is great fun. Kids just love hunting for treasure! One of our granddaughters, who lives in the area, joined us for one night at our campsite at LaPine State Park. We hunted a fun, multi-staged geocache within the park that required locating three preliminary caches before finding the final container. These are great for kids because they build the anticipation of finding “the treasure” in addition to learning something new or seeing something interesting at each stage.
There is so much to see around Oregon’s high desert. We’re looking forward to visiting again to explore more areas such as the Metolius region, Sisters and Smith Rock State Park.
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