In the hands of its rightful heir, an orphaned suitcase shines a light on a dark chapter in Oregon’s history.
Eric Ballinger holds his great-grandfather’s suitcase. Photo by Alex Jordan.
Eric Ballinger ran his hand along the battered brown leather suitcase, and paused when he came to the number “#16380” emblazoned on the smooth leather. He traced the numbers with his finger. “This was my great-grandfather Hidehiko Morioka’s suitcase,” explained Ballinger, as he recalled the emotional upheaval and toil that this small suitcase symbolizes for the family.
“When Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, it essentially rounded up Japanese families living here and sent them to internment camps, in the most remote parts of the United States,” he said. “People, families were reduced to mere numbers.”
How this symbolic suitcase was retrieved is almost miraculous, according to Ballinger, who is a fourth generation Oregonian of Japanese descent living in Bend with his wife and young daughter.
Historical writer and artist Jane Comerford found the suitcase by a dumpster on Killingsworth Street in Portland and felt it was more than just a battered piece of garbage. Seeing the inscription “H. Morioka #16380,” she instinctively picked up the discarded old leather valise and drove it to Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, a museum interpreting Japanese American experiences in the 1940s, in downtown Portland.
One of the curators at the museum had recently met Ballinger at a “Day of Remembrance” discussion on Japanese internment at the Deschutes Public Library and recognized the Morioka family name. The curator, Todd Mayfield, was able to contact Ballinger and reunite the suitcase with the descendent of Hidehiko Morioka.
“The suitcase is a story of immigration, civil rights, racism, perseverance and great sadness,” explained Ballinger, glancing at the suitcase and the journey it has taken to finally end up in his possession. “It is a reminder of the incredible sacrifice that my family went through to be here in this country. It survived as a reminder of the struggle for freedom.”
The Morioka Family picnics in the Columbia River Gorge area.
The Morioka family had been farmers in the Hood River and The Dalles area. They sent their fruits and vegetables to market in Portland every weekend. Ballinger said the Morioka family assimilated into the American way of life, and to prove it, he shows a black and white photo where his grandmother is wearing bobby socks and oxford shoes, as the family picnics along the Columbia River Gorge with Mount Hood in the background.
“They looked like any other American kids,” said Ballinger with a laugh. “My grandmother even played basketball in high school.”
In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, paranoia and fear began to set in, and bigotry started to show. Japanese Americans were treated with skepticism and hostility by neighbors once considered friends. When Executive Order 9066 was issued, Japanese families had only six days to pack up what they could muster. They left empty homes, jobs and dreams.
“My grandmother told me you could only take what you could carry, and I think the weight limit was seventy pounds,” explained Ballinger. “So many people lost everything. They left behind houses, farms, equipment and furniture. Things they could sell were sold for the fraction of what they were worth.”
Ballinger said his grandfather, Takeshi “Harry” Morioka, was a newlywed during the years of his family’s internment at Tule Lake, the largest internment camp in the country, on the California-Oregon border. He promptly volunteered for the United States Army and became a much sought after translator in the Military Intelligence Service.
Morioka was later given, posthumously, the Congressional Gold Medal for his service, which Ballinger and his mother proudly received in his honor in Washington D.C. in 2011.
Ballinger holds the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to his great-grandfather for his service in World War II.
“Even after the war, when they came back to Oregon, my great Uncle Shig said there was blatant racism in Hood River. There was a full-page ad in the newspaper that read, ‘So Sorry, Japs not wanted in Hood River,’” said Ballinger. “In 1944, the American Legion in Hood River had removed sixteen names of Japanese American soldiers from its Wall of Honor despite their sacrifices for our country. It was a pretty hostile environment.”
It’s a pain that has spanned generations. Ballinger noted that his mother didn’t learn of her family’s internment until she was in high school.
“No one in the Japanese American community ever spoke of this topic. It was painful, embarrassing and dishonoring,” said Ballinger.
Since the suitcase was saved, Ballinger felt compelled to tell his family’s story in Oregon. It has been part of the 4th/5th grade storyline on Japanese American Internment at Bend’s Kenwood Elementary School and was on display this past summer at the High Desert Museum’s exhibit on World War II.
Recently, Ballinger told his story at Central Oregon Community College, and he hoped to continue to share this family history that is sometimes forgotten in American history.
“The suitcase is helping to tell a story that my grandparents had a hard time sharing. In fact, they didn’t really tell us anything until they were in their eighties,” said Ballinger. “The suitcase was packed with dreams, pride, uncertainty and hope. I think it’s important to tell this history, where U.S. citizens were denied their freedoms and stripped of their civil rights—it’s especially important now.”
Start planning for the weekend now, because there are a lot of great events all around Central Oregon this weekend that you won’t want to miss.
Theater in the Park
August 24-25 | Bend
The long-running Shakespeare in the Park event has now broadened its playbill. This is the inaugural year of Theater in the Park, still on the same stage in Drake Park near downtown Bend. “Jesus Christ Superstar” will be the main act with only two performances, one on Friday and another Saturday evening. Tickets will go fast, so get yours early.
Art in the High Desert
August 24-26 | Bend
Fine art will take over the Old Mill District this weekend. Art in the High Desert is Central Oregon’s premier juried fine arts events and draws thousands of artists and art connoisseurs to the banks of the Deschutes River for a three-day outdoor festival. Find a variety of contemporary art for sale from international as well as local artists.
Airshow of the Cascades
August 24-25 | Madras
More than just vintage and modern planes will be on display at Airshow of the Cascades. The two-day event has a car and motorcycle show, live music, local vendors, and activities for kids and families. Grab a spot on the grass and watch the planes perform in the sky.
Volcanic Bike & Brew Festival
August 24-25 | Mt. Bachelor
This the fourth year for the late-summer bash at Mt. Bachelor. Volcanic Bike & Brew will test mountain bikers skills on a variety of terrain. If you’re not the competitive type, you can also demo the latest gear and hang around the West Village Base Area to listen to live music, join a bike clinic, drink beer, snack and more.
Live Music
With a new album under her belt, Brandi Carlisle will be in Bend at the Les Schwab Amphitheater on Saturday. The singer-songwriter puts on sought-after shows that everyone will love. And if you’re staying up in the mountains for the weekend, don’t miss Honey Don’t playing at Elk Lake on Saturday night.
Oakridge has more to offer than just singletrack trails.
Like many small Oregon timber towns, Oakridge faced an identity crisis in the early ’90s. The small town tucked into the central Cascades near the headwaters of the Willamette River was one of many Northwest logging towns left reeling by the collapse of the timber industry. The once-bustling Pope & Talbot lumber mill closed its doors in 1985, idling more than 1,000 workers—almost a third of the town’s population. It’s been a long road back, but Oakridge is following the model of towns like Bend that have transitioned from timber to tourism, led by its world class mountain biking.
The region now boasts more than 350 miles of trail set against rolling hills and draped in mossy Pacific yew trees and Douglas fir. While most people rightly associate Oakridge with mountain biking, the area has proved it has much more to offer. Whether you’re here to frequent the slanting singletrack berms, gaze at gushing waterfalls, soak in natural hot springs or toss a fly to a wild rainbow trout, Oakridge is a destination for serious recreation.
Mountain Biking
Willamette Mountain Mercantile (WMM), founded by McKenzie Bowerman, grandson of legendary University of Oregon track coach and Nike co-founder, Bill Bowerman, is the starting point for most outdoor exploration around Oakridge and neighboring Westfir.
Operating out of a converted auto-repair garage, WMM offers high-end demo bikes from Santa Cruz and Ibis. World maps are plastered around the interior of the shop. A rainbow of thumbtacks mark the places across the globe from which past shop visitors hail, a testament to the area’s growing appeal.
Dining
If you’re looking for a quick bite, Stewart’s 58 Drive-In is located directly off Highway 58 on the east end of Oakridge. This mom and pop shop provides fresh American cuisine that is sure to fulfill your daily calorie requirement. Get yourself the original “58” burger basket with fresh-cut sweet potato fries and choose from a variety of sauces that may very well be the most colorful condiment palette in all of Oregon.
For dinner, British alehouse Brewers Union Local 180 is one of the most authentic craft beer experiences in the Pacific Northwest. Situated in the heart of town, this pub is the only brewery in all of Oregon that solely serves cask conditioned ale, hand carbonated ale as it was traditionally served in Britain’s pubs of old.
Owner Ted Sobel established the pub in 2009 as a “social center and meeting place” for the whole family to enjoy. The paperback library, miniature pool table and small board games make this an ideal setting to kick back and enjoy a well-deserved brew. Relish a plate of bangers and mash as a live band fills the air with music while you lounge on the front patio in the golden sunset as it settles deep into the Cascade Range.
Fishing, Hiking and More
Salt Creek Falls
Oakridge’s many rivers and streams offer excellent rainbow trout fishing. Beautiful, iridescent pink hues mark the fish of the local Hills Creek Reservoir, Salt Creek and Salmon Creek, while the reservoir offers a mix of trout and warm water species, including crappie.
Due to the regular stocking of hatchery rainbow trout at Hills Creek Reservoir and Salmon Creek Falls, these tributaries of the Middle Fork Willamette River could make even the most inexperienced angler feel like a pro.
Salt Creek is home to wild cutthroat and rainbow trout. Good fishing can also be found for wild trout on the Middle Fork Willamette between Hills Creek and Lookout Point reservoirs with access from Highway 58 and Forest Road 5852. Brook trout are scattered along the upper section above Salt Creek Falls making this spot an ideal fishing destination.
For hikers, Salt Creek Falls and Diamond Creek Falls is a stellar 5.4-mile, lightly trafficked loop trail outside Oakridge. Take your dog for a stroll or stretch the legs and experience breathtaking waterfall scenery. For a more moderate hiking option, venture towards Diamond Creek Falls and complete the loop.
Head over to the meditative Warm Springs soaking pools just off Salmon Creek Road for a mild temperature soak on a hot day. Considered a hidden gem of Oakridge, these three ninety-six-degree pools experience much less traffic than nearby McCredie hot springs and offer a cooler option on those hotter summer and early fall days.
If you like your sunset served up with a view, Dead Mountain is both the top of an amazing singletrack trail and also a beautiful place from which to see the expanse of the Willamette Valley and Southern Cascades.
If you can’t fit this all into a day, don’t worry. There are plenty of reasons to linger a bit longer in Oakridge, the little timber town that’s turned a page.
Kevin and Linda English discovered gravel cycling by accident, literally. It was five years ago and Kevin was recovering from a mountain biking mishap that resulted in a separated shoulder. Back on the bike after a few months of R & R, Kevin discovered that he didn’t have the strength to lift his front tire over obstacles, a key element in any kind of advance trail riding.
Not willing to give up cycling, Kevin decided to experiment with what was then a hyper-niche segment of biking that combined elements of road and trail riding. Riding bikes that resemble classic ten speeds and cross bikes, but are outfitted with wider, knobby tires, gravel riders seamlessly transition between singletrack, highways and gravel. The setup makes for a great day of touring that gets riders off the more heavily trafficked roads and deep into some of the region’s most scenic areas.
Kevin was immediately smitten with the format and soon had his wife Linda along for the rides. What began as a hobby has turned into a passion project, with Kevin and Linda helping to lead weekly group rides, and more importantly, mapping some of their favorite rides into a shared GPS system that lets any rider follow turn-by-turn directions. Linda has chronicled and cataloged some of these rides on the couple’s website Dirty Freehub, which now serves as the comprehensive gravel riding resource in the Central Oregon region.
We asked the two of them to show us the ropes and walk us through some of their favorite rides that showcase the best of what Central Oregon offers. Here’s what they came up with.
Sherman’s March
Photo by Trevor Lyden
Location: Camp Sherman Distance: 52 miles with shorter options available Elevation: 4,000 feet of gain Difficulty: Intermediate
The Camp Sherman area is one of the most diverse and scenic areas to ride in Central Oregon. Attractions include the Head of the Metolius, Black Butte, Round Lake, the 2003 B&B Complex Fire, Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery, the Metolius River and the town of Camp Sherman. Begin with a short section of gravel and easy singletrack followed by a stop at the Head of the Metolius. Then there’s a moderate climb along the north shoulder of Black Butte, followed by a gravel descent to the paved road that leads south back towards Camp Sherman. At the U-turn, the route meanders briefly along the river and then crosses it, followed by a short section of gravel and a fun three-mile section of singletrack. Climb up to Round Lake, descend and then begin the climb through the B&B Complex Fire area along the southwest side of Mount Jefferson. Descend, cross the Metolius River at Lower Bridge and then head onto the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery. End the route by rolling up on pavement back to Camp Sherman.
Priest Hole
Location: Painted Hills Distance: 42 miles Elevation: 3,500 feet of gain Difficulty: Intermediate
Looking to escape the crowds while exploring one of the top gravel rides in Oregon? Then head to the John Day River area east of Prineville for the Painted Hills and the Priest Hole ride, a gravel bike loop from the Painted Hills park to the Priest Hole primitive camping area on the John Day River. It includes a divine gravel climb, a heavenly paved downhill that cuts through a deep canyon, glorious farmland and two swimming holes that invite a baptismal dip in the John Day River. Add in rolling hills along the river and a moderate climb to finish off the journey.
Donnybrook
Location: Madras Distance: 54 miles Elevation: 4,400 feet of gain Difficulty: Advanced
Expansive. Remote. Scenic. Demanding. Those are just some of the words to describe this classic gravel grinder. This is the kind of route that demands a real gravel bike—something that kind of looks like a road bike but with wide tires and disc brakes to carry the load offroad. From the start, the climbing begins—800 feet in the first three miles and 2,000 feet within eleven miles. At the three-mile mark, enter a scenic “canyon” for several miles. At mile fifteen, just after Ashwood, the gravel begins, and more climbing, and more big, open views. By mile twenty-one, you have climbed 3,000 feet and the gravel road turns to something like cobblestone—softball sized rocks embedded into a clay base to give a firm but bumpy road surface. At the Wasco County line, the “cobblestone” gravel ends and the gravel becomes loose and thick. Just when you are about to cry uncle, the gravel ends and the pavement begins, with twenty miles of good pavement with an elevation loss of 1,600 feet. Yes, there a couple of small “kickers” left, but also a lot of great views.
Water & Lava
Location: Bend Distance: 30 miles Elevation: 1,500 feet of gain Difficulty: Experienced Beginner
This is one of our favorite rides—close to town, combining all the elements of adventure riding (paved roads, dirt roads, dirt paths, bike paths and some singletrack) and fabulous views. The first third of the ride wanders along the Deschutes River on gravel roads, doubletrack, and one section of singletrack, bringing you to Benham Falls. Be sure to stop and go down to the overlook. The next section brings you to the top of Lava Butte via a paved path that has a slight uphill grade until the very end where there is a short, but steep, climb on a paved road. After leaving Lava Butte, ride the road, not the paved path, back toward Benham Falls. Just before the falls, you will veer left onto a gravel road that then becomes a paved path bringing you to the northern portion of Sunriver. From there, take the easy singletrack back to Benham Falls and then retrace your route along the Deschutes River.
Check out these guidebooks to everything in Central Oregon, from trail runs and mountain biking routes to day-trips for families and wildlife.
Bend, Oregon Daycations by Kim Cooper Findling
Travel writer (and Bend Mag editor) Kim Cooper Findling shares nineteen day-trips around Bend that everyone in the family will love. The book is filled with historical anecdotes and itineraries to make planning easy.
Mountain Bike Bend by Katy Bryce
For beginners, experts and everyone in between, Mountain Bike Bend takes you turn-by-turn through the region’s sought-after mountain biking terrain. Find ideas for rides all around the region.
Trail Running Bend and Central Oregon by Lucas Alberg
Trail running has grown exponentially in Bend where a mix of pedestrian, biking and hiking trails have created a massive network of dirt. Local runner Lucas Alberg provides the inside scoop for the best places to run and when to hit the trails.
Bend Food by Sara Rishforth
Central Oregon is garnering a reputation as a foodie destination thanks to a bevy of creative chefs and upstart small farms that are keeping it local. This extended profile of the region’s bounty showcases the people making it happen.
Central Oregon Bouldering by Jason Chinchen
The first of its kind for the region, this guide to bouldering around Central Oregon is great for new climbers and those looking for new spots to hit.
The Nature of Bend by LeeAnn Kriegh
Written for the casual outdoors-person, this guidebook uses relatable language to help you identify the diverse birds, insects, animals, geology and plants of the Central Oregon. It’s a book you’ll want to have packed on all your adventures around the region.
Join a fun bike ride, race along the Deschutes, listen to live music and try lots of beer this weekend in Central Oregon.
Bend Brewfest
August 16-18 | Bend
Bend Brewfest is one of the largest beer festivals in the region with more than 200 craft brews and ciders on tap. The three-day tasting event and party draws thousands of visitors to town. The event is now in its fifteenth year and donates all the proceeds to local nonprofit organizations. Food carts will also be onsite so you can grab a bite while you’re there.
Twilight 5k Run/Walk
August 16 | Bend
The Twilight 5k Run/Walk race begins and ends at the Deschutes Brewery Warehouse. There will be live music and local food at the finish line, as well as a cold pint of Deschutes Brewery’s Twilight Ale.
Ochoco Gravel Roubaix
August 18 | Prineville
Part competitive race and part bike tour, the Ochoco Gravel Roubaix is a one-day event that emphasizes camaraderie and a celebration of off-road biking culture. The race begins and ends at the Crook County Fairgrounds in Prineville. The finish line party is free, open to the public, and features food and music.
Bike the Bridges
August 18 | Bend
Pack up the bikes and family and head to the Gear Fix to join the annual Bike the Bridges event. There are three rides to join that will take you and your family on Bend’s best biking routes. It all starts and ends at the Gear Fix in the Box Factory, and there will be pizza at the end, as well as beer for the adults.
Live Music
Summer plus concerts plus Bend equals reggae. Rebelution, a popular reggae band, will be in Bend at the Athletic Club of Bend to perform on Wednesday. Five Letter Word will also be playing on Wednesday night at McMenamins. On Saturday, head to Elk Lake early to get a spot to listen to local bluegrass band Moon Mountain Ramblers.
There are great events happening all over the region this weekend. Head to Sisters for a beer and music festival, Redmond for the annual fair and rodeo or stick around Bend for some concerts that will be the talk of the town.
Photo by Thomas and Velo Photography
Rhythm & Brews Festival
August 3-4 | Sisters
A new festival joins the summer lineup this weekend. The Rhythm & Brews Festival is a two-day music event with craft brews and live music from a wide variety of musicians, including Los Lobos, Nikki Hill, Curtis Selgado, Hillstomp and more.
Deschutes County Fair & Rodeo
August 1-5 | Redmond
One of the region’s largest events turns ninety-nine this year. Head to Redmond this weekend for the Deschutes County Fair & Rodeo, where you’ll find carnival rides, games, rodeo performances and more. Big & Rich, Grand Funk Railroad and Gary Allen will be the headlining concerts this year.
Held at Pronghorn Resort, the Ghost Tree Invitational is one of the region’s most popular golf fundraisers. The main dinner and party on Saturday night is open to everyone, even if you didn’t enter the golf tournament, with live music from local favorite Precious Byrd.
Live Music
The crowds will surely be in Bend this weekend for two big shows at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss will perform on Saturday for the sold-out crowd. And on Sunday, the Pixies, the seminal 90s alt-rock band, will take the stage, playing hits like “Where is My Mind” and “Monkey Gone to Heaven.”
At the Cascade Lakes Relay that takes place this weekend, Dearric Winchester and Jeremy Howell will both attempt to complete the 216.6-mile course on their own.
Photo of Dearric Winchester by Wendy Wheeler Jacobs
As Dearric Winchester and I finished our morning run, he stopped to point out a spot about a quarter-mile from his house where knee pain curtailed his first training run three years ago and forced him to walk home. For most casual runners, the five miles we covered in the early hours of a hot summer morning would seem a productive morning workout. For Winchester, it represents just a fraction of the 216.6-mile course he and fellow Oregon native Jeremy Howell will tackle in the coming week.
Starting the evening of August 1, Howell and Winchester, 36, will each run the entirety of the Cascade Lakes Relay course—an endeavor usually tackled by teams of six to twelve runners. Both are motivated by more than testing their endurance; Howell will be running to support various food banks, while Winchester will be running to raise awareness for migraines and fundraise for the Association of Migraine Disorders.
Winchester has seen firsthand how debilitating migraines can be as his wife has continuously suffered from them since her late teens.
“It’s very, very hard [for the average person] to empathize with,” Winchester said of the pain caused by migraines. “As I’ve done more of the distance runs [I] kind of feel that suffering. It’s voluntary but you are experiencing some measure of that.” In addition to the discomfort naturally associated with running more than one hundred miles at a time, Winchester is still plagued by the same knee pain that sabotaged his first run.
A desire to bring awareness to and support those suffering from migraines is what drew Winchester to running distances unthinkable for most. “Doing something that makes people say ‘That’s nuts’ is an opportunity to start a conversation,” Winchester said.
Photo by Thomas and Velo Photography
Cascade Lakes isn’t his first attempt raise awareness for this cause. In 2016, Winchester completed a 150-mile run from Mount Hood to Mount Bachelor to promote and fundraise for the organization. The Cascade Lakes Relay will be his longest effort to date, and possibly his largest platform yet. Winchester has raised more than $8,000 toward migraine research through his running. Supporters can learn more about his campaign on Crowdrise, Facebook or Twitter and track his Cascade Lakes progress on his Garmin profile.
While this year’s relay will be his first solo attempt, it will also be Howell’s tenth time participating in the Cascade Relays. It was his preparation for this particular race that inspired his cause.
“People would always ask me [about his upcoming solo Cascade Lakes attempt] when or where are you going to sleep? Or what are you going to eat and when? And you start realizing there are people that face that question everyday,” Howell said. Howell asks those interested in supporting his cause to donate $21.66 (in parallel with the exact race length of 216.6 miles) to the Bethlehem Inn in Bend, the Union Gospel Mission in Salem or the LaPine Community Kitchen or a local food bank or shelter of their choosing.
The two men plan to start together, but the remaining 216 miles will be “pretty much a fight to the death,” Winchester said jokingly. Both largely self-coached, their training strategies leading up to the race differ dramatically.
Photo by Thomas and Velo Photography
While Winchester has been training at as much as 130 miles per week, including recently completing a forty-mile run around Mount Hood, Howell has been constrained by his recent move to Seattle and a kidney stone that has limited his running for the last year. Despite the training setbacks, Howell is confident that he will finish the race.
“I will guarantee 100 percent I will finish,” Howell said. Howell’s confidence in his mental toughness was bolstered by his effort last September in the Mountain Lakes 100. “In my 100-miler the race staff tried to pull me and I said, ‘I didn’t sign up for a ninety-seven-mile race.”
As far as strategy, Howell has broken the race up into fifths and plans to take four pit stops of two to two-and-a-half hours to eat and sleep. Winchester has no concrete plan other than trying to sleep during the heat of the day, opting to play it by feel.
“I have a plan until it falls apart,” Winchester explained. “The wheels are going to come off at some point, I just don’t know when or where.”
Running for a cause is a familiar concept for the Cascade Lakes Relays organizers. Co-founders Scott and Carrie Douglass started the race ten years ago and have raised more than $300,000 dollars for community organizations and nonprofits in the Central Oregon area. The success of the relays led to the creation of the Beer Chase relays, a shorter series of relays in Boulder, San Diego and Bend.
Photo by Thomas and Velo Photography
More than 200 teams last year competed in the Cascade Lakes Relay last year. The teams ran for fitness, in memory of lost teammates, in celebration of sobriety or in honor of loved ones. “When you’re running 216 miles, usually there’s a why behind it,” said Cascade Lakes Relay spokesperson McKenna Boen.
While it’s easy to focus on the insanity of Howell and Winchester’s endeavor, Winchester hopes people pay more attention to his cause rather than to the running. “It’s really easy to focus on the scale of it,” Winchester said. “I’m not here to impress somebody. I’m here to impress on somebody why I’m doing this.”
Updates: A previous version of this article stated that the solo runners would begin their race on August 3. They will begin their race on August 1. A previous version also stated that Cascade Relays holds a beer chase event in Coeur d’Alene, which they no longer do. This article has been updated with the correct information.
Head to Madras for the fair and rodeo, La Pine for a music festival, or hang out in Bend for live music and hot air balloons. Here are our picks for the best things to do around Central Oregon this weekend.
Photo courtesy of Lay It Out Events
Live Music and Comedy from Creed Bratton
July 25 | Bend
On Wednesday, don’t miss this one-of-a-kind show at the Volcanic Theatre Pub. Creed Bratton from “The Office” will be performing at music and comedy show that blends jazz, folk and pop music.
The Decemberists
July 26 | Bend
A Pacific Northwest favorite from Portland, The Decemberists arrive on the banks of the Deschutes River on Thursday. The band always puts a great show and will be performing songs from their newest album, I’ll Be Your Girl.
Balloons Over Bend
July 27-29 | Bend
Balloons Over Bend is a three-day festival designed for kids and families that takes place all around town. Witness hot air balloons rise with the sun, or stay at the festival late to watch them glow in the night. Saturday will have tons of activities for kids and families all day at the Deschutes Historical Museum.
Newberry Event Music & Arts Festival
July 27-29 | La Pine
Don’t miss this music festival in La Pine, a benefit for Defeat MS. The Newberry Event Music & Arts Festival in the woods at the Diamondstone Guest Lodges will have more than twenty bands playing throughout the weekend. It’s a family-friendly festival full of activities everyone will enjoy.
Jefferson County Fair & Rodeo
July 25-28 | Madras
Classic rodeo competitions take place Friday and Saturday evenings, but there are a lot of events and activities throughout the days to keep kids and families busy at the Jefferson County Fair & Rodeo. There will also be concerts from Box Canyon Bluegrass, Countryfied, Nate Botsford and The Rock Bottom Boys.
A naturalist observes the annual phenomena of the high lakes.
Photo by Kody Osborne
For the humans that inhabit Central Oregon, summer brings outdoor adventure, easy times and lasting memories. But for other species that inhabit the mountains and the high desert, summer can mean something more biologically meaningful: the beginning of life. The Western toad is one such species.
Few who have been to the high forest ranges of Central Oregon are free from stories of their encounters with the mass of migrating amphibians as they make their life’s journey from the waterways to the dry forest floors.
From Sunriver to Redmond and from Bend to La Pine, the Western toad (Anaxyrus boreas) inhabits lakes, rivers and ponds large and small. One iconic gathering of soon-to-be breeding adult toads happens in one of our region’s most popular hiking and outdoor recreation areas, Todd Lake.
Each year between May and June, varying upon the snow pack, or lack-thereof, adult Western toads of a typical minimum breeding age of nearly 3- to 5-years-old migrate from the waterless arboreal floors to the wet and wonderful waterways of the alpine lakes. There they coalesce in the dozens and begin the ritual of pairing up—i.e. toad dating.
After pairing up and mating, a female Western toad can lay an excess of 15,000 eggs, neatly strewn in a strand of “pearl necklace” like egg sacks, weaving and securing them to underwater vegetation near the water’s edge. At least ten female toads can lay eggs in the open waters of Todd Lake. By mid-May, these eggs develop into tadpoles in numbers that can exceed the hundreds of thousands.
The water will stir with movement of dark bodied amphibian larvae, which increase in size over the weeks to come. Complete metamorphosis can take up to three months, as these fish-like creatures transform to match the appearance of their adult parents. By late July to early August, the toads are ready to make the arduous journey from cool waters to the considerably warmer alpine slopes of the Deschutes National Forest.
This is when things get really exciting. Like colonies of ants on the hunt, the shorelines of Todd Lake begin to shuffle and shift with movements of the baby toads. They tend to take advantage of the cooler weather, moving in the early morning and late evening. The occasional summer thunderstorm bringing heavy rain can be especially significant in the assistance of comfort of travel for the still moisture-acclimating amphibians. They move through grasses and other debris, hoping to escape the jaws of hungry predators like the common garter snake or the stamping feet of nearby hikers.
These animals are significant because of their phenomenal march, but they are slowly disappearing from their native regions. The Oregon Conservation Strategy lists the Western toad as a sensitive species in Oregon, due primarily to the general loss of breeding habitat, road fatalities and human traffic in their migration routes. In other words, we are squeezing them out when we are not literally squishing them.
How can we help? Seeing how a boycott of these popular hiking destinations during the height of outdoor adventure and tourism is unlikely, we’ll have to settle for old-fashioned mindfulness. In fact, do visit these sites, but pay attention to our feet and tires. Witness the natural wonders of these incredible animals, and learn to appreciate the wilderness of Central Oregon, holistically. Just be careful, respect their space and don’t take them home as pets. They do much better in their own world and free from our disturbance.
Kody Osborne has been a professional naturalist and community resource for the Greater Central region for more than seven years. To hear more from your friendly neighborhood naturalist, log on to his website, or follow him on Facebook and Instagram. Have any story ideas or have a burning wildlife question? He’d love to hear from you!
From fundraisers to garden tours to mountain biking to live music, there are a lot of great events happening around Central Oregon this weekend.
Photo Courtesy of Mudslinger Events
Homewaters Roundup
July 19 | Bend
A fundraiser for the Native Fish Society, Homewaters Roundup will present a dinner and live auction at Miracle Barn in Bend with a variety of prize packages that you don’t want to miss out on. The Native Fish Society is a nonprofit advocating for wild fish in Oregon’s rivers.
Cork & Barrel
July 19-21 | Bend
Cork & Barrel is a three-day festival showcases some of the best wineries from around Oregon. This year’s event will also feature winemakers from Sonoma, California. The upscale food and wine tasting event is a fundraiser for the KIDS Center.
High Desert Garden Tour
July 21 | Bend
This is the twenty-fifth year of the High Desert Garden Tour presented by the OSU Extension Service and Central Oregon OSU Master Gardeners. The one-day event is a self-guided tour of six gardens around Bend to explore the variety of plants being grown in the high desert.
High Cascades 100
July 21 | Bend
Now in its tenth year, the High Cascades 100 is a favorite endurance mountain biking race that takes place on Central Oregon’s singletrack trails. It’s the largest single-day mountain biking event on the West Coast, and participants test their skills and stamina on a 100-mile course that challenges even the best bikers.
Live Music
Saturday night will have plenty of live music shows in Bend. Los Lonely Boys will be at the Tower Theatre, Whiskey Myers plays at Oregon Spirit Distillers, and local group G Bots and the Journeymen will take the stage at Elk Lake Resort.
With Summer Festival, Tour of Homes and plenty of live music across the region, there are a ton of great events happening in Central Oregon this weekend. Here are our picks for the best things to do.
Photo by Judy Trego
Live Music
If you’re in the mood for live music, this is a great weekend to be in Central Oregon. On Wednesday night, the T Sisters will be playing at Volcanic Theater Pub and classic rock group The Bad Cats will be at Redmond’s Music on the Green. On Thursday, Precious Byrd will be playing at Music in the Pines in La Pine. Munch and Music also kicks off that evening, with free music at Drake Park from The Romantics.
Tour of Homes
July 13-15 | Central Oregon
Take a peek inside some of Central Oregon’s most luxurious homes. The 2018 Tour of Homes begins this weekend. Hosted by the Central Oregon Builder’s Association, the tour is a DIY event where you can map your own tour around the region. Walk through one home or many and see the incredible design and craftsmanship.
Summer Festival
July 13-15 | Downtown Bend
Summer Festival will take over the streets of downtown Bend this weekend. During the day, find local vendors with fine arts, handmade goods, local food and drinks and more. On Friday and Saturday nights, stay late for the live music, which always draws a crowd.
Sisters Quilt Show
July 14 | Sisters
A week of activities surrounds the annual Sisters Quilt Show, which draws textile artists from around the state and beyond to see the colorful display of quilts that take over Sisters for a day. Head to the small town to take in the colorful quilts at this popular festival.
Time, travel and experience combine to create a unique home overlooking the Deschutes River.
When then-Portland couple Randy and Lynn started eyeing a second home to eventually retire to more than a decade ago, they fell in love with a view. The house, on the other hand, needed more than a little work. A rickety A-frame perched on a picturesque canyon, the home survived twelve more years as their part-time residence in Central Oregon while they maintained lives and careers in Portland. But when the windows started leaking water, the couple knew it was time to start over from the ground up.
“It was like a three-story waterfall,” said Lynn, recalling a particularly strong rainstorm that prompted nearly all the windows to fail. Windows weren’t the only problem. The quirky A-frame design was not conducive to their lifestyle or tastes. “It was not a house for growing old in,” said Lynn. “But we bought it for the location,” added her husband Randy of the house and eighteen-acre site overlooking the Deschutes. (The couple asked that their surname not be used to preserve their privacy.)
Working with Bend-based architect Scott Gilbride and general contractor Bryan Jolly, the couple first had the A-frame demolished and then quickly started construction under an unusually tight schedule designed to minimize noise pollution that could disturb some resident golden eagles, a federally protected bird whose breeding patterns are easily disrupted.
“We had to have the building up and the envelope enclosed in about four months before the nesting season began,” explained Jolly.
Lynn who, as a military brat, was raised in Albuquerque and Libya, had originally wanted a Southwest-style home complete with portal (porch cover), vigas (exterior beams) and kiva (a small, rounded fireplace). “I’d been designing this house in my head since I was 15 years old,” she said, “but thankfully Scott talked me out of that. It just would not have worked here.”
Instead Gilbride reinterpreted the Southwest style into a Pacific Northwest modern design with a flat-roofed, horizontal stucco structure that, like its Southwest counterparts, is designed in the same hues and materials as the surrounding area and has a layout intended to interact with the outdoors. “It needed to land softly on the site,” said Gilbride. “That site is ridiculously gorgeous.”
The neutral stucco and stone not only help the home blend into its site but also let the location remain the star. “The house was built to support the view,” explained Randy.
The neutral palette and materials continue inside the 2,600-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath home using natural colors as well as stone and wood. (Beams in the living room ceiling were repurposed from the old A-frame.) Inside, the couple had specified they wanted an open and informal ambiance that would be easy to live in and easy to care for. Large windows let in the view; tile floors are a practical nod to Lynn’s Southwest influences. The only flight of stairs leads to Randy’s home office, and the expansive kitchen is open to the dining and living area.
The neutral palette also provides a perfect foil to the couple’s world-wide range of inherited or discovered possessions that include a lighting fixture from Libya, artwork from Africa, Navajo rugs and Hopi kachina dolls from the American Southwest and furniture that Randy discovered while on a business trip in South Africa. The handmade furniture is crafted from rare Rhodesian teak harvested from salvaged railroad ties in South Africa. Randy and Lynn’s collection includes a Rhodesian teak dining room table, bench and chairs as well as various other tables around the home.
The home and the couple’s collections were further threaded together by interior designer Scott Brown of J.S. Brown Interiors, who added such elements as a massive wood door from India that serves as a piece of oversize art on the back patio and objets d’art elsewhere that unify building materials and the owners’ tastes.
Weaving together the site, their collections and their history, the couple created a home that blends seamlessly into an iconic desert landscape, creating a unique retreat designed to stand the test of time.
Friends of the Children is a long-term mentorship program founded by Duncan Campbell that takes an individual approach to ending poverty across the country.
Sarah Harmon, left, a paid mentor works with Ashley, right.
It’s been more than half a century since the sociologist and anthropologist Oscar Lewis first put forward a theory of cyclical poverty, a notion that the causes and symptoms of economic and social struggle could and would be passed down from parents to children, no different than blue or eyes or brown hair.
Even in the mid-1960s it was a radical notion in a country that had been spoon-fed stories of rugged individualism and bootstrap billionaires. Poverty as some sort of intractable trait that can trump intelligence and self-motivation runs counter to the very bedrock of the American ideal that all are created equal and that ours is a land of opportunity for all. Today, we have more evidence than ever that poverty is the cause and the symptom of circumstances that are often beyond an individual’s control. So how do we disrupt such a seemingly intractable force? It’s a question that has dogged policy makers for the better part of a century and one that weighed on the mind of Duncan Campbell, an Oregon businessman and philanthropist, who counted himself among the lucky few who managed to escape a life of poverty and neglect.
Campbell, who chronicled his own journey in his book The Art of Being There, graduated from college at the University of Oregon, earned a law degree and went on to amass a fortune managing timberlands around the Northwest. Two decades ago Campbell applied his business mind and his financial resources to an effort that took a different approach to the problem. Campbell decided to take a micro approach to a macro problem. Rather than focus on numbers and statistics, Campbell decided to focus on actual people.
The organization born from that idea, Friends of the Children, is now celebrating two decades of work and has grown from a single Portland chapter to fifteen states. In October, Campbell, a part-time resident of Sisters, helped to launch the first Central Oregon chapter, with four staff members and three “friends,” paid adult mentors who spend about four hours a week with at-risk kids who have been identified by parents, social workers and Friends staff who spend weeks monitoring and observing students at school. Parents are involved from the outset and those who participate are asked to sign up for a long-term commitment that introduces a mentor employed by Friends of the Children into the children’s lives. Those who enroll sign up for a twelve-year engagement that includes roughly four hours of contact each week between the mentor and student.
In Bend, roughly two dozen students are now participating in the program. The students’ backgrounds are varied; some are in the foster care system, some are in single-parent households struggling to make ends meet. This year, all of the participants attend either Ensworth Elementary or Bear Creek Elementary in Bend or the Redmond Early Learning Center. The idea is that children thrive when given the proper role models and a reliable support network. Mentors like Sarah Harmon sign up for a minimum three-year commitment and spend time in the classroom with their student “friends.” They also spend a couple of hours each week on weekend outings and one-on-one with the students at the Friends clubhouse where kids are offered snacks, a place to play games or just relax. Harmon who has worked in the outdoor leadership and child development field for more than a decade, including with Outward Bound, said she was drawn to a model that put so much emphasis on changing kids lives for the better.
“There are so many people who want to be there for all of these kids. Knowing that we are here too [for the kids] is comforting to a lot of people,” said Harmon.
John Flannery is in the business of helping people navigate Bend and has been for almost twenty years. Even if you don’t know Flannery, you’ve probably seen him over the years, shuttling customers in his pedal cab or zipping around in his Green Energy charter bus, entertaining clients with a stream-of-conciousness monologue over his PA system. Flannery traded the pedal cab and bus for Bend Tour Company, an adventure and cultural tourism business. His latest venture emphasizes what Flannery has been great at: sharing his love of all things Bend with a captive audience. Flannery launched the original roundabout art tour in his Green Energy shuttle days and remains a vocal proponent of Bend’s arts scene, advocating for people to “create with gumption.”
On Finding Himself
Bend basically came from wanting a town I knew I could commit to. I wanted a town that had some amenities, but I also wanted a town I could grow with. At that time, 1998, it was a community where you didn’t have to cross five highways to go outside, a community where I could find something to do besides being a bartender. I wanted to no longer be the guy getting people schnockered. That was when I started my bus (The Green Energy Transportation and Tour) taking people home once they did get schnockered!
On Change and Growth
I think people don’t understand that like any town, you can be part of the community beyond just living here. There is opportunity still for people to do what they want to do in the way they want to do it, but they need to create with gumption. If you are going to be here, please be a part of it. Bend has grown out of what it was and there is no going back, sadly. But we wouldn’t be the community we are without this development. The development has brought us great things like the High Desert Museum or the BendFilm Festival. The side I appreciate now, is the art community. Being on the Bend Cultural Commission, seeing people have a passion to support cultural aspects of this community rather than just the mountain bike trails or hiking trails, is really cool.
On Supporting Art
Art has passion behind it, history behind it. And for our community, there is a huge value there. I try to show on the tour that this is not just a town that went from resource extraction to recreation extraction, but rather there is so much more here. Whether it is professional artists or amateur artists, there is so much art everywhere, you pass it every day and even if you are not conscious of passing it, you feel it. It’s important and valuable to making our community happy. As we grow, I just hope people continue to support it.
On Finding Balance
Everybody values different things. Over the years, I have had to change how I am involved with the community. I have a kid now and I felt selfish, at first, not being so involved with things in town, but then I realized if I didn’t put my energy into my kid, he is going to grow up and be an asshole! So that is where a lot of my focus goes these days. One day my son asked me, “Why do we involve ourselves in things that have nothing to do with us?” and I explained, “Flannerys have always been a little grease on the skid, helping the world move along.” It’s not always altruistic—it does benefit us for things to go smoothly. It’s just a matter of keeping the world happier.
On Giving Direction
I get flack from someone I work with that I talk on the phone too much. Go figure, I’m a chatty Charlie! But, it has two purposes. One is to answer questions and the second is to cut off further questions, so they don’t need to call back. And wanting to make people feel welcome. A lot of my day is seeing people who look lost and engaging them and helping them get directions. There is nothing my kid hates more than when we see someone who looks lost. Because I’m like, “Hey, here’s our chance. Let’s see what they need!” And he is like, “Can’t we just go to the playground?” But, even if someone walks in our door and they aren’t looking for us, I just want them to land somewhere happy.
Artist and Central Oregon Community College instructor Bill Cravis has new dual installations at the COCC campus that subvert the status quo.
Bill Cravis
In a small gallery hidden away in the maze of the Central Oregon Community College campus is an exhibit with a big impact. Artist and instructor Bill Cravis created two separate installations in the Pence Gallery designed to be experienced.
The front half of the exhibit, Reality! Season One, evokes Andy Warhol’s 1962 Campbell’s soup can paintings. The work is stark, repetitive, minimalist and controversial like Warhol’s pop art was when he challenged traditions of fine art in the ’60s.
“This is art that is immersive,” explained Cravis. “This is art that you walk into and interact with. It’s not passive.”
Cravis made thirteen firetruck red boxes to display white ceramic coffee mugs. The boxes and mugs start huge—the mugs are large enough to hold a carafe of coffee—then diminish as the viewer moves around the room, eventually becoming dollhouse-sized. Each white mug is emblazoned in black with a single banner headline from The New York Times, starting with January 20, 2017, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration. A significant number of headlines are about the Trump presidency. The last tiny mug is dated January 19, 2018. Visitors tempted to pick up a mug may do so carefully.
“A lot of my work is satirical, like a jab,” he said. “But this is more objective. The primary metaphor is of something big and disturbing that begins shrinking until it becomes trivial. For me it’s very personal.”
Reality! Season One started with Cravis’s self-reflection of drinking coffee each day while reading or listening to news reports of suicide bombings, school shootings, environmental catastrophes and global tragedies. The overlap of “something so pleasurable with something so disturbing in the news” led to the installation, he said.
After her second visit to the show, COCC theater student Aislin Goldrick said, “It’s funny but kind of sad and depressing. These are all things that Trump said. The mugs with texts are simplistic and powerful, and the sheer quantity of them fills the room.”
In the back half of the gallery, Cravis finds his satirical voice in Happy Campers, which consists of four video monitors that loop sequences of people singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in their cars. Cravis started the project while living in Minnesota before coming to COCC to launch 3D Design and Sculpture programs in 2012. He finished the installation this year during an artist residency at Caldera in Sisters.
In Minnesota, he recruited about 120 individuals to sit in their cars and sing while he videotaped them. Because the participants were isolated without the benefit of hearing each other’s voices, the result is an uncomfortable dissonance. The image of traffic jams and solitary drivers “trapped in their hulking automobiles, bumper to bumper adrift in a sea of other solitary drivers, is a grand display of frustrated individuals getting nowhere,” he wrote of the exhibit. Outside the car windows is an eerie red, fiery glow that contrasts with the voices singing “life is but a dream.”
In a way, Cravis has created an installation that challenges the Central Oregon art community, which he feels is missing a contemporary beat. “It’s a place that hasn’t yet embraced 21st century art forms,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong here. I’m not making art objects as commodities to be passively consumed. I want my art to disrupt the status quo.”
The installation opened in May and runs through July 31. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and by appointment.
Rugged and remote, North Umpqua Valley offers endless opportunities for exploration.
Photo by Arian Stevens
The story of the North Umpqua Valley begins and ends with a river. In between are chapters filled with stories of rugged exploration and boundless recreation, bookended by tumbling waterfalls, percolating hot springs and singletrack trails that cling to mountainsides and carve through hidden valleys. Then there is the river itself that bubbles from deep beneath the jagged floor of the Mount Thielsen Wilderness high atop Southern Oregon’s Cascade Range. It emerges clear and cold, plunging headlong toward the ocean through an ancient forest that still harbors a few secrets. On its way, it will gather countless small streams, tributaries that stretch like liquid capillaries into the vast forest of old growth Douglas fir and cedar trees.
For millennia the rivers and forests have sustained a reclusive and resourceful population. Native Americans made this valley their home long before the first explorers came to North America. They hunted deer and elk in the surrounding forests, gathered migrating salmon and steelhead from the clear blue pools of the North Umpqua in the shadow of Mount Mazama, long before it erupted to form Crater Lake. The first European settlers would arrive later, drawn by the same bounty and sheltered beauty of a place so remote that the first paved road wouldn’t be laid down until the mid-1960s. Even today, cell phones are largely useless in the North Umpqua Valley. The remote nature of this place is one of its charms. In a hyperconnected world, unplugging on a visit to the North Umpqua isn’t just a recommendation—it’s a prerequisite.
On the Water
Of all the ways to experience and explore the North Umpqua River, whitewater rafting and kayaking has to be the most thrilling—in a white knuckle, screams-of-joy kind of way. While the North Umpqua doesn’t offer the remote, overnight extended adventures that have made its sister river, the nearby Rogue, an international rafting attraction, the jaw-dropping scenery, plunging chutes and sheer volume of whitewater make a day on the North Umpqua a must-do for any adventure-minded tourist looking for the full experience.
While there are local shuttles available for kayakers and DIY rafters, the river is not a place for novices. Numerous Class III and IV rapids as well as logs and boulders make it a run best left to experts and experienced paddlers. For the rest of us, there are multiple whitewater guide services that operate out of nearby Roseburg as well as Bend, including Sun Country Tours, which shuttles guests from Bend to the Umpqua and back in the span of a day.
Hook, Line, Sinker
Photo by Arian Stevens
The North Umpqua is in many ways ground zero for Northwest steelhead fly fishing, a sport that has been elevated to a kind of aesthetic art in places like the Steamboat Inn, where an entire room is dedicated to the sport’s literature and lore. The thread picks up early in the 19th century when pulp novelist and fishing fanatic Zane Grey set up his fishing camp opposite of what is now the Steamboat Inn, above a long gravel bar below Steamboat Creek. It was here that Grey, a prolific author, spent several summers chasing the fabled summer steelhead during the dawn hours and writing his serial Western novels on the banks of the river in the afternoon.
Today, thousands of anglers make an annual pilgrimage in hopes of intercepting one of these seemingly sacred fish on their spawning journey. It’s no small feat. Steelhead are known as the fish of a thousand casts. And that’s if you know what you’re doing. Assuming you don’t, there are several guides that work the thirty-mile, fly fishing-only section of the river around the Steamboat. The Inn offers a nice selection of hand-tied flies and can help arrange guided trips.
Trail Tales
Photo by Amadeus Tiller
The North Umpqua Trail is the most recent addition to the region’s list of draws for recreation seekers, having been completed in 1997. It consists of a dozen segments stretching from Maidu Lake, the source of the North Umpqua river, to Swiftwater Recreation Park and Deadline Falls near the small town of Glide, where hikers and bikers can pause to watch salmon and steelhead navigate the churning falls in feats of aerial acrobatics.
All told, the trail stretches roughly seventy-eight miles, climbing and diving through the valley’s many side canyons and forested arteries. On its way, the trail drops some 4,500 feet, making it a largely one-way trail for bikers not blessed with legs of Lance Armstrong.
Thankfully, several businesses offer shuttles as well as guided trips for those who believe that trail sections with names like Dread and Terror are best navigated with some expert assistance. Oregon Mountain Guides, based in nearby Idleyld Park, offers guided tours as well as shuttles and support.
Riverside History
photo by Joshua Rainey Photography
While most rafters and anglers opt for one of the many campgrounds that dot the banks of the North Umpqua, those looking for something more refined have a few options. First and foremost is the historic Steamboat Inn. The inn has been the center of civic and commercial life in the upper valley for more than half a century. The low-slung lodge and surrounding cabins sit on a picturesque bluff that noses into a sharp bend in the river, overlooking a series of braided falls just below the confluence of Steamboat Creek, the major tributary to the North Umpqua and a once bustling gold mining claim. Rooms range from suites with kitchenettes and private decks overlooking the river to small cottages adjacent to the Inn, as well as several more cabins across the river where Zane Grey’s fish camp once resided.
New owners Melinda and Travis Woodward have maintained the Steamboat’s reputation for great food, which is served up in a historic dining room under pictures of North Umpqua legends like Jack Hemingway and the late Dan Callaghan, who chronicled the river’s many moods in countless photos. In the middle of the room, below a display of fly rods suspended from the timber rafters, a single solid fir table stretches nearly the length of the room; historically, the table served as the communal gathering place for the evening meal.
The table remains, but Melinda and Travis have done away with the “Fisherman’s Dinner” single-seating concept in favor of a more conventional approach that allows diners to come and go at their convenience, which Melinda said works better for families and fisherman, most of whom are on the water in the evening until dark. They have also extended the off-season chef dinner series that pairs Oregon wineries with prominent chefs from around the state for an evening of riverside dining with emphasis on Oregon ingredients.
Other Attractions
Photo by Alex Jordan
Black diamond mountain bike trails and whitewater rafting aren’t necessarily suited for the whole family. But that’s not all that the North Umpqua has to offer.
Those interested in a more low-impact day can take a self-guided waterfall tour that features half a dozen falls, ranging from the dramatic (Watson Falls plunges more than 270-feet) to the sublime.
For those feeling a little more adventurous, Umpqua Hot Springs near Toketee Ranger Station is a popular destination.
Big Bend Pool on Steamboat Creek is another great option for families. Here you can find a window into the world of the elusive summer steelhead that stack in a deep blue pool waiting for nature’s cue to move farther upstream. Hundreds of steelhead can be seen here idling in the clear pool.
While there is plenty to keep you busy for days, if not weeks, within the valley, the area is also a popular jumping off spot for Crater Lake National Park. Nearby Diamond Lake Resort also offers a nice diversion for families who want a more traditional day at the beach, complete with pedal boats and ice cream cones.
How baseball and a bold Italian launched Bend’s nationally acclaimed parks district.
Photo courtesy of Deschutes Historical Society
On a summer evening at Vince Genna Stadium, the high desert sun pounding behind third base, the steam of hot dogs wafting, the crack of a bat punctuating the balmy night, one might ponder the venue’s namesake and conclude that his influence began and ended at home plate. It’s true that baseball brought the headstrong Italian to Bend, back when it was a mill town in the shadow of Bachelor Butte. But Genna contributed much more than the baseball diamond that carries his name. His work over decades shaped Bend’s nationally recognized parks and trails system, setting the stage for a recreation revolution that has elevated this city to one of the West’s best places to live and play.
From neighborhood parks to ballfields and urban trails, you don’t have to look far to see Genna’s lasting impression. It began in 1954, when Genna was gaining notoriety for coaching Little League and amateur baseball teams to state and regional championships in Salem. Local lumber baron Leonard Lundgren wanted that for Bend, so he convinced Genna to move here with his wife and two sons and paid to fund an assistant recreation manager position for the city.
Genna, a Washington state native and master sergeant who’d been awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, charged into the role, on a mission to leverage every volunteer and civic resource within reach. He was promoted to recreation director, did volunteer improvement projects around the city with the Junior Chamber of Commerce and coached Bend’s American Legion junior baseball team to the state title in 1958. Six years later, the city combined its Park and Recreation departments with Genna as its director. Like a talent scout working the minor leagues, Genna had an eye on every piece of prime city and county land that he could wrangle for a city park, especially ones suited for ball fields.
“He was the ultimate scrounger,” said Bruce Ronning, the district’s former director of planning and development. “He would twist arms, beg, borrow and steal to get his projects done.”
Vince Genna’s work positioned Bend as a city with a premier parks program. Photo courtesy of Deschutes Historical Society
For instance, one day in 1972, Genna was waiting in city hall for a meeting with the new city manager, Art Johnson. He was looking at a color-coded zoning map, and he got a green felt marker and drew where he thought the parks should be, essentially rezoning the city with a parks first mandate. Based on his creative edits, he got a local contractor and even the Deschutes County Public Works department to start building Ponderosa Park, said Paul Stell, who worked with Genna for thirty-one years, before retiring in 2012.
“The city, they figured it out,” he said. “It was almost complete when Art called Vince into his office and said, ‘Alright, you pulled a fast one here,’ and Vince pulled out a letter of resignation and said, ‘I’ll be gone if you want me gone,’ and Art said, ‘No way.’”
That year, the 3,500-seat baseball stadium, called Municipal Ball Park, was renamed for Genna.
He’d once told Stell what made him get up in the morning. “His favorite thing was to see a kid on his bike with a mitt on and holding a baseball bat, riding to go play with his buddies,” said Stell. “That’s what drove him—providing opportunities for young people was what it was all about for him.”
Vince Genna Stadium
Jim Crowell of Bend was a centerfielder on Genna’s American Legion amateur baseball team in Bend in 1954 while attending Bend High School. He recalled that Genna’s dream had been to play shortstop for a major league baseball team, but in 1942 his contract to play for the New York Yankees arrived along with his draft notice. During the war, Genna injured his shoulder, dashing his chances of hitting the big league.
“Vince was a dang good player … that’s what happened to young guys then—their dreams were interrupted,” Crowell said. That didn’t disrupt his passion for the game. “He didn’t make players love baseball, they loved it because of Vince. He treated us so well, and inspired us, if you will, with his incredible love for this game. He conveyed that to everyone on the team. We would’ve run through concrete walls if he’d asked us to.”
Wayne Smith worked with Genna for thirty-one years, retiring as district director of recreation in 2011. “You had to earn his respect and trust,” said Smith. He recalled having had the distinction of being fired by Genna—twice. The first time, over an issue with the pool, and the second time “for getting in his face” about accusing a district employee unjustly, he said. Smith went to work the next morning, and Genna acted as if nothing had happened.
“He had a big heart for kids and would do anything for them,” said Smith. “He was ruthless, domineering, aggressive and intimidated others, all in the interest of building the district. Vince made the district a powerhouse by hiring good people to take it to the level it is today.”
Genna oversaw the parks department for more than thirty years and died at age 86 in 2007. Today, the Bend Park & Recreation District has more than 2,700 acres of land, including eighty-one parks and seventy miles of trails.
Few complete the Pacific Crest Trail without a little help from friends and strangers—small acts of kindness dubbed “trail magic.”
A section of the Pacific Crest Trail
In 2015 my husband and I quit our jobs in Maine to hike the 2,658-mile long Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), a route that winds along the spine of the Sierra and Cascade Mountains from the Mexico border to Canada. It’s the equivalent of walking from New York City to Miami and back again—if the entire route ran across the top of a mountain range and spanned a desert.
The PCT is a journey that is both grueling and transformational. It’s also one that many choose to do alone, either for personal or logistical reasons. But few complete it without a little help from friends and strangers—small acts of kindness that the PCT tribe dubs “trail magic.” Trail magic occurs anytime someone helps a hiker out. That person is often called a trail angel. For some, giving back to the trail is more than a spontaneous gesture, it’s a ritual.
“Trail magic happens all the time,” said Mark Larabee, Pacific Crest Trail Association associate director of communications and marketing. “It can be anything from a ride to the store to a bag of kiwis left for hikers. It’s very spontaneous and comes from people wanting to give back. It kind of renews your faith in humanity.”
Setting out to hike from Mexico to Canada alongside thousands of other hikers was a life-changing experience for me. Afterward, despite the hunger, shin splints, monster-sized blisters, exhaustion, boredom and bee stings, we found ourselves longing for the trail, but with a relocation to Washington and new jobs, the logistics of another long-distance hike didn’t fit into our life. That’s when we decided to make a little magic of our own.
So, one weekend in July, when we predicted a hiker bubble would be passing through, we loaded up our Corolla with a little propane grill and enough food and drinks to feed a small army and headed into the Willamette National Forest to Charlton Lake, about fifty miles southwest of Bend.
Hungry, Hungry Hikers
Charlton is one of the many alpine lakes dotting the Oregon stretch of trail. It’s remote enough for trail magic to remain a surprise, but its primitive campsites were accessible by forest road, with a parking lot close enough to haul coolers from.
It was also a spot where we had received trail magic of our own in 2015 from a group of weekend campers. We had politely set up camp away from the group, so as not to disturb their festivities with our stench, and were about to dig into our dinner of cheese and peanut butter tortillas when one of them brought over pulled pork sandwiches, an avocado, cucumber and watermelon salad and two Rolling Rocks. After hiking a twenty-mile day, eating the fresh and home-cooked food while gazing out onto the glassy lake tasted like heaven. I think we ate our regular dinners too, because, well, hiker hunger.
Nathan “Bamboo” Voeg (everyone who thru-hikes picks a trail name that they go by while they’re on the trail), a thru-hiker from Montana whom we fed, said hiker hunger is “hunger that hits you after you have been on-trail for a month or so.” Voeg rolled into our trail magic camp in the late afternoon, proceeded to eat about three hamburgers, countless hot dogs and sodas and stayed for breakfast the next day, entertaining us with his stories of the trail. “You do not turn down food offered to you when you have achieved hiker hunger,” said Voeg, who is tackling the 3,100-mile Continental Divide Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada through the Colorado Rockies, this year.
We had around forty hikers come through, grilled up sixty hamburgers, thirty-two hot dogs and two veggie burgers, and doled out forty-eight cans of fruity soda, seventy-two beers, two bags of apples, four family-size bags of potato chips, Sour Patch Kids, baby carrots and baked goods I had been making and freezing all summer—basically everything we craved as hikers.
An Angelic Legacy
Trail angels evolved naturally from the trail. No one really knows their exact origins, but they probably started first on the older Appalachian Trail, which spans 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine, and later migrated to the PCT, which was first conceived of in 1926 but wasn’t officially completed until 1993.
Trail angels come in all shapes and sizes. They can brighten the spirits of a hiker on a tough day with something as simple as a jar of pickles anonymously left beside the trail, or maybe the angel is a little boy on a day hike with his father who shares his fruit rollup. They often provide a practical and necessary service like a ride into town. And every once in a while, an angel will provide some truly miraculous magic.
The author and her husband in the northern Cascade Range at mile 2,600 of the Pacific Crest Trail.
“You can do it once or make a lifestyle of it,” said Todd “Burning Man” Galewski, who hiked the trail in 2007 until he got snowed in at Bend, was offered a good job and never left. He received some memorable trail magic that year, like coming to a road crossing in the Mojave Desert where someone was making root beer floats for hikers, but the most memorable he credits to Scout and Frodo (aka Barney and Sandy Mann), legendary angels who have been welcoming hikers into their San Diego home for years. Galewski stayed with them before starting the trail, like many hikers (more than 900 in 2017) and had a chance encounter with them later on.
“Scout saved my life,” he said. He described how he had become so sick he could no longer hike when Scout and Frodo came upon him by chance while they were hiking in King’s Canyon, California. While the couple took a break on the way back to their car to chat with some friends, Galewski continued hiking to the trailhead, since he was going much slower. Delirious, he missed a switchback and stepped off-trail. When the Manns didn’t see him at their car, they turned around to search for him. Scout finally noticed faint footprints and found him dehydrated and unconscious in a field, with what he later found out at the hospital was giardia (an infection contracted from drinking contaminated water) and the flu.
The two stay in touch. “Scout came up to visit me and my family in Bend,” said Galewski. “We have a lifelong bond. He feels very responsible for my life.”
If you were lost in the woods near Bend, it was local trail angel Lloyd Gust you called. A world-traveled hiker with a deep familiarity of the region’s trails, Gust provided trail magic in the form of rides and much more for over ten years, until he was no longer able to at age 84.
“The unique thing about him was that he was the type of guy that when you’d call and say, ‘I’m lost,’ he’d say, ‘That’s good, that makes two of us. Look to the east and tell me what you’re looking at, now look to the west, the north, the south. Oh, I know where you are. Go to your right, there’s a little trail that will take you to the trailhead and I’ll be there to pick you up,’” said Brian “Uber Ducky” Douglass, Gust’s friend and personal assistant, who took over for him five years ago.
“Lloyd used to tell stories of getting woken up in the middle of the night by hikers calling who were really sick or injured,” said Cat Addison, another local trail angel.
A mail drop for hikers along the PCT.
Gust passed away four years ago and Douglass has been carrying on, giving rides to hikers, and has organized a group of a dozen or so mostly retired locals to help. “Gray beards, gray hair—that’s what they get,” said Douglass, who is retired from a career in public service. He’s not a hiker but saw the need for the service. He and his group of angels pick up hikers at the three main trailheads and bring them to the post office, grocery story or REI, suggest affordable places to stay and take them back to the trail the next day.
Last year was an exceptionally challenging year for hikers due to a deep snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains and wildfires closing down most of the trail in Oregon and Washington, making trail angels even more important. The fires left many hikers stranded in Bend, which is when Woody Keen, “Nibbles,” a retired trail planner and builder, began trail angeling by driving hikers around the wildfires in the Sisters Wilderness Area.
“I learned of trail angel work, posted my name up for help and started getting all kinds of requests for shuttle assistance,” said Keen, a trail runner who does volunteer trail maintenance and education through the PCTA. “I am retired so have free time, a large truck that can haul lots of hikers and packs, and am pretty familiar with sections of trail through this area.”
The Trail Provides
There’s a saying on these long-distance trails—“The trail provides”—a testament to both the unexpected magic of strangers and the free spirit successful hikers need to embrace. That’s not to say hikers aren’t prepared. They often spend months figuring out their food supplies, use maps and water reports to find viable water sources and never count on trail magic.
The Pacific Crest Trail Association warns hikers not to rely on trail angels or water caches. “Being self-reliant is part of long-distance hiking,” said Larabee, who has section-hiked large portions of the PCT. “It’s kind of the antithesis of relying on trail magic and trail angels.”
“If you plan on it or can count on it, it isn’t nearly as magical,” said Voeg.
The PCTA doesn’t want to stop trail angels, “but at the same time we want them to be responsible for what they put out there,” he said. “We tell people if you’re bringing food out, stay with the cooler and hand it out then bring back everything you brought in.”
Addison or “Catdog,” who has thru-hiked both the Appalachian Trail and PCT, used to put a cooler out at Santiam Pass with chocolate chip cookies and sodas that she would restock every weekend, but stopped after a bear got to it.
Trail crews make the Pacific Crest Trail better for everyone who hikes the famous route.
“We’re really pushing Leave No Trace—being sensitive to the landscape and wildlife,” said Larabee. “Lots of people with good intentions leave coolers out and they turn into basically garbage, and our trail crews are cleaning them up.”
These days Addison will offer hikers rides, but her primary way of giving back to the trail is trail work. She is certified through the PCTA and assigned a section of trail to maintain, taking a group of women out with her each year.
For Addison and many other angels, giving back to the trail any way they can brings them closer to something they love. Addison said she feels a little twinge of sadness during the springs when she is not planning a big hike, but others are departing on their epic journeys, whether on the PCT, Continental Divide or Appalachian Trail. Next year, she plans to hike the Colorado section of the CDT. In the meantime, she will keep working on her angel wings.
“Once you do something like this you feel so empowered, you just want to do it again,” Addison said.
Red Duck Foods is an organic condiment company based in Bend and Portland that aims to become a national brand.
Six years ago, Karen Bonner met up with two of her classmates from the University of Oregon’s MBA program at Rennie’s, a beloved restaurant and bar near campus. They were brainstorming business ideas for a project for their entrepreneurship class, and the trio’s attention turned to the ketchup on the table.
“We started talking about condiments and why you would pour a bottle of high fructose corn syrup on really delicious, consciously sourced food,” Bonner said. The group landed on the idea of an organic condiment company, which they aptly named Red Duck Foods (the color of ketchup plus their school mascot).
Now Red Duck’s eleven condiments—which have extended far beyond ketchup—are sold around the world. The company, based in Bend and Portland, also launched three taco sauces earlier this year; the sauces will debut across all Whole Foods stores in August.
A School Project With Legs
While still at UO, Bonner and her project partners, Shannon Oliver and Jess Hilbert, began tinkering with ketchup recipes in their kitchens. “We’d take it to classes when we’d present the idea and people told us they’d buy it right then,” she said.
Producing the condiments was a group effort—the trio would make the ketchups in a rented commercial kitchen, then hand ladle it into bottles. Their friends and family were fans, but they knew they were on to something after they ran a successful Kickstarter campaign in May 2013. The campaign raised $25,525 and was supported by more than 600 people around the world. By the time the women graduated with their MBAs the following month, their three flavors of organic ketchup were available in Eugene stores.
At that point, Bonner, who now lives in Bend, faced a choice—to pursue this fledging startup or move on with her original career plans. She ended up turning down a job offer at Intel and passing up a PhD program to follow the condiment experiment.
“We were really excited about the opportunity to build something from the ground up,” said Bonner, who is Red Duck’s chief financial officer.
A National Brand
Red Duck continued to grow, with the founders initially driving around the state, their trunks filled with ketchup bottles that they personally delivered to stores. Bonner noted that a few key milestones put them on track to create a much bigger brand.
For instance, Red Duck was picked up by two national, natural food distributors, which allowed them to introduce their products to more places—and stop delivering themselves. They also got into the Bend Whole Foods store about four years ago, and the manager there championed their brand to other locations in the region.
More recently, the company also became a certified B Corp, a recognition of Red Duck’s commitment to environmentally and socially responsible business practices.
“We want our company to have delicious products, but we also want everything to be done the right way,” said Bonner. Looking forward, the founders anticipate that Red Duck will continue to grow, adding products and expanding their availability.
“We want to build our brand recognition to the point where we’re the preferred sauce in everyone’s refrigerator,” said Bonner.
Unlikely duo grows an artisan beef and pork concept in Tumalo called Pioneer Ranch. (Photo: Beau Beach and Evan Moran at Pioneer Ranch in Tumalo.)
There are no big iron gates at the entrance to the driveway that leads to Pioneer Ranch. There is no archway displaying the ranch’s brand. You won’t even find a horse on this thirty-acre property tucked between Bend and Sisters. What you will find is a herd of beef cattle lolling in a pasture framed by the Three Sisters mountains. The cows, a mix of beef cattle breeds, are the backbone of Pioneer’s booming artisan beef business. They are also the test subjects in owner Evan Moran’s ongoing quest to create the perfect steak.
Pioneer Ranch History
Rewind to 2014. Moran, a pharmacist by trade, had recently relocated his family to Bend from the Fresno area. Moran was working at the Bend Rite Aid pharmacy and living on Bend’s west side when he started toying with the idea of buying some property and playing farmer. “It was really just to get out of town,” said Moran, during a recent tour of his property. “We went from one-third of an acre to thirty acres.”
Moran acquired five pigs within a few months after the move in 2015. At the same time, Moran had been developing a friendship with Beau Beach, the gregarious owner of Bom Dia coffee on College Way near Central Oregon Community College, where Moran would regularly stop in for a cup of joe. Beach is the product of a Cottage Grove logging family and grew up close to the land. A natural entrepreneur, Beach worked briefly in emergency services before realizing he was more suited to running a business than an ambulance.
Moran was going through a similar mid-career reevaluation when the two struck up a friendship. The duo started casually throwing business ideas around. Moran’s new property seemed like the perfect incubator for an artisan ranch concept. Moran would provide the land and handle the animal science. Beach would provide the entrepreneurial spark needed to differentiate Pioneer Ranch from the rest of the pack. With a handshake, the business was born.
Just two years later, the operation has taken off. Pioneer Ranch is up to a population of nearly 100 beef cattle this year. The hog operation has outgrown a former horse corral and is set to move off-site to land leased from a neighbor. Customers meanwhile are lining up for Pioneer Ranch’s products, which are available in boxes of selected cuts of beef and/or pork through Pioneer’s website and available for pick-up at Bom Dia.
The Difference in Pioneer Ranch
The key is flavor. The secret, said Beach, is a combination of breed and feed. When it comes to beef, the two believe they have hit on the perfect formula that relies on a traditional grass-fed pasture approach combined with a multistep grain-finish process that employs spent grains from local brewers and Bend Distillery. Pioneer takes a similar approach with its pigs, believing that good flavor can be developed. That has also allowed them to use non-traditional breeds, such as Berkshire pigs, one of the staples of Pioneer’s herd.
Beach credits Pioneer’s rapid growth in part to the unique product, but also Central Oregon’s conscientious consumers. “Bend is all about being local and being educated,” he said.
The response has Beach and Moran working long hours to meet demand, but it’s a good kind of busy. “It’s growing so much faster than we expected. Our business plan is changing on a daily basis,” said Beach.
Moran and Beach have big plans for the brand, for sure. In the meantime, you can sample their products as hamburgers, kebobs and more at regular tasting events at Bom Dia, where Beach is hosting a barbeque the first Wednesday of the month throughout the summer. You can also find them at the Tumalo Coffeehouse on Tuesdays, where they will be offering meals and selling their signature Pioneer Ranch select meat boxes. Pioneer will also be at all the requisite festivals, including Munch and Music, Bite of Bend and Bend Summer Festival.
EML Sparklies reminds the women of Central Oregon that earrings always fit.
Earrings by EML Sparklies
Erin Latham made her first piece of jewelry before she’d finished middle school. “I had a school dance to go to, and I didn’t want to buy my jewelry,” she recalled. “So I made a simple necklace to go with my black dress. That’s what started everything.”
Latham is the creative force and woman-power behind EML Sparklies, a Bend-based jewelry business that specializes in large-scale hoop earrings featuring natural gemstone beads. She makes necklaces and bracelets, too, incorporating mixed metals and beads from opals to labradorite to rose quartz.
Her creative journey may have begun in her hometown, Grants Pass, where she spent the first eighteen years of her life, but Latham didn’t start seriously making and selling her work until about six years ago. “I started selling jewelry to pay for my beads,” she said. “I called it my self-sustaining hobby.”
Erin Latham
In the early days, buyers were colleagues at St. Charles Medical Center, where Latham works full-time as an x-ray technician. Word of mouth about her work spread, and people began tracking her down in the halls. “They’d ask, ‘Are you the earring girl?’” she said.
She soon leased a booth in a Bend collective shop, a step towards formalizing a business. Latham and her mother had a longstanding joke, inspired by a scene in the children’s film The Secret of NIMH: while out shopping, one would declare: “I must have that sparkly.” The joke plus her initials became her endeavor’s name. Today, EML Sparklies is available at Hello Sunshine in the Old Mill District, Clementine in downtown Bend and White Buffalo in Madras.
Commercial access to her creations hasn’t stopped people from chasing her down in person. “I was at First Friday recently and someone tried to buy the earrings off of my head,” Latham laughed.
This kind of personal connection that can develop between Latham and her customers is what she especially loves about her side business. “I love helping people feel pretty,” she said. Earrings are her favorite creation because they are so varied and versatile. “Earrings make you smile, they make you feel good. You can wear earrings in any season with any outfits.”
Latham makes all her products on the living room floor of the home she shares with her fourteen-year-old son, pounding out metal forms on an iron railroad tie, mostly late at night. “It’s loud,” she said. “Luckily he’s a sound sleeper.” All her work is in brass or stainless steel, with semi-precious stones providing the sparkle. “My absolute favorite is labradorite,” she said. “It’s very dynamic in different colors and goes with everything.”
The colors and shapes of natural stones are her inspiration, as is the process and evolving techniques of making jewelry. “As I am making something, I take the concept and deconstruct it,” she said. “I think of new ways to twist it.” Designs evolve over time; many of her newer earrings have hinges to provide a pleasant swing. “I love kinetics.”
Latham came to Bend eighteen years ago to complete her final year of training as an x-ray technician at St. Charles and has been here ever since. Today, in addition to her duties as a tech, she also works as a clinical coordinator, supervising students from Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls who have come to Bend to train on the job as she did. “I have three students at a time working full-time under me,” she said. “I love making it a positive experience for them. I’m their advocate, cheerleader and giver of tough love when they need it. I love watching the year unfold for them and seeing how far they come from start to finish.”
Latham’s day job is a lot of responsibility, which is what makes it even more rewarding to go home at night and make pretty things for people to wear. “That someone chooses to spend their disposable income on something I sat on my living room floor and made with so much love—it’s very personal and gratifying.”
Make the most of your precious 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. time and try out one of these five micro-adventures in Central Oregon.
Summer goes by in the blink of an eye. While weekends are usually the best time to get out for adventures, there’s also a way to make the most of your after-work hours. Microadventures are a great way to make the most of your 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. time, especially in Central Oregon with such close access to wilderness.
Canoe camp at Sparks Lake
Start: 26 miles west of Bend at Sparks Lake (boat ramp) Canoe: Head toward the south end of the lake for campsites with open mountain views or explore one of the fingers for a more secluded site Payoff: Nothing beats a calm, glassy paddle in the early morning when most of the world is sleeping
Backpack to Lucky Lake
Start: 38 miles west of Bend at Lucky Lake Trailhead Hike: An easy 1.4 miles one way to the lake Payoff: A nice wooded lake perfect for warm evening swims and a leisurely morning exit
Backpack to Moraine Lake
Start: 27 miles west of Bend at The Green Lakes Trailhead Hike: A gradual 5-mile hike along a waterfall-laden creek Payoff: South Sister right in front of you makes for a nice breakfast setup
Bikepack up Tumalo Creek
Start: In Bend, directly from your office Bike: Head west on Skyliner Road and turn right on Forest Road 4606 (Brooks Scanlon Logging Road) for approximately 2.5 miles. Turn left on Tumalo Creek Road (if you cross Mrazek Trail, you’ve gone too far) and bike until you find a nice spot along the ridgeline Payoff: Open views of the Cascades (plus a downhill return in the morning)
Rain Plan: Bikepack to Tumalo State Park yurts (reserve ahead of time)
Start: In Bend, directly from your office Bike: Depending on your starting location, take either Johnson Road or O.B. Riley Road a handful of miles Payoff: Biking in the rain isn’t so bad if you have a warm spot to dry off afterward. Plus, your friends or family can be there waiting, with dinner and beer.
Camping doesn’t have to be a haul. Check out these camping spots all within a one-hour drive from Bend.
Camping on Skyliners Road
With summer heating up and the crowds starting to pour in, everyone’s itching to skip town for the weekend and head outside. Skip all of the fuss and take your pick from these ten easy-access spots within an hour drive from Bend. Whether you prefer relaxing by a rushing river or taking moonlight paddleboard trips on calm lake water, we have you covered.
Tumalo State Park
Only four miles northwest of Bend on the Middle Deschutes River and in close proximity to Sisters and Smith Rock State Park, the Tumalo State Park Campground is an optimal location for Central Oregon adventures. Be prepared for some serious glamping because this convenient site offers full restrooms and solar showers. There are twenty-three full hook-up sites, fifty-four tent sites and seven rustic yurts, but it can get busy in the heat of the summer, so make sure to reserve a campsite in advance. Relax in the park and enjoy a lazy float on a shallow stretch of the river or barbecue at one of the many picnic areas.
Driving time: 15 minutes Facilities: Restrooms, solar showers, water, ice and firewood during summer months Fees and reservations: $21/day for a tent site, reserve online in advance Open: Year-round, some sites closed seasonally
Skyliners Road
Looking for some convenient, no-fuss camping right in town? There are many dispersed campsites right off of Skyliners Road near the rushing waters of Tumalo Creek. Head up Skyliners Road and take the second turn on the right onto Brook-Scanlons Logging road, an unmarked, gravel road. Bear left when the road soon splits and continue on a dirt road until you cross a bridge over Tumalo Creek. Snag one of the few spots to the right of this bridge in close proximity to the water or continue up this road to find a large group campsite. This site sits on a clearing atop tall basalt cliffs and is a perfect spot to watch the sunrise. If these spots are taken, as they attract a lot of traffic in the busy summer months, set up camp at any clearing along the way and always remember to leave no trace.
Driving time: 25 minutes Facilities: No restrooms or water, dispersed camping Fees and reservations: Available on first-come, first-serve basis Open: Year-round
Sparks Lake
With astounding views of South Sister, Broken Top and Mount Bachelor, lush meadows and clear green-blue water, Sparks Lake is a camper’s dream. There are approximately twenty campsites around its shallow shores. Those accessible by car are limited and get scooped up quickly in the busy summer months. Your best bet is to hop on a canoe, kayak or paddleboard and transport your gear to one of the more secluded sites. For big groups, set up camp at one of the larger sites in one of the lake’s fingers on the eastern shore. These spots can also be reached by a hiking trail that starts at the day use area. Venture to the western shore to relax on sandy beaches and wake up to picturesque views of the mountains.
Driving time from Bend: 40 minutes Facilities: Boat ramp at day use area, no water or restrooms Fees and reservations: $5 Day Pass or NW Forest Pass for parking, no reservations Open: May-November, depends on winter closure of Cascade Lake Scenic Byway
Fall River Campground
Right outside of La Pine and thirty miles south of Bend, find a quiet campsite on the Fall River. The stream is spring-fed stream and flows into the Deschutes. There are twelve spacious sites situated near the water. The river is shallow, yet some of the clearest water in the area and well-known for fly fishing. The Fall River Trail starts at the campground, offering fantastic fly fishing and two-mile out and back loop. If looking to swim at South Twin Lake, pitching a tent at Fall River and making day trips to the lake is a great way to beat the South Twin crowds.
Driving time: 40 minutes Facilities: Toilets but no running water, campfire rings and picnic tables Fees and reservations: $10 per night for the first vehicle and $5 for each additional vehicle, reserve in advance online Open: Year-round
The Bivy @ Smith Rock
Live the dirtbag dream and pitch your tent next to the breathtaking 500-foot walls at Smith Rock. A short walk from the rocks, this site yields climbers and hikers alike from all corners of the world. While Smith Rock is a world-renowned climbing spot, it has an elaborate trail system also making it a destination for hikers. In addition to the exquisite views and convenience, this site boasts full restrooms, showers and drinking water. Campfires are not allowed due to high fire risk, however, picnic tables are scattered throughout the site to cook on. Sites are available on a first-come, first-served basis, so make sure to come early in the busy in the busy summer months.
Driving time: 45 minutes Facilities: Restrooms, shower ($2 for non-campers), water, recharging station Fees and reservations: $8 per person per night, includes a parking pass for next day, available on a first-come, first-served basis Open: Year-round
Little Fawn
This often overlooked campsite is tucked in the diverse conifer forest on the south end of Elk Lake. With thirty-two sites, many of which are suitable for large groups, it is this popular Cascade Lake’s largest campground. It is also the only the lake’s only campsite tucked away from the highway, giving it a feeling of tranquility and serenity. The site provides easy access to both Elk Lake and the family-friendly cove, Little Fawn. A quick paddle brings you to the larger lake where you can enjoy beautiful mountain views. Relax on the beaches at Little Fawn and enjoy water warmer and shallower than the larger lake. Little Fawn’s water level varies dramatically depending on the snow year, so be prepared for more of a marsh on low snow years.
Driving time: 50 minutes Facilities: Single-family and group sites, tent and RV camping, but no electrical hookups, restrooms and drinking water, picnic tables and campfires rings Fees and reservations: $16 for the first vehicle and $8 for each additional vehicle, reserve in advance Open: June to September
Scout Lake
The local swimming hole for Sisters residents, Scout Lake has a small ten-site campground. With both single-family and group sites, the campground is popular, so claim one of the smaller sites or make reservations early and bring the whole family. The site is located adjacent to the day use area where you can take a dip in the warm water and relax on sandy shores. Dogs are not allowed in the day use area, so consider leaving your furry friend at home. For sanitation and safety concerns, Scout Lake is one of the few recreation sites in the Deschutes National Forest where dogs are not allowed.
Driving time: 50 minutes Facilities: Restrooms and drinking water, picnic tables and campfires rings Fees and reservations: Minimum $18 per night, reserve online in advance Open: May to September
Metolius River
Cool off in Oregon’s coldest river at Riverside Campground along the Metolius River. Upstream from Camp Sherman and the majority of the other campgrounds, this site is tent-only and one of the lesser-developed sites on this river, adding to its allure; it is one of the more remote and tranquil campgrounds on this river. The site is approximately 100 yards set back from the river but still yields anglers from all over. The spring-fed river features rainbow trout, whitefish, bull trout and kokanee salmon. Hiking trails are also accessible from this location.
Driving time: 50 minutes Facilities: Toilets but no running water, picnic table and campfire ring with grill, tents only Fees and reservations: $12/first vehicle; $6/each additional vehicle, reserve in advance online Open: May to October
Paulina Lake
You can wade in the water from your campsite at Little Crater Campground on Paulina Lake, nestled in the Newberry Volcano’s caldera. Pitch a tent or bring the entire rig—there’s room. With this site’s close proximity to mountain biking on the Newberry Crater Rim Trail and the short hike to lakeside geothermal hot springs combined with opportunities to boat, swim or fish, there are activities for the entire family. In the busy summer months, this site is in high demand, so make sure to make reservations early. If this campground is full, try Paulina Lake Campground on the lake’s southwest shore.
Driving time: 1 hour Facilities: Restrooms and drinking water, picnic tables and campfires rings, boat ramp Fees and reservations: $16 per night, reserve online in advance Open: May to September
Crooked River
With sixteen campsites weaving along the Lower Crooked River Wild and Scenic stretch, the Chimney Rock Campground, located outside of Prineville, offers year-round views of steep basalt canyons and highly sought-after fly fishing. Among the nine campsites on this eight-mile stretch of federally protected water, this is the only campsite with both potable water and restrooms. The Chimney Rock Trailhead is adjacent to the campground, leading to a 2.6-mile round trip hike providing breathtaking views of the canyon and surrounding mountains.
Driving time: 1 hour Facilities: Restrooms and drinking water, group sites Fees and reservations: Available on first-come, first-serve basis, camping fees apply Open: Year-round
Whether you’re in Redmond, Sunriver, La Pine or Bend this weekend, there are a lot of great events around Central Oregon.
Crooked River Roundup Photo by RM Images
Music on the Green
June 27 | Sam Johnson Park, Redmond
Redmond’s annual Music on the Green summer concert series kicks off this week. Head to Sam Johnson Park in the evening to listen to live music from Todd Haaby and Sola Via. There will be a bouncy house and playground for kids and local food and drinks onsite. The concert starts at 6 p.m. and goes until 7:30 p.m.
Crooked River Roundup
June 28-30 | Crooked River Fairgrounds, Prineville
Central Oregon’s rodeo season continues at the Crooked River Roundup in Prineville, a community institution for over 70 years. Watch entertaining and family-friendly rodeo performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 7 p.m.
Deschutes Brewery 30th Anniversary Party
June 30 | Drake Park, Bend
The OG Bend craft brewery turns 30 this year, and to celebrate, Deschutes is hosting a bash at Drake Park on Saturday. Live music starts at noon and there will be plenty of brews to sip on all day. The event is free and family-friendly (but leave the puppers at home). The Bend Pub is going to be closed all day for the event.
Run for the Birds
June 30 | Sunriver
Run for the Birds, the annual fundraiser for the Sunriver Nature Center and Oregon Observatory, takes place on Saturday morning. Join the 5k race or the 1k kids race along the trails and through the meadows of Sunriver. The first, second and third place winners will receive a free one-night stay at Sunriver Resort.
La Pine Frontier Days
July 1-4 | La Pine
The Fourth of July festivities start early in La Pine with Frontier Days kicking off on July 1. There will be live music nightly until 10 p.m. (9 p.m. on the 4th), the annual fun run/walk, lawnmower races, karaoke, a quilt show and barbecues.
Microadventures are a way to squeeze in outdoor time in the summer.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, I hopped in my car outfitted that morning with my trusty old canoe and camping gear and picked up my friend and photographer Nate Wyeth. Just over an hour later, we were dipping the Old Town Seranac (built for comfort, definitely not for speed) in the calm waters of Sparks Lake, a shimmering jewel in a string of lakes just off the Cascade Lakes Scenic Highway twenty-five miles west of Bend. For the next twelve hours, we were going to sneak in a midweek “microadventure.”
A handful of years ago, a friend and frequent adventure buddy introduced me to the idea of a microadventure. The concept of a weeknight outing that takes place between the hours of 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. immediately struck a resonant chord with me. After all, I live in Bend, a location known for quick access to the outdoors, wide variety of recreation opportunities and adventure tourism.
The introduction was sent by way of a video created by British adventurer, explorer and writer Alastair Humphreys. The goal, Humphreys states, is to encourage people to get outside and out of their comfort zone to a place they’ve never been. More specifically, a microadventure is one that is close, accessible, simple, short and easy. For a young father with a busy work schedule, lots of side projects and hobbies, this seemed to be a perfect fit.
“Above all, adventure is about energy, enthusiasm, ambition, open-mindedness and curiosity,” said Humphreys in his video. “You don’t have to have huge adventures all the time: I accept that we all have to pragmatically juggle our ‘real lives’ too. You can have a small adventure. A microadventure.”
Humphreys chronicled his year of microadventures nearly seven years ago, but the concept quickly gained steam in the United States. Fueled by the power of social media, the hashtag #microadventure has more than 90,000 tags and counting on the popular photo-sharing social network Instagram.
My first real microadventure was five years ago. Since then, I’ve had dozens of them ranging from bikepacking up to a forest shelter to backpacking a few miles into the woods for a spectacular weeknight showing of the Persied meteor shower. Most recently, though, I decided to rediscover the trip that began my own personal microadventure odyssey, a canoe camp at the beautiful and alluring Sparks Lake in Central Oregon.
Now I’ll admit that I’m guilty here of breaking one of Humphrey’s rules of microadventures: “Do what you normally do not do, and go somewhere you’ve never been.” Some places are worth repeating, however, and after finding the perfect camping site during the first weeknight trip in 2013, I decided I was okay with one asterisk on my microadventure resume. As we glided over the pristine waters on a brilliantly sunny evening, we felt like we were cheating the weekend. The beauty of Sparks Lake is no secret to residents of Central Oregon, and on any given weekend day there is nary a parking spot in the sizable lot around the boat ramp. The workweek is a different story, and we found ourselves one of only a handful of people enjoying the waters on a beautiful evening.
As we silently congratulated ourselves on our microadventure choice, we took in the views of the looming mountains in front of us. Still snowcapped South Sister shone in the crepuscular light, and Broken Top stood gallantly beside on the western horizon. Soon enough, we berthed the canoe behind a facade of lava rock and found one of many seemingly perfect spots to make camp and settle down to watch the sunset over the lake.
Words simply can’t describe some moments in nature. When the right combination of factors align, a warm contentedness washes over you, and you simply count yourself lucky that you are where you are in that particular moment in time. Sparks Lake in perfect light on a beautiful summer evening is one of these moments. For Wyeth, an accomplished photographer and avid nature seeker, this moment couldn’t be clearer as he grinned ear to ear while setting up his shots.
“Oregon is filled with so many spectacular places and so many are right at our fingertips,” said Wyeth. “Microadventures were made for this state.”
As the sun went down, we settled in, ate a quick meal and put on jackets for one last outing. Though it was now well past dusk, the calm, clear waters on a full-moonlit night begged for one more chapter in this weeknight outing. We slid the canoe into water, cracked open a couple of cold beers and idly paddled around the perimeter of the lake enjoying the summer night. We discovered we were one of only three groups camping on the lake.
The next morning, we rose with the sun and drank our coffee on the rocky ledge overlooking the water. The high desert air had a crispness about it, only hinting toward the warmer temperatures yet to come later in the day. Packing up our gear, we tried keeping our minds on the scenery around us and not on the workday ahead.
As we pulled back into town around 8:30 a.m., we still felt an energy from the microadventure. Being able to pull off a weeknight camping excursion and still make it to work before 9 a.m. feels like a mistress to your regular nine-to-five day. Though it’s your own time, it seems like you’re somehow cheating the workweek. And maybe you are. But your boss never needs to know.
For years yards were synonymous with lawns. That’s changing as more people are extending their relaxation and entertainment space beyond the four walls of their home. So how do you transform a backyard from space to a place? That takes a little magic.
For homeowner Paul Nicholas, magic happened when he found landscape designer Suzanne Day Audette to work with him on transforming the backyard in ways that would complement the Broken Top home’s architecture and divvy up space according to activities and visual preferences.
“When I bought the house, the outside didn’t seem that welcoming,” said Nicholas. The yard backs up to the golf course and originally had a lawn without much else of interest, except what he calls a “bad water feature.” He felt that removal of the grass and water feature would be more thoughtful of water usage and compatible with the desertscape. He had no specific ideas when he hired Audette, other than to build the backyard around activities he and his family enjoy and also incorporate hardscapes for people with mobility challenges.
To find the right designer, Nicholas bypassed several landscaping firms that saw his project as not much more than a patio. Newport Ave. Landscaping, which would eventually do the work on the yard, put him in touch with Audette for her vision and concepts. “Suzanne and I bonded instantly over art, ideas and outcomes,” he said. “Having a designer with a masters degree in landscape architecture with a sensitivity about who and how the space would be used made all the difference.”
Both Audette and Nicholas agreed that a dominating theme would be to contrast the human-made environment with the chaos of nature. This meant that the outdoor space would start with a formal patio to reflect the formal interior of the home, and then become more chaotic in meandering paths, a dry creek bed that replaced the water feature, and xeriscape (low water use) plants, shrubs and trees. “As you journey farther from the home, formalities start to disappear and disorderly nature takes over,” said Audette.
They also added a unique and difficult-to-accomplish fire feature set into the ground where it blends into the dry creek bed. “This is a pretty radical design for Broken Top,” Audette said of the many requirements they had to navigate to build it. Like other high-end developments in wildfire zones, Broken Top allows only gas-fueled fire features and asks homeowners to clear low-hanging limbs and use noncombustible rocks. In addition, Nicholas had to hook into the natural-gas line in his home rather than at the barbecue or propane tank. The cost of running a line from a home can range from hundreds to thousand dollars, according to Audette.
Nicholas believes the cost was worth it. When turned on at night—a feat accomplished by moving a couple of rocks aside to run the controls—the flames form a ring like a campfire. The gentle warming makes it great for a summer evening, he said.
Besides the firepit, the outdoor design includes a covered and built-in barbecue, refrigerator, counter and bar stools. There’s a meditation bench at the edge of the property and a table for playing cards. When the weather is too hot or cold, the covered patio just outside sliding doors provides a comfortable shelter for sitting and enjoying the yard away from the weather.
Nicholas, who works in informational technology, likes to paint large, bold and colorful paintings. In the perennial beds, Audette said she took cues from “the explosion of color in Paul’s paintings,” incorporating things like Paprika yarrow, Russian sage, daylilies, Shenandoah switch grass and blanket flower. A path of wandering stones leads visitors around the side of the house to a woodland garden of serviceberry, vine maple and rhododendron.
For Nicholas, the transformation from an ordinary backyard to a place where magic happens is complete. On many summer nights, he can be found grilling and entertaining outside and getting comfy around his unique firepit.
These resorts in Central Oregon make camping easy.
For those looking for an easy camping experience in Central Oregon, four resorts offer unique sleeping arrangements that are comfortable, fun and hassle-free—and would make any of your Instagram followers envious. These glamping, to use the buzzword, destinations offer all the amenities for an uncomplicated outdoor experience. No figuring out the puzzle of packing. No meal planning. No forgetting the tent stakes. All luxury.
Kah-Nee-Ta Resort and Spa
Folkloric tales will flow when the tipi is aglow. With a firepit and room to sleep ten, the tipis at Kah-Nee-Ta offer a family-friendly experience steeped in culture. Reservations include mini golf and access to the hot springs pool—the makings of an excellent kid’s birthday trip. $107/night for two people, fees apply for each additional person (Editor’s Note: After publication, Kah-Nee-Ta announced that it would be closing on September 5, 2018. Reservations can still be made through September 4, 2018.)
Cove Palisades Resort
Offering possibly the only houseboats this side of the Willamette, Cove Palisades Resort rents floating lodging on Lake Billy Chinook. Boat sizes vary, with the largest accommodating sixteen guests. Entertain friends while cruising around the reservoir in style. Sunbathe on the boat’s rooftop deck, take a kayak tour or participate in motorized water sports. Starting at $1,100 per night, 3-night minimum
Elk Lake Resort
Tucked in the woods off Cascade Lakes Highway, Elk Lake Resort draws visitors for its prime location on one of the region’s favorite lakes for boating, swimming, camping and more. The new Glamping Tents provide everything for an elevated camping experience under the stars. $99/night for four people with a 2-night minimum
Group camping is my jam. Isn’t that a lot of work, they ask. Not really, I respond. With some advance planning and Google Drive spreadsheets, you can avoid the game of Subaru-packing Tetris or last-minute, fifty-item grocery runs. When everyone pitches in, everyone wins. I coordinate a stress-free annual trip to my remote mountain hometown for a few dozen friends coming from across a tri-state area as well as an annual pilgrimage to 4 Peaks with my string-music-loving, camping family of ten-plus. Here are some next-level hacks our crew has honed over the years.
1. Division of Labor
Wherever you put down stakes, the menu du jour will elevate the locale. To master group meals insert a little technology in the planning stage with a group spreadsheet that can be shared and edited in real time. Plan for two family-style meals per day: breakfast (more likely brunch at festivals) and dinner. In the meal portion of your spreadsheet, each family or two- to three-person subgroup signs up to cook an a.m. or p.m. meal on one day. Remember to include a column for meal theme. (It takes the olé right out of the festivities if you eat tacos four out of six nights.)
2. Kitchen Patrol
A stellar kitchen setup is clutch. The ideal dish system includes two large-yet-shallow plastic bins set on a long folding table. Put campsuds in one bin. Fill each with warm water from a solar shower. Air dry dishware on a microfiber towel. And, please, pack a sponge with a scouring pad. As with cooking responsibilities, consider rotating dish duty to ensure equity.
3. Go Green
Don’t leave the food pyramid behind when you leave civilization. Bodies still need vegetables. Flexible plastic cutting boards and one great chopping knife go a long way. You can show them how it’s really done by chopping, bagging and freezing fresh veggies in advance.
4. Keep Your Cool
Ice takes up precious cooler space. Instead, put dry ice in the bottom of each cooler. You must then add a layer of cardboard or the food will get freezer burn. The day before departure, put all the beer that is over six percent ABV in your freezer. (Physics prevents high-alcohol beer from exploding and the cold brews will supplement the dry ice.)
5. Let There Be Light
People are clumsy. Ten solar lights placed strategically around camp can prevent twice as many expletives being hurled at tent stakes, logs, coolers, etc. Do the math.
Sometimes you just want a taste of camping in the backcountry. Maybe a simple hike into the woods, a single overnight under the stars, coffee and breakfast by a lake and then a return home. Easy one-night backpack trips are good for the family, the beginner or those of us who don’t have quite the same spring in our step that we once did. Try one of these three trips for a sleepover in the woods this summer season.
Photo by Aaron Thomas
Teddy Lake
Teddy Lake is off easily accessed Cascade Lakes Highway, but it’s one of the more lightly trafficked trails in the area. The lake is about four miles from the Winopee Trailhead at Cultus Lake, 39 miles west of Bend on Highway 46. Choose a campsite in the trees just above the lake, take a swim before dark and then enjoy the seclusion as the sun sets over the mountain.
Distance: 8 miles roundtrip Hiking level: Moderate Parking: $5 day pass or NW Forest Pass at Winopee Trailhead at Cultus Lake Open: May to September
Little Three Creek Lake
Three Creek Lake is tucked at the base of the Cascade Range and Tam McArthur Rim, accessed from Sisters on the west side of the mountains. It’s known for an alpine ecosystem, clear blue waters and rocky beaches. Little Three Creek Lake is a short hike from Three Creek Lake, perfect for an easy backpack outing. Start your hike at the Driftwood Campground entrance at Three Creek Lake, sixteen miles west of Sisters via Forest Service Road 16. The trail to Little Three Creek Lake is 1.3 miles. Set up camp and take out the fishing pole for some evening trout fishing.
Distance: 2.6 miles roundtrip Hiking level: Easy Parking: $5 day pass or NW Forest Pass at Driftwood Campground Open: May to September
Sisters Mirror Lake
A favorite off of Cascade Lakes Highway is the trail to Sisters Mirror Lake, which connects to the Pacific Crest Trail and offers many variations in length from an out-and-back to a loop. Set forth from the Sisters Mirror Lake trailhead, thirty miles west of Bend on Highway 46. The hike features glimpses of lava flows, a forest of mountain hemlock, small streams and peekaboo views of South Sister. Set up camp at Sisters Mirror Lake, a shallow pool set in a large meadow, or one of the many smaller lakes that surround it, all near the intersection with the Pacific Crest Trail.
Distance: 6.6 miles roundtrip Hiking level: Moderate Parking: $5 day pass or NW Forest Pass at Sisters Mirror Lake Trailhead Open: May to September
Wake up next to one of the region’s pristine alpine lakes this summer.
Let’s get this out of the way first. There are no bad places for an evening paddle in Central Oregon—at least none that we know of. But some places just seem to have been made for slipping your canoe, kayak or paddleboard into the water at sunset and gliding across the surface as the evening glow embraces the fading day. Whether you are after world-class fishing, hot springs or just seeking a slice of solitude, there is a shore-side campsite waiting for you in Central Oregon. Here are some of our favorite destinations based on whatever floats your boat.
Lava and Little Lava Lake
The source of the Deschutes River, Little Lava Lake is one of more than half a dozen waterbodies on the Cascades Lakes Highway, southwest of Bend. A small campground with fifteen spaces is well maintained, but also heavily used. Those who do get a spot have prime access to paddling on this alpine lake that offers views of Mount Bachelor and other nearby peaks. The adjacent Lava Lake Campground offers additional camping and access to the larger of the two lakes, which is known for its excellent trout fishing.
Where: Lave Lake Campground Driving time from Bend: About one hour Open: Late May through mid-September Details: 44 tent and RV/trailer sites (reservable and walk-up), including some on the water. Boat ramp, firewood, drinking water, flush toilets, picnic area and parking area at the campground. Recreation: Fishing, swimming, paddling, hiking
Waldo Lake
Located between Bend and Eugene, Waldo Lake is one of Oregon’s largest lakes and one of the clearest in the Northwest, with visibility up to 100 feet below the surface on a calm day. A ban on gasoline motors and a speed limit of ten miles per hour for electric motors makes this lake a serene destination. Three campgrounds serve visitors, most of whom tend to wait until after the mosquito season peaks in June and early July before visiting. A popular singletrack mountain bike trail circumscribes that lake making this a popular spot for pedalers as well as paddlers.
Where: North Waldo, Islet and Shadow Bay campgrounds Driving time from Bend: About two hours Open: Late June through early October Details: 3 developed campgrounds with 200 sites, vault toilets and drinking water around the lake and 55 dispersed sites (walk-up only) Recreation: Swimming, paddling, boating with electric motors and under 10 m.p.h, hiking, mountain biking
Hosmer Lake
Not far from Lave and Little Lava Lake is Hosmer Lake, another paddler’s paradise with a small campground that makes a great basecamp for a weekend near the water. Veteran paddlers know that the way to experience Hosmer is by crossing the main lake and entering a serpentine channel that connects to an upper lake where visitors can drift against a dramatic backdrop of nearby Mount Bachelor.
Where: South and Mallard Marsh campgrounds Driving time from Bend: About one hour Open: Late May through mid-September Details: 23 tent and RV/trailer sites. Pit toilets are on site, but no drinking water Recreation: Fishing, paddling, hiking
East Lake and Paulina Lake
The Newberry National Volcanic Monument boasts two resorts and a bevy of recreation in the most unlikely of places: the belly of a dormant volcano. Paulina Lake offers multiple campgrounds as well as resort cabin and boat rentals and a shot at trophy brown trout (the previous state record was caught here). On the opposite side of the caldera, East Lake has camping along the southern and eastern shore. A large pumice beach at Cinder Butte Campground is a popular destination for families and offers access to the lake and its abundant trout and kokanee salmon. Undeveloped hot springs can be found on the shores of both lakes, including a popular soaking spot just a short walk from the East Lake Resort.
Where: Paulina Lake Campground, Little Crater Campground, East Lake Campground Driving time from Bend: About one hour Open: Late May through mid-September (check website for specific dates each year) Details: Tent and RV/trailer sites, including some on the water. Boat ramp, firewood, drinking water, flush toilets, picnic area and parking area at the campground. Recreation: Fishing, swimming, paddling, hiking, mountain biking
The juiciest and most flavorful local burgers in Bend and Central Oregon to enjoy in any season.
Walk down your street on any given evening and the scents of burgers on the grill waft in the breeze. Whether it’s a hot summer day or a chilly dark evening, a patty cooked to perfection and wedged between two halves of a bun with all sorts of condiments piled on top is always crave-worthy. If you’re not in the mood to grill up your own feast, Bend is rich with burger options. From burgers with beers, to burgers in your car, to meatless burgers, we’ve got you covered.
Pour House Grill
The Pour House’s Big Kahuna Burger which includes ham, pineapple and caramelized onions.
Just about every pub in town offers a burger. But not all pub burgers are created equal. My favorite is found at the Pour House Grill. The menu at this south-Bend pub is famous for smoked meats and generous portions. The Pour House’s Signature Burger is grass-fed house ground brisket and chuck, perfectly grilled to medium. Add anything from pulled pork to pickled jalapenos to a fried egg on top, and eat it up with a side of French fries, tater tots, mac salad or coleslaw. Beer pairing: Sunriver Brewing’s Fuzztail Hefeweizen.
Dandy’s Drive-In
Dandy’s may win in the charm category alone, with the servers meeting you at your car on roller skates. Besides those mouthwatering cheeseburgers and french fries, Dandy’s is known for its house-made fry sauce which has kept customers coming back since the drive-in began. Park at Dandy’s Drive-In and travel back in time for a nostalgic experience right here in Bend. There’s nothing better than a cheeseburger, french fries, fry sauce and a milkshake brought to you by a cheerful roller skating carhop. The retro vibe of Dandy’s radiates from its little pocket of happiness off Third Street in Bend.
Photo by Ely Roberts
Brother Jon’s Public House
Brother Jon’s Public House nails solid pub food accompanied by a long, frequently changing tap list in a casual, friendly location. Try the Fire Marshal Burger: two patties with bacon, pepper jack, habanero cheese sauce, pepperoncini and roasted jalapeños. Beer pairing: Double Mountain Vaporizor Ale.
Brother Jon’s Fire Marshal Burger, however, all of their burgers are a must-try.
The Hideaway Tavern
The Hideaway is a sports bar sheltering some of Bend’s best food. Try the Hideaway Burger on a Big Ed’s Texas toast bun. Beer pairing: Forget the craft brew—now’s your chance for a Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap.
Deschutes Brewery
The original Bend pub, Deschutes Brewery sports a signature burger made with a Barley Beef patty topped with pepper jack cheese on a brioche bun. Beer pairing: Black Butte Porter.
Blue Eyes Burgers & Fries
Blue Eyes Burgers & Fries has quickly become the go-to spot for smash burgers and it’s no wonder why. Here, you can kick back, soak in the nostalgic dinner vibe, and enjoy a fantastic locally sourced-burger. Sip on handcrafted cocktails and indulge in perfectly crafted smash burgers, fluffy buns, crispy fries and delectable soft-serve ice cream. Come for the food, stay for the atmosphere and soon find yourself becoming a regular.
MidCity Smashedburger
MidCity SmashedBurger is redefining what it means to enjoy a classic burger. This accessible food cart is all about combining retro with a fresh and fun twist. They start with 80/20 Oregon beef sourced from Painted Hills, then smash it flat beneath a cast-iron press, resulting in thin and crispy patties that are nothing short of mouthwatering. These burgers are covered in American cheese and generously slathered with their signature Smash Sauce, all nestled between Franz Bakery buns.
Mountain Burger
Mountain Burger is on a mission to transform the burger experience. By offering locally sourced ingredients and both meat and plant-based alternatives, they’re catering to a wide range of tastes and dietary preferences. Dining here means enjoying your meal in a friendly, full-service, colorful and comfortable atmosphere. Savor healthy salads and creative cocktails while supporting the burger joints’ mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable dining.
Special Korean Bulgogi Burger with kimchi, pickled ginger, sambal, and aioli served at Mountain Burger | Photo by Tambi Lane
Willie Burger
Willie Burger is a delightful mom-and-pop burger cart that embraces the taste of simplicity. Their specialty lies in smash-style burgers that come standard with grilled onions, cheese and mouthwatering burger sauce. With options ranging from singles all the way to triples, there’s a burger for every appetite. They’ll be taking a short hiatus to welcome a new member of the family but look forward to seeing everyone in 2024.
The Row
The Bleu Diamond burger at The Row at Tetherow, topped with maple bacon and bleu cheese, practically has its own local fan club. Beer Pairing: The Bleu Diamond is served with IPAoili, so you’d better make it a Bend Brewing Co. Elk Lake IPA.
Sno-Cap Drive In
The beauty of the drive-in burger lies in its simplicity. Beef patty with melted cheddar cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, maybe a pickle or two and some fry sauce between two potato buns. It’s nothing fancy, but that’s not the point. A drive-in burger is the kind of burger you crave on a road trip, or after a long hike and a dip in lake. Central Oregon has a stellar lineup of classic drive-in burgers. But Sno-Cap in Sisters, that iconic white, 50s-style building on the corner of the Western town, takes the prize, if only because the fresh milkshakes alongside it are truly the perfect pairings for a meal that tastes like childhood with each bite.
McMenamins
At Bend’s McMenamins Old St. Francis School location, the expedition elk burger is topped with coffee-bacon jam, black garlic aioli and white cheddar on a sesame brioche bun.
Tastee Treet
Tastee Treet is old school Americana at its finest. The neon signs outside make it look like it hasn’t changed since it opened, and thank goodness the hand-cut fries haven’t either.
We often say that there are a lot of great events happening in Central Oregon over the weekend, but this weekend, there are a lot of events on the calendar. Here are the ones that you don’t want to miss.
Pickin’ & Paddlin’ Photo Courtesy of Tumalo Creek Kayak & Canoe
Pickin’ & Paddlin’
June 20 | Tumalo Creek Kayak & Canoe
Some of the best bashes of the season take place along the banks of the Deschutes River. Each summer, Tumalo Creek hosts the backyard concert series, Pickin’ & Paddlin’. Wednesday marks the kickoff to the series and to the Subaru Outside Games.
Subaru Outside Games
June 20-24 | Riverbend Park
There are bike, water and climbing events at Subaru Outside Games, a multiday sports festival in Bend. The fun competitions and activities for everyone in the family (including the dog) take place all over Central Oregon, with a headquarters at Riverbend Park, where there will also be live music and local beer and food onsite.
Pacific Crest Endurance Sports Festival
June 22-24 | Sunriver
For professional athletes, amateur athletes and those that just want to get outside for some fun competition, the Pacific Crest Endurance Sports Festival draws people from across the Pacific Northwest. Take part in one of the races, watch from the sidelines and join the festivities at the Village in Sunriver after.
4 Peaks Music Festival
June 21-24 | Stephenson Ranch
Each year, 4 Peaks Music Festival brings in some of the best acts in bluegrass, folk, Americana and more to a four-day festival in Bend. The event includes plenty of camping sites and activities for the whole family to enjoy. Advance tickets required.
Warm Springs Museum Exhibit Opening
June 21 | Warm Springs Museum
A new exhibit at the Warm Springs Museum opens on Thursday. Memory of the Land: Treaty of the Middle Columbia River Tribes and Bands explores the history and legacy of the tribes of the Columbia. The opening day of the exhibit will include a traditional salmon bake and horse parade.
Live Music
Primus and Mastodon will be at the Les Schwab Amphitheater on Saturday. These two acts bookend the “prog” rock genre but share a cult-like following. Bring your “moshing” shoes and your ear protection. For something on the mellower side, Singer-songwriter Chris Isaak kicks off the Clear Summer Nights concert series at the Athletic Club of Bend. You could also spend Saturday up at Elk Lake for an outdoor concert featuring Bill Keale. Pack some chairs for a picnic or eat at the lodge while you listen.
In 2015, the American West reached an unprecedented environmental compromise to protect the greater sage grouse, a high desert bird with a drastically declining population. Two years later, the rug was pulled out from that plan, leaving an environmental community fuming and the small bird’s fate in question.
I looked out the back window of the truck and could see the last stars were still out. Below them, a faint outline of the mountains that surrounded us appeared in the distance. It was a little before 6 a.m. on an early spring day, and four of us were driving in a pickup truck along the winding frozen gravel roads of Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in Southeastern Oregon. Another passenger, Pam, was counting down the miles on our GPS so the driver, her husband Chris, would know when to slow down.
Through a series of miscommunications due to a lack of sleep, minimal coffee and sheer darkness, we were late getting through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife gate and still had a little more than five miles to drive to our stopping point, all before starting the mile-long hike through rugged sagebrush country to find our destination before first light. After reaching our stop, we bundled in layers of wool, puffy jackets and hats, quickly hopped out of the truck and started the trek.
Headlamps on and heads down, we navigated the frosted sagebrush, grass and rocks. I risked a few glances of the first hint of light creeping up over Beatys Butte in the distance, careful not to take my eyes off the ground for too long. Following our GPS, we hiked along a rock ridge, then scrambled up it and over, before the last quarter-mile over the lava rocks.
Finally, Chris stopped and set down his scope. We confirmed our location in hushed voices around the GPS, then took a moment to marvel at the sunrise and the 360-degree view of golden grass that tumbles over what is called the sagebrush sea. We brought our binoculars to our eyes and started scanning about 200 yards ahead. Sarah spotted the trademark white chest puffing up and down, then the unmistakable spiked and fanned feathers. A sage grouse. Then another bird is spotted. And another. We reached the lek. And I finally witnessed the thousands of years old mating ritual exclusive to the high desert.
We were far enough away for the sage grouse not to notice us watching. Unbeknownst to the sage grouse, much of the American West is also watching the small bird right now, as it is at the epicenter of a political controversy over public lands that spans across the high desert.
Rite of Spring
Chris and Pam Scranton are both retired teachers and have lived in Madras for twenty-two years. They saw the greater sage grouse for the first time in Millican, about twenty miles east of Bend, in 1995. They would stop there on their way to Eastern Oregon with their children to see the sage grouse at their leks each year. “Nobody was there, just us,” said Pam. “It felt like a rite of spring.”
From the Swedish verb meaning “to play,” a lek is sage grouse mating ground, usually found in a specific habitat in sagebrush country. Pam, Chris and their three children would watch the sage grouse, about the size of a large chicken, “display”, the scientific word for the puffed chests and fanned feathers strut that the male sage grouse do to impress females and, ideally, breed.
Chris said they saw about fifty males displaying the first time they went. Over the years, as word got out and more people arrived each spring to watch, the bird numbers dwindled as people got too close and the sage grouse stopped returning. “It’s not because [visitors] wanted to disturb them, I just don’t think they understood,” said Chris. Soon, due to the habitat disturbance, as well as other changes to the sagebrush steppe, the lek was gone. “It was rather sad to see it decline to the point of nothing.”
Chris and Pam were two of twelve volunteers on a three-day trip to count sage grouse in Hart Mountain with the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA), a Bend-based nonprofit that works on public land and conservation issues east of the Cascades. The conservation of sage grouse is one of those issues, and one that, three years ago, had largely been resolved, or at least was on its way to be.
Fowl Politics
The Millican situation was unique because the leks were close to the highway and easily accessible to the public, but it is also a microcosm of what has happened to sage grouse across their historic range. It’s been a decades-long saga that has pushed them to the brink of extinction and to the forefront of a political battle over the intersection of private interest and public lands.
In 2015, a landmark environmental compromise was reached by almost every interest group, government agency and nonprofit that has a stake in public land throughout the eleven Western states. It was an unprecedented moment for wildlife conservation, said Paul Henson, the State Supervisor of U.S. Fish and Wildlife in Oregon. Henson has been involved with sage grouse almost the entirety his twenty-five years with the government agency in charge of habitat and wildlife monitoring.
The sage grouse saga began ten years earlier in 2005, when the sage grouse populations across the West were low enough for conservation groups to petition for the ground-nesting birds to be added to the Endangered Species List. The listing would have added broad protections for the species across the Western states where it is still found, but that was opposed by an alliance of farmers, ranchers and Western politicians. After a review, U.S. Fish and Wildlife determined a listing wasn’t warranted, but the agency “recognized that there was certain conservation concerns for sage grouse and sagebrush habitat that needed to be addressed,” said Henson.
Photo courtesy of Oregon Natural Desert Association
That decision was challenged by the environmental community, and between 2010 and 2015 a new management plan was created to address the threats to the species. “In Oregon and the other ten states, everyone rolled up their sleeves with sincere and good faith effort and developed plans at a federal level and the state level,” said Henson. Private landowners also played a key role in developing the plans, as a portion of sage grouse habitat is on ranches throughout the West.
At the end of it all in 2015, then Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell recommended that the species did not merit an endangered species listing—if the plans were carried out. Though this sage grouse plan was not perfect, as I would be told countless times, it was considered a win for everyone involved, and for the sage grouse. Oregon Governor Kate Brown adopted Oregon’s version of the plan. After the celebrations faded, the work began and the sage grouse plan moved forward into implementation.
Then in the fall of 2017 things began to unravel. Ryan Zinke, a square-jawed former University of Oregon football player and Navy SEAL turned Montana congressman was appointed as Secretary of the Interior by the Trump administration. An avid outdoorsmen who had been endorsed by several environmental groups earlier in his political career, Zinke was charged with reviewing some of conservation plans rolled out during the Obama administration. Zinke wasted no time. He soon announced that the sage grouse plans, and a decade of work, would be reviewed and potentially amended. It came on the heels of Zinke’s plan to shrink several national monuments in the West such as Bears Ears in Utah and Cascade-Siskiyou in Southern Oregon, with the potential for increased mineral and resource extraction.
You could almost hear the collective sigh that reverberated across the West.
The Bird is the Word
About six months later, I arrived at Hart Mountain, a four-hour drive from Bend, in the afternoon on a clear day, though the smattering of snow on the roads reminded me that our late winter was far from over, despite the calendar inching forward. The wildlife refuge was established in 1936 to protect the American pronghorn, which gallop across the range in herds, but it shelters countless more species that have since declined in other spaces across the West. Part of its success is its sheer size. At 422 square miles, Hart offers critical habitat that spans from buttes to playa lakes to wide expanses of sagebrush and protects hundreds of plants and animals, including sage grouse.
I walked into the Oregon Department Fish and Wildlife bunkhouse to find the group of volunteers gathered. The sparse bunkhouse was a recent addition to the refuge, which has a handful of other offices and cottages from the 1930s, built to house seasonal wildlife biologists doing data collection and volunteer groups like ONDA. The tone of the trip was largely excited, perhaps a little uncertain. Some, like Pam and Chris, had experienced counting sage grouse before. Others in their twenties trying to break into a wilderness career were there to gain field experience. There were avid birders and outdoorsmen, and a couple retired science teachers. We were there to count sage grouse leks for a weekend as volunteers for U.S. Fish and Wildlife. It’s an easy enough task, save for the 4 a.m. alarms and frigid temperatures.
Sarah Imholt, 40, joined the trip. She’s a librarian at Oregon State University and described herself as a “bird person.” This trip was the first time she saw a sage grouse lek. “I got too excited and couldn’t do any counting for awhile,” she said after coming back from the first morning of data collection. “You can hear them making the glooping sounds. They’re just puffing their chests out and their tails are totally fanned out. They’re moving like little tanks, just struttin’ around.”
The greater sage grouse fits in well with sagebrush landscape. Their dark feathers stretch to their feet, and their white and brown speckled tails spike up in contrast to the yellow bunches of grass. The white chests, distinctly a feature of the males, puff up and make a sound like large drops of water when they fill up with air, and the grouse will sometimes bump their chests into each other while sparring at the leks to impress females.
“Sage grouse lekking behavior is one of the most magnificent natural phenomena we have in Southeastern Oregon,” said Lee Foster, the sage grouse conservation coordinator for Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Sage grouse leks are important because the birds return to them year after year for generations. “There’s a lek in Idaho that goes back eighty years. Some of those older leks have indications that Native Americans were hunting those leks,” said Foster.
One of the reasons sage grouse have become the poster child for sagebrush conservation is that their leks, set in wide open spaces on the ground among sagebrush, make them easy to spot and their populations easy to monitor. It also makes them susceptible to natural predators like ravens, golden eagles, bobcats and coyotes. “They really face every predator out there,” said Foster.
Sage grouse also need certain grasses native to sagebrush country as well as large swaths of uninterrupted habitat because they migrate between those areas, with a range in Oregon that has been documented at up to thirty miles. This is all to say that a variety of factors need to combine and work in harmony for sage grouse to thrive. If sage grouse are thriving, it’s a good indication that the 350 other species, animal or plant, that inhabit sagebrush country are thriving and the ecosystem is healthy. But as the high desert in the West has been infiltrated and exploited, new threats have arisen, and sage grouse are far from thriving.
Home on the Range
There are currently fewer than 500,000 sage grouse in the West, down from an estimated 16 million before the decline began in the mid-20th century. That’s a 97 percent decline in just a little over half a century. The primary reason is a dwindling habitat due to a trio of factors that all play into each other: invasive annual grasses, the encroaching juniper on lower elevation areas and wildfire.
Those three factors have contributed to the overall decline of the sagebrush ecosystem. Of the pre-settlement 153 million acres of sagebrush steppe, 106 million acres currently exist. Home to more than 350 species of flora and fauna, the high desert country is a vast landscape of varieties of sagebrush and sage grouse, but also wildflowers, American pronghorn, golden eagles, pygmy rabbits, coyotes, juniper and more. The ecosystem’s decline is pinpointed on overgrazing and introduced species of plants like cheatgrass that combined allow for more frequent and devastating wildfires. It’s considered one of the most imperiled ecosystems in North America, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
The 2015 sage grouse management plan wouldn’t have reversed the decline of the sagebrush steppe, but it would have helped to preserve what remains. For some in the conservation community the plan didn’t go far enough.
“In the end, it was a marginally acceptable package of political compromises on what is effectively a scientific effort to do species conservation,” said Dan Morse, the conservation director of ONDA. Zinke’s announcement essentially put the conservation plans in limbo and was especially upsetting to groups like ONDA.
“The plan that came out in 2015 was far from perfect,” said Morse. “From our perspective there were things that could have been stronger for sage grouse conservation, but that if it were implemented rigorously and quickly, then it might be adequate for conserving a species. When these more recent plans to re-amend the sage grouse plan came out, we were very disappointed and frustrated that effectively the deal that had been reached was being re-negotiated by certain interests.”
In Oregon, much of the negotiations were with landowners and ranchers in Southeastern Oregon who rely on public lands to graze their cattle. Tom Sharp is the president-elect of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association and has worked on the sage grouse issue for almost a decade providing conservation efforts on private lands, particularly in southeastern Oregon. For ranchers, the stakes in coming to a compromise about sage grouse and preventing a listing were high.
Photo courtesy of Oregon Natural Desert Association
“If we thought what happened to the timber industry in the 1980s was bad,” said Sharp, referring to the controversy over the Northern Spotted Owl Endangered Species listing, “well, it would be an order of magnitude greater with the sage grouse listing.” Sharp acknowledged that the ranchers were somewhat reluctant to forge an agreement with the federal government over the plans, but were largely on board to avoid a listing. The oft-cited mantra was, “What’s good for the bird is good for the herd.”
Andrew Shields, a wildlife biologist for Roaring Springs Ranch in southeastern Oregon, echoed Sharp’s statements. “Ranchers push back on some of these plans,” said Shields. “It’s not because they don’t like sage grouse or healthy rangeland, it’s because they’re so tied to the land and they care deeply about the land and wildlife, and a lot of the time, the things they’ve done work. That’s why there’s sage grouse there.”
In early May, the BLM released the draft environmental impact statement for sage grouse management and habitat. Overall, there were minimal changes to Oregon’s sage grouse conservation plan. In Oregon, a total of 22,000 acres, an area roughly the size of the city of Bend, previously designated as research natural areas, would be open for livestock grazing. From an environmentalist perspective, it fared better than other states such as Nevada, Wyoming and Idaho, which now may face more oil and gas drilling potential, development identified as a key threat to sage grouse. The BLM is accepting public comments until August 2 on the plan.
The proposed amendments are welcomed by Oregon’s cattle industry. “We believe that a reconsideration to amend these federal plans is necessary based on new science that came out that says properly managed livestock grazing is not a threat to sage grouse but can be compatible or beneficial to sage grouse species,” said Sharp. Not everyone agrees that grazing can be a benefit to sage grouse, but most scientists say that grazing, done properly, doesn’t have to interfere with sage grouse populations.
Given that the sage grouse is a rangewide species, meaning that its habitat crosses state lines, the federal consistency of the sage grouse management plan was integral to the success of the bird. These amendments coming state by state threaten that.
“[The federal plan] has a degree of consistency across the range,” said Morse. “If we decrease that consistency, we are doing what science tells us not to do.”
Conservationists are already pushing back. In late April, environmental groups sued the current administration for allegedly ignoring sage grouse protection policies and selling oil and gas leases in 475 square miles in Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. If the administration continues to prioritize energy development to the point that threatens more habitat on public land, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more lawsuits in the future.
At The Hart Of It
In Oregon, where there is less pressure to develop gas leases, the partnerships have more or less remained intact. Henson at U.S. Fish and Wildlife pointed out while the the political back and forth is common, the people on the ground keep moving forward. “The biggest message is even through an election and through some of the other challenges we’ve had like the Malheur occupation, where there was a lot of emotion and political acrimony, the partnership in Oregon for sage grouse conservation has remained really strong.”
Camped out in the pre-dawn hours on Hart Mountain, waiting patiently for an elusive bird to appear from the darkness, the politics of the sage grouse fight can feel a world away. “The fundamental reason [I joined this trip] is I spend a lot of time outdoors. It’s an important part of my life. The landscape, the things on this landscape—I value it. I want people to value it,” said Sam Miller, a retired science teacher from Eugene. “I don’t want to get too political here. I’m trying to find a way to say it without flames coming out of my mouth,” he continued while we were talking at Hart Mountain. “Our votes matter because ultimately that translates to the leadership we either have, or don’t have, and the direction that leadership takes. If we care about these kinds of places, then we need to make sure we support people who have that point of view.”
If sage grouse populations don’t return, it doesn’t mean that just another species of bird is lost. It means the sagebrush steppe—an entire ecosystem—has been lost. It means that millions of acres of high desert country have become vulnerable to the epic wildfires that have the potential to devastate the landscape, homes, economies and cities. It’s a lot of weight on the wings of one bird.
Witnessing sage grouse at the lek “feels really lucky,” said Imholt. “[Sage grouse] have been doing this for God knows how many thousands of years and they’re still doing it even though we’re screwing everything up around them.” At Hart Mountain at least, “this little sphere of existence is right, and these little birds are doing what they are supposed to do,” she said.
We woke up on the last morning to five inches of snow on the ground and a bluebird sky. By the time my group had reached the last lek, the birds there had already moved on, perhaps flushed out by the coyote we spotted in the distance. There was still evidence of their dance written on the snow—light touches of wings moving around in circles and patterns left behind in the last snowfall of the season where their feathers had dragged. The sage grouse would probably return to the lek to do their dance again the next morning, and hopefully their next generation would return the following spring. Our only job is to give them the space to continue and the chance to keep coming back.
Rock chucks, or yellow-bellied marmots, are a common sight among the boulders in Bend’s Old Mill District.
Rock chucks are a beloved sign of spring in Central Oregon. To many, their emergence from winter hibernation signals the end of frigid weather and the arrival of warmer days and sunny skies that usher in the outdoor adventure season for Central Oregonians. But what exactly are these creatures?
You might be surprised to find out that the rock chuck, or the yellow-bellied marmot, is a ground squirrel. A large bodied, plump and fuzzy ground squirrel.
Named for their typical choice of habitat, rock chucks prefer to make their burrows under rocky cropping near a consistent food source that can satisfy the hunger of even the roundest and most stoutly built individual. They inhabit much of the Western United States, often found in high elevation areas with open land such as sagebrush or meadows.
Rows of rock chucks can be seen along the roadsides in the Old Mill District, where perfectly groomed lawns, a primary food source for these marmots, allow for a keen view of any potential predator. Although the brunt of their diet consists of herbivorous eats, rock chucks are actually omnivorous opportunists who will take advantage of feeding upon insects and even bird eggs that may be precariously laid by killdeer or nighthawks on the ground. In the Old Mill District, however, you’ll probably just see them snacking on grass. On a sunny but cool early Sunday morning, this is where I would spend my time observing.
A naturalist is taught the art of observation, reading the landscape and natural behaviors of their subject in a broad sense and in an attempt to gather specific information. This can take hours of painstaking notes and illustration. This is not a method I would suggest for our friend the rock chuck. There is not much activity to speak of, as a matter of fact. Upon even the earliest moments of my observations, I can assure you that rock chucks do almost exclusively what you have likely viewed in your short moments of seeing them as you drive by. They eat. A lot. Moving from one square patch of grass to the next, seeming to pay little mind to us. But their face-down tendency towards constant caloric intake may be their most enduring quality.
For spending much of their time only feet from the hustle and bustle of Southwest Bond street, rock chucks are surprisingly skittish. Within as little as ten yards distance from them, they each would quickly scurry up the hills and into their burrows, easily escaping my intrudance. This is a typical tactic used by the rock chuck to escape predation. Although it is nearly inaudible by human ears, rock chucks even sound the alarm to their fellow rock chuck family members when they come across any natural predators, which would most likely be dogs and eagles in the Old Mill District.
The rock chucks are famous in Central Oregon, garnering more than 3,200 followers on Facebook, complete with their own hashtag campaign, #omdrock. Enduring and iconic, the rock chuck remains a delightful sight along the roadsides of the greater Central Oregon area. Not much to say, and even less to show. But perhaps that’s precisely what we find most charismatic about them.
It’s a tough competition for the best fish tacos in Bend. In terms of culinary trends, the world has already reached peak taco. It happened sometime between the invention of the ChocoTaco and the first time someone put kimchi on a pulled pork taco. Today, it’s hard to go to a restaurant or food truck that hasn’t put their spin on the street-style taco. Perhaps not surprising given Bend’s burgeoning reputation as a foodie destination, we have some great options in town. Since nothing says summer quite like scarfing tacos down on a deck under the sun and washing it all down with a cold beer, here are some favorites to try.
Around for over two decades, Parilla is a staple for Tex-Mex-fusion. Parilla owner Jeff Dearing added the fried fish taco to the menu in 2002. Dearing said the breading has Hawaiian influences and the sauce drizzled over the top includes Japanese fish sauce, which gives it its flavor and spice. A lot of thought went into finding a sustainable fish to use and they settled on a catfish recommended by Seafood Watch, an organization of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Parilla also cuts the fish by hand, a detailed touch that goes into this dish, and they worked with their food supplier to find the handmade flour tortillas they use. As for the corn salsa, Dearing said that using that salsa is part of what makes Parilla unique: incorporating its core ingredients into each culinary concoction. Bonus: You can get the fish tacos as a burrito or as a burrito bowl. Whichever way you choose, pair it with the $1 PBR to dine like a local.
Speaking of pairing tacos with beer, two of our craft breweries have produced a great alternative to the classic burger-and-fries order. Sunriver Brewing delivers a solid option with the grilled rockfish tacos that scream for the Fuzztail hefeweizen to wash them down. The trio comes with a red salsa on the side, but you really don’t need it. The fresh slaw and drizzled sauce—a chipotle aioli and a cilantro-lime sour cream—over the top takes care of any condiment cravings.
Worthy Brewing is a worthy opponent in this game (and will soon open a restaurant downtown entirely devoted to tacos and beer). The flagship location recently revamped its menu and now offers a steelhead taco, which is a game-changer in Bend’s taco scene. While steelhead, an anadromous trout in the Pacific Northwest, is known for its strong flavor, the flavors aren’t overwhelming in this dish. The price point is a bit higher, but the kitchen doesn’t skimp on servings. A guacamole base is topped with the steelhead, fresh cole slaw and a chipotle aioli drizzle. They recommend to pair it with a pale ale, but in the summer, opt for the lighter Kolsch or pilsner.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t include El Sancho, arguably the leader of the taco scene in Bend. Offering almost a dozen different styles of tacos to choose from, El Sancho has perfected what Bendites and visitors crave when it comes to the street-style taco. Next time you’re there, suppress your urge to order chicken, carnitas or barbacoa (for the umpteenth time) and try the grilled mahi mahi tacos. (A quick note: mahi mahi is not, as some people believe, shark. It’s a tropical dolphinfish also known as dorado that has tons of flavor.) Added to the menu when El Sancho opened their brick-and-mortar in 2015, the grilled mahi mahi tacos were an intentional choice to create a healthier fish taco option in Bend, said co-owner Jon Barvels. For this taco, it’s the slaw that separates it from the rest of the pack.
And while we’re on the subject of former food trucks, Spork also has a spicy and crispy fish taco unlike any other in town. The fusion-style cuisine is a must-try when in town. Its tacos are reasonably priced for their size and the flavors are on point. Similar to Parilla’s, Spork’s fish taco uses fried catfish. With just the right amount of spice from the chili mayo and jalapenos, it perfectly fits in with Spork’s eclectic and addicting menu.
In 2015, Anna Soens, a 29-year-old wildlife biologist from Idaho, had been planning to climb Mount Hood with her dad when she free-fell thirty feet while climbing indoors and was left partially paralyzed from the waist down. This May, she and her dad set out fulfill their goal and summit the peak together.
There had been no guarantees when we set off for the summit of Mount Hood, which towers above the rest of Oregon at 11,250 feet. As my dad and I kicked exhausted steps into the ice just below the top, the rest of our team cheered from above. Glimpsing the true summit as we emerged from the narrow chute called the Pearly Gates was the first moment I was sure that we were going to make it. Two years earlier, doctors told me that I’d never walk again, let alone climb a mountain.
A week before Christmas in 2015, I accidentally failed to clip in while rock climbing solo at a gym in Portland and free-fell more than thirty feet to the ground. The impact pulverized my lowest thoracic vertebrae and left me with paralysis from the waist down. A few days after my fall, I slowly thumbed through a copy of Bill Mulee’s Mt. Hood Climber’s Guide. I jacketed the book in a festive sleeve and scribbled “Dad” across its surface. For a brief moment I allowed my daydreams to indulge visions of climbing Hood, something my dad and I had been planning to do together the following spring. When I opened my eyes, a stark hospital room brought me back to a suffocating reality. My world was much different now.
Amid surgeries to repair my back and a shattered wrist, Christmas Day arrived and my family squeezed into my hospital room in an effort to carry on our holiday traditions. Our stack of presents dwindled until just one remained. As I handed it to my dad, I tried to explain that I had bought the book a long time ago. That even though I fell, and even if it took an extra year or two, we would still reach the iconic peak together. That even though they could only really twitch right now, my legs would faithfully carry me down trails and up mountainsides again. But of all those things that I tried to say, the only thing I managed to utter was a tear-filled, “I’m sorry.”
I spent a year after my accident relearning how to do everything from putting on shoes to driving a car. I questioned my identity, which was linked to remote landscapes that I could no longer reach. I wondered about my future, given a past that was built on perpetual movement. I learned how to approach and accomplish old tasks differently and slowly built strength in muscles that were neurologically impaired and atrophied from the two months lying in hospitals. Restoring my independence, confidence and hunger for big things, which I rely on to chase lofty dreams like climbing Hood, required outsider perspective and experience.
Through friends, I found Oregon Adaptive Sports (OAS), a nonprofit based in Bend. They got me on an adaptive mountain bike for the first time, returned me to Smith Rock to climb and took me from the bunny hills to my first black diamond runs in a monoski (a molded seat mounted to a single ski that allows me to ski while seated). My closest friends can now be found within OAS’s community of adventure chasers, and through them, I’ve reclaimed the identity that was radically shaken when I fell.
While I spend the majority of my time in a wheelchair for practicality and efficiency, I can walk short distances with leg braces, crutches and a gait that resembles Frankenstein’s monster. But my knees that once hauled packs of ropes and climbing gear up gnarly talus fields can no longer bend against gravity. My leg braces disguise the fact that my calves and ankles are silent, ready for messages from my brain that my spinal cord can no longer relay. Still, climbing Mount Hood remained a dream that never quite died.
Our marathon effort to reach Oregon’s tallest peak began a full year ago—organizing, training, fundraising and developing specialized gear for an ascent with little precedent. It’s been two and a half years since my vow to climb Hood was renewed from a hospital bed, more in desperate longing than as a sincere promise. But that vow persisted through broken bones, damaged nerves and an uncertain future, and this spring that promise finally made it to the slopes of Mount Hood where it belongs.
In late May, with thirteen enthusiastic friends recruited to haul my monoski and other gear, we set off from Timberline Lodge to attempt Hood’s popular South Side Route. Alternating between using specially-designed crutches and crawling on hands and feet, my progress was slow but steady. Nearing our basecamp at 9,600 feet, my 70-year-old father confessed surprise at how thin he found the air and how much effort he was exerting. As the sun set above the clouds and winds steadily gained strength, we pitched our village of tents, shared a pot of curry and hunkered in our nylon shelters for the night.
Summit day dawned. We rolled out of our tents and continued upward with thawing excitement in unyielding wind. Affected by the altitude and a heavy pack, my dad’s pace slowed and his breaks became more frequent and desperate. When we got to the crevasse just below 11,000 feet, he sat on a mound of snow and tearfully whispered in my ear that he wasn’t going to make it. He had worked out hours a day, six days a week for a year leading up to the climb. He had done everything he could. But he had been climbing at his max for hours and the steepest section was still ahead. I hugged him tight and told him that it didn’t matter. We had already accomplished what we both had doubted was possible. We were on Hood together despite everything.
Anna and her father after summiting Mount Hood
He was silent for a moment, then his breathing abruptly calmed. He stood up and said he was going to keep climbing. I questioned him, but a stubbornness in him, that I recognize within myself, steeled him. We continued on, me haplessly bear-crawling and him with an exhausted but determined shuffle.
We could hear the cheers of our team as we emerged from the infamous Pearly Gates and trudged our way up the final slope to the summit. We made it. On May 29, my dad and I, surrounded by friends, stood on the top of Hood together, overlooking the far corners of Oregon from an unrivaled perch. From our high vista, mountain peaks beckoned across the horizon.
With Bite of Bend, a new cycling race and great live music and theater on the calendar this weekend, there are a lot of great things to do around Central Oregon.
Photo courtesy of Lay It Out Events
Bite of Bend
June 15-17 | Downtown Bend
Foodies take over the streets of downtown Bend this weekend for the annual Bite of Bend. Taste and sip the culinary delights from more than forty of the region’s best restaurants, chefs, bartenders and brewers. Watch culinary competitions from the innovative chefs who are leading the region’s culinary scene. Take part in the Beer Run or the Little Hopper Root Beer Run.
Best of Both
June 16 | Bend
The Best of Both is a new cycling event that combines road cycling with mountain bike riding for a one-day race and ride throughout the Deschutes National Forest. The event has races and relays as well as non-competitive rides for all cycling abilities and is sanctioned by the Oregon Bike Racing Association. After the races, head to 10 Barrel on the east side for a party and awards ceremony.
Music on the Water
June 16 | Elk Lake Resort, Bend
Elk Lake Resort kicks off its annual summer concert series this weekend. Head to the resort on Saturday and find live music from Corner Gospel Explosion, an indie rock duo from Bend that recently released its second album. The free concert starts at 5 p.m., but get there early if you want to swim or eat at the Lodge before for the music gets going.
Beer, Bands, & Public Lands
June 16 | Drake Park, Bend
Celebrate public lands at Drake Park this Saturday at Beer, Bands, & Public Lands. The free event features live music, a host of local brews and raffles of equipment from outdoor companies, such as Traeger Grills, Trek Mountain Bikes and more. All proceeds go to helping maintain the integrity of and access to America’s public lands and waters.
Musical Theater
For the musical theater fiend, two musicals open in Bend this weekend. The closing performance in Cascades Theatrical Company’s season, “9-5 The Musical” is based on the ’80s movie of the name about three women who get even with their chauvinist boss, with music by Dolly Parton. Broadway in Concert: “Evita” also shows this weekend at the Tower with a live orchestra accompanying this rags-to-riches story.
Live Music
Take advantage of the extra daylight at the outdoor concerts around town. High Valley will be at Oregon Spirit Distillers on Saturday. And you can extend your weekend with a show from Michael Franti, playing at the Les Schwab Amphitheater on Tuesday.
Lauren Hough was traveling around Bend with her classmates doing a singing Valentine program when the news came out about the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Though she wouldn’t describe herself as an activist, she had been involved in multiple social activism movements during her time as a student at Bend Senior High School. After the shooting, Hough, a senior, teamed up with students at her school and other student leaders in the region to organize the school walkouts protesting gun violence and the March For Our Lives. Hough talked to Bend Magazine about being a student in the age of mass shootings and what local students are asking of Bend’s and Central Oregon’s leaders.
Left to right, Evelyn Diaz, Emma Smith, Heather Barclay and Lauren Hough. Photo by Matt Fox
Can you tell me about what the day of the Parkland school shooting was like for you?
I wasn’t actually at school that day. It was Valentine’s Day, and I’m in choir and was doing Val-O-Grams, which is where you go around town and sing to them. I wasn’t actually at school when I heard about it, but I remember we were in the car and someone got the notification on their news app.
When I was in school, we didn’t have those notifications on our phones and we often didn’t hear about the news until we got home. I’m wondering what it’s like to get this news while you’re in school, and unfortunately, in a time when these events are all too common.
It’s overwhelming. I turn off notifications constantly on the news app. I think we just grew up in a generation that’s inundated with constant messaging. It can be a big struggle to turn that off. What actually hit me with the Parkland shooting is that I was driving to school the next morning, and there was an NPR segment about it that had one of the parents of one of the victims talking. I don’t know if it was just NPR magic, but something about that hit me, and I just broke down. I thought, “This is not ok at all. This is heartbreaking.”
After the shooting, there were national and local efforts to talk to students get them engaged in political action. How were you involved in that?
I was involved in a lot of that, and I am still am. For me it started with planning the March For Our Lives. I’m involved in Rise Club, which is a social empowerment, feminist club. I’m close with my teacher who leads that. I reached out to her about what we should do as a club about the shootings. The next day, Vinna, who started the Facebook group, and I met and got a committee started to plan the march. Right now, we’re working on doing candidate endorsement for the primaries, just from the perspective of “What are you doing for school safety and gun legislation.” I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people who are running for office.
Had you been involved in planning anything of this scale or other activism?
I’ve done other activism work. I’ve been involved with the climate action committee in Bend. I used to go to Deschutes Democrats meetings and I’ve spoken in front of city council a few times, so I know a lot of our city councilors. But nothing of this scale of planning two walkouts and a march. It was all very new to me and also at a busy time in my life. For me one of the bigger planning efforts was the walkout on March 14, which I co-planned with Emma Smith.
What goes into planning a walkout, and how did you make it happen?
We joined forces with Summit through the 17 Days of Action and Muse. We collected a group of people to get up and read the victim’s bios. Two girls wrote speeches and performed. It was way bigger than we expected. People are saying half of Bend High walked out. It was raining the day of the walkout, so we met in Bend High’s common area. We had a whole stage set up with microphones. It was huge. It was really impactful because it was my peers. The respect that everyone gave at that moment surpassed anything I could have thought of. Also the support we had from our administration was really surprising to me. They turned out to be incredibly supportive. We were passing out orange pins for our teachers to wear in solidarity, and they had stickers for all of them. Our principal was there to support us and make sure everything got done.
Thinking about social activism in the age of social media, how did you deal with some of the criticism that the 17 Days of Action Instagram page received?
I was co-running that with two other girls from Summit. We all made the decisions for how to handle that. We ended up saying that we were going to be impartial and not respond to the comments. If they are hateful, we’re going to delete them, but if they are just criticism, we aren’t going to censor them. It doesn’t really bother me personally. I’ve had a lot of people fighting back to all of our messages. Especially when people criticise different actions you can take or are criticizing marches or walkouts, a lot of people say, “Well they don’t really do anything. You’re just marching or walking out. What does that actually do?” I believe it sends a message and makes people listen and it brings up the issue. As much as people want to criticize it, they’re not creating their own actions. No action is bad action. It would bother me more if those threats or criticism came from people in person, and they never do. They always come on social media.
What’s next for this movement locally?
Something we’ve been discussing is doing a community dinner. Having as diverse of a group as possible, having people with different viewpoints, sitting together at a table and having a directed conversation. I think for me a lot of takeaway has been that feelings, ideas and intentions are inflated on social media, and it makes the internet and social media not a good environment and not conducive to empathy. That it’s always better to talk to people in person. I want people to talk to me and have a different opinion than me because I want to understand their side as much as I can.
Are you looking for any specific changes in Bend-La Pine Schools?
I think that there are some safety measures that Bend-La Pine Schools needs to take. One that seems fairly simple to me is that the doors should lock from the inside. Most of the doors don’t. Where I draw my line on school safety is that I don’t want schools to feel like prisons. I don’t really believe in having all of the doors locked with one access point. Something I think we really need, and Oregon fails as a state in this, is mental health. It’s related to school shootings, but more about school environments in general. Bend High has one school psychologist and five counselors. It’s been pretty understaffed for awhile. That’s something I discussed as people who are running for office.
What do you want people to know about the work high school students are doing for this movement?
Not to underestimate the power of a high schoolers voice, or anyone’s voice for that matter. One message I’d like to share is how thankful I am for the community support in all this. Bend far surpassed the support that other teenagers have gotten. I feel like my opinions are always really valued when shared, and that’s something that people my age don’t generally get, is validated. A lot of really strong women in particular have been supportive in every way.
How do you keep people and students engaged in this activism while it’s not prevalent in the news cycle?
I think that’s a conversation that the people who are leading this movement still have a lot. One thing I think will always be making a difference is voting. It can be as simple as you show up and vote for people who are going to be there actively trying to change things. Getting younger people registered to vote and out to vote is going to be huge. One of the beauties of this movement is that is got younger students involved who will continue things.
Whether you’re in Sisters, Sunriver, Bend or La Pine this weekend, there are plenty of things to do around Central Oregon.
Photo courtesy of Sisters Rodeo
Sisters Rodeo
June 7-9 | Sisters Rodeo Grounds, 67637 US-20
It’s called the biggest little show in the world and it’s been a Central Oregon tradition for almost eighty years. Head to the Sisters Rodeo to watch cowboys and cowgirls from across the country compete in classic competitions such as bull riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling and more while vying for one of the largest purses on the rodeo circuit. There is also a parade Saturday morning through Sisters. Art in the Park also takes place in Sisters this weekend, with local artisans displaying their handmade goods at the Sisters Creekside Park.
Paula Poundstone
June 7 | Tower Theatre, Bend
You’ve heard her take on politics and pop culture with wit and humor on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” See her live at Tower Theatre in a comedy performance “An Evening with Paula Poundstone.” Paula Poundstone is a author, comedian and commentator. Expect uncensored humor and audience participation at this live show.
Free Day & Open House at the Sunriver Nature Center
June 9 | Sunriver Nature Center and Observatory
It’s the fiftieth anniversary of the Sunriver Nature Center and Observatory, and to celebrate, the organization hosts a free open house that kids and families will enjoy. Naturalists and astronomers will lead kid-friendly activities, and there will also be raptor and reptile demonstrations, guided nature walks, crafts, rocket launches and more. The Nature Center is also hosting a native plant sale, where you can find garden plants that thrive in the high desert and attract bees, butterflies and more.
Rhubarb Festival
June 9 | La Pine Senior Center
The annual Rhubarb Festival returns for the ninth year at a new location at the La Pine Senior Center. More than fifty vendors will be onsite with their rhubarb-centric goods. There will also dutch oven cooking demonstrations, rhubarb cooking and baking competitions, live music, and a rhubarb beer and wine garden.
Live Music
On Wednesday night, catch Nellie McKay at Volcanic Theatre Pub. At the Les Schwab Amphitheater this weekend, Jethro Tull takes the stage on Friday night and Slightly Stoopid will entertain the crowd on Saturday night.
The world premier of North of Nightfall, an adventure documentary, will be held at the Tower on Wednesday night. The film follows a group of mountain bike freeriders, including Bend’s Carson Storch, as they take on epic and remote mountain biking lines at Axel Heiberg Island in the Arctic Circle.
Dean Hale Woodpecker Festival
May 31-June 3 | Sisters
Birders will want to flock to Sisters this weekend for the annual Dean Hale Woodpecker Festival. Guided tours will take you to see the eleven species of woodpeckers that make their home in Central Oregon as well as more than 200 other species along the way. Trips have filled up fast for this popular event from the East Cascades Audubon Society.
Bend Elks Opening Weekend
June 1 | Vince Genna Stadium, Bend
The Bend Elks are one of the closest things we have to professional sports in Bend. Opening day for the baseball season is June 1 and three teams will be playing in a tournament throughout the weekend. Grab a hot dog and a beer and watch the teams play at the opening game on Friday night in Bend.
Oregon Senior Games
June 2-17 | Central Oregon
Athletes 50-year-old and up from across the state will be in Central Oregon for the Oregon Senior Games. There are fifteen sports to choose from that are qualifiers for the National Senior Games, including archery, badminton, bowling, pickleball, cycling, swimming, track and more. The events take place over three weeks throughout the region.
Smith Rock Scenic Bikeway | Photo by Russ Roca/Travel Oregon
Explore the region on two wheels by checking out these scenic bikeways and fun biking routes.
Oregon is a cycling mecca, especially in the summer, with more than a dozen designated scenic bikeways around the state. These routes take riders on journeys that combine scenery and history, winding through farmlands, over mountains and along rivers. The bikeways showcase some of Oregon’s small towns and are major contributors to the state’s rural tourism economy. Central Oregon has a number of designated bikeways that showcase some of the region’s diverse geography.. Here are the best routes to ride this summer.
Metolius River Loops
A family-friendly place for an extended bike ride, the Metolius River loops can be broken up into sections that fit, ranging from three miles to up to twenty-four miles. Bike along the crystal-clear water of the Metolius River and through the pine forest with small peeks of Cascade Mountain views. Fun stops for a quick break include the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery, the headwaters of the Metolius River and the Camp Sherman general store.
Distance: Up to 24 miles Difficulty: Easy to challenging Don’t Miss: Stopping at the headwaters of the Metolius River.
Twin Bridges Scenic Bikeway
Twin Bridges Scenic Bikeway starts at the heart of downtown Bend in Drake Park. Over the thirty-six-mile loop ride, travel through Shevlin Park just outside of Bend and then end at Tumalo State Park before turning around. This ride has a few challenging hills, but it’s great for beginning road cyclists. A note of caution: This route was designed to ride only in the clockwise direction for safety.
Distance: 36-mile loop Difficulty: Moderate Don’t Miss: Stopping for fuel at the Tumalo food truck pod, where you’ll find a solid mix of food to eat as well as beer on tap to rehydrate.
Sisters to Smith Rock Scenic Bikeway
If you’re a beginner road cyclist, or if you’re looking for one of the easier scenic bikeways for a day, check out the Sisters to Smith Rock Scenic Bikeway. The thirty-seven-mile ride will take you on a Old West style tour of the region, starting in the small town of Sisters, then following scenic and low-traffic rural roads to Smith Rock in Terrebonne. The route distance is one-way, so you can turn this into a two-day trip by camping at Smith Rock, then heading back along the same route that offers a challenge with more uphill climbs.
Distance: 37 miles Difficulty: Moderate Don’t Miss: Lunch at Terrebonne Depot, with a stunning view of Smith Rock on the side.
Sherar’s Falls Scenic Bikeway
If you’re looking for solitude and stunning views, check out the Sherar’s Falls Scenic Bikeway. About two hours from Bend, this route takes you through some of the charming river towns in between the high desert and the Columbia River Gorge. Starting in Maupin, one of the most popular places for fishing and rafting in the state, the route starts with a tough but short climb out of town, then rewards you with unobstructed view of Mount Hood and the Deschutes River. Then you’ll loop around toward White River Falls State Park, the eponymous Sherar’s Falls and back into Maupin.
Distance: 33 miles Difficulty: Moderate Don’t Miss: Riverside in Maupin, where you’ll find a stellar menu of food and drinks.
Madras Mountain Views Scenic Bikeway
This loop begins and ends in Madras and winds through the rural farmland in Central Oregon. You’ll pass through the small towns of Culver and Metolius. This is a great route to bikepack and camp on the shores of Lake Billy Chinook. While the route is a few miles shorter than other scenic bikeways, it doesn’t skimp on hills to climb.
Distance: 29 miles Difficulty: Moderate Don’t Miss: Round Butte Overlook Park, where you can take a break and try to spot the wildlife like golden eagles that frequent the area.
Crooked River Canyon Scenic Bikeway
One of Oregon’s newest scenic bikeway designations, the Crooked River Canyon Scenic Bikeway starts at Rimrock Park in Prineville and winds along the rural roads and parallel geologic rock formations that will intrigue and inspire. Ride along the Wild & Scenic Crooked River, stopping for a break or lunch at any scenic spot on the water and ending at Prineville Reservoir before turning around.
Distance: 37 miles total Difficulty: Moderate Don’t Miss: Stopping at the Tastee Treet in Prineville, where you can treat yourself to a classic cheeseburger and milkshake after the ride.
Memorial Day Weekend always feels like the kickoff to summer in Central Oregon. And with a beer festival, fun events for kids and families, the finale weekend at Mt. Bachelor and more, there are plenty of things to do around town.
Photo Courtesy of Happy Girls Run
SMaSH Fest
May 26 | McMenamins, Bend
SMaSH Fest is one of the main events during Central Oregon Beer Week. SMaSH (single malt single hop) will have local breweries will have their SMaSH beer on tap all day. Stay into the evening for the live music at this family-friendly event.
Kids Day
May 26 | Village at Sunriver, Sunriver
Games and activities will keep kids entertained all day at the annual Kids Day at the Village at Sunriver. Try the rock wall, visit the petting zoo and more at this family-friendly, free event.
Happy Girls
Run May 26 | Riverbend Park, Bend
This one’s for the girls. The annual Happy Girls Run takes place in Bend this weekend. Women can join the 5k, 10k, or half-marathon runs, and there will also be short running events for girls 10 and under.
Finale Weekend: Board, Bike & Brew
May 26-27 | Mt. Bachelor, Bend
It’s the last weekend to get your turns in at Mt. Bachelor. The last weekend on the slopes is always a party, and this year is no exception. Sunshine lift will be open for mountain biking or you can ski from Pine Marten, Skyliner and Summit. There will also be a beer garden and barbecue from 10 Barrel, live music each night and, of course, the pond skim competition.
Live Music
On Friday night, dust off your cowboy and cowgirl boots because Volcanic Theatre Pub hosts a country dance night with Dry Canyon Stampede. At The Capitol, hip-hop artists Skyzoo and Landon Wordswell will take the stage Saturday night.
It’s a big weekend for Central Oregon. There’s the annual Pole Pedal Paddle, the Kickoff to Central Oregon Beer Week and more. If you’re looking to get out of town, Maupin has its annual Daze of the Deschutes street festival.
4HandsLA
May 18 | First United Methodist Church, Bend
4HandsLA, a piano duo, will close out the High Desert Chamber Music’s tenth anniversary season. The impressive duo wows audiences with performances of classical piano music that has been described as “energetic” and “dazzling.”
Kickoff to Central Oregon Beer Week
May 19 | Wild Ride Brewing, Redmond
Celebrate the kickoff to Central Oregon Beer Week at Wild Ride Brewing in Redmond on Saturday. There will be live music, food trucks, games on the patio for the whole family and a new beer release from Wild Ride. Central Oregon Beer Week is ten days of events celebrating Central Oregon’s brewing scene.
Pole Pedal Paddle
May 19 | Bend
Part endurance race, part costume party and community carnival, the annual Pole Pedal Paddle is Bend’s signature multisport race and a rite of spring in Central Oregon. The PPP is a major fundraiser for Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation. If you’re not racing, chances are you know someone who is. Head down to the Old Mill District to watch some of the last legs and cheer on the competitors.
Maupin Daze on the Deschutes
May 20 | Maupin
Just in time for some of the best trout fishing of the year, Maupin Daze on the Deschutes is a full day of events and activities in Maupin that families will enjoy. Head to the small fishing and rafting hamlet on the Deschutes River to find rafting, a petting zoo, games, arts and crafts and more.
Live Music
May 17, 19 | McMenamins, Bend; The Belfry, Sisters
If you’re in the mood for live music this weekend, The Last Revel will be at McMenamins on Thursday night. On Friday, don’t miss the Dirty Revival, the popular soul and hip hop fusion band from Portland, at The Belfry.
Check out our picks for the best events happening around Central Oregon this weekend.
Fly Fishing the Deschutes River
High Desert Dreams Exhibit Opening
May 12 | High Desert Museum, Bend
Photographer Rich Bergman captured stunning black and white images of abandoned homesteads in the Fort Rock Basin. An exhibit of the photographs opens this weekend at the High Desert Museum in Bend.
Riverfeast Dinner & Auction
May 12 | Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon, Bend
The Deschutes River Conservancy hosts its annual Riverfeast Dinner & Auction on May 12. The event is a fundraiser for the Deschutes River and the nonprofit’s mission to improve water quality in the Deschutes River Basin. Bid on exclusive prize packages including one-of-a-kind adventures and custom art.
Bend Open Streets
May 13 | Downtown Bend
In an effort to encourage more sustainable transportation options such as walking and biking in Bend, the one-day event will close down select streets in downtown Bend for a fun, family-friendly day of activities. Bend Open Streets will show Bend’s walkable options with the aim to increase foot traffic throughout the year, and businesses on the route will have activities for families to take part in.
Live Music
May 9-12 | McMenamins and Silver Moon Brewing, Bend
Celebrate Mom on Sunday by taking her out to a nice meal at resorts and restaurants across the region. There are Mother’s Day Brunch events at Tetherow, Faith Hope and Charity Vineyards, Five Pine, McMenamins and Brasada. Check out our favorite brunch options around town as well.
New reads for spring suggested by COCC writing instructor Jennifer Forbess.
Freebird
by Jon Raymond
In his new novel Freebird, Portland-based author Jon Raymond explores the destructive influences society can have on an ordinary family. Sam, the grandfather of the Singer family, survived the Holocaust before seeking a new life in California. His son, Ben, a former Navy SEAL, deals with the repercussions of his violent military career. Sam’s daughter, Anne, trying to make a life for herself and her son, Aaron, struggles to maintain her morality in a cutthroat capitalistic environment. And Aaron, on the cusp of adulthood, seeks to find his place within a society that preys on the weak. This book is not wholly optimistic about our ability to overcome our modern social environment, but the members of the Singer family who make it through do come out stronger in the end
The Immortalists
by Chloe Benjamin
The Immortalists is infused with death, but not in the way of an action movie or a murder mystery. Four siblings visit a fortune teller, who predicts the dates of their deaths. The book traces the lives of the siblings as they approach and reach their prophesied date. The big question that runs through the novel is whether the dates are set in stone—independent of circumstances—or whether the dates become self-fulfilling prophesies. Do things happen to us, or do things happen because that’s what we think will happen? Is life about fate or self-determination? The book does not answer the question, and each reader might have a different take on the conclusion of this well-written and engrossing read.
Whirlaway
by Poe Ballantine
People can often seem on the surface to be relatively normal, but you just know there is a lot going on underneath, including, most likely, a little bit of crazy! At the beginning of the novel Whirlaway, protagonist Eddie Plum is an inmate of Napa State Psychiatric Hospital. Why? I’m not exactly sure. After he escapes with the help of his psychiatrist, he meets up with his friend Shelly, who sells old records to gullible Europeans for a living. After that, well, there is just no summarization that would do this story justice. Part literary novel, part mystery, part dream sequence, this is Eddie’s personal journey through the psychiatric hospitals, racetracks, garage sales and Tijuana landfills of life.
No Time to Spare
by Ursula K. Le Guin
I was in my office at COCC in the middle of reading No Time to Spare when I learned that LeGuin had died. She is so alive in the book, and the news was shocking. No Time to Spare is a collection of some of LeGuin’s blog posts from 2010 to early 2016. She covers a wide range of her interests in varying essays. Her rants are especially entertaining. “Would You Please Fucking Stop,” alone, is worth the price of the book. Other favorites include, “TGAN [The Great American Novel] Again,” and “A Modest Proposal: Vegempathy,” a satirical look at our cultural values around food. I grew up with LeGuin’s books, and it’s sad to see her go. But if you are what you read, then she’s still with me, and that’s comforting.
This weekend, check out the theater performances in Sisters, a climbing documentary in Bend and a paddling event on the Deschutes. Here are our picks for the best events around Central Oregon this weekend.
Photo Courtesy of Tumalo Creek Kayak & Canoe
Bend Farmer’s Market
May 2 | Brooks Alley, downtown Bend
On Wednesday, Bend’s Farmer’s Market reopens for the season. Get your fill of fresh local produce from the region’s best farms, ranches and more. The market opens at 2 p.m. and closes at 6 p.m.
Now You’re Talking… One Acts
May 3-5 | The Belfry, Sisters
If you’re in Sisters this weekend, check out a performance of one-act plays at the Belfry. This is Silent Echo Theater Company’s third annual one-act show, which will have seven different plays from eight playwrights, including two locals.
Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey
May 4 | Tower Theatre, Bend
On Friday night, don’t miss BendFilm’s screening of “Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey.” The feature documentary focuses on Beckey, an influential rock climber and OG American “dirtbag” who left modern society for a life on the road. Climbers and those looking for some adventure inspiration won’t want to miss this movie.
Spring Home & Garden Show
May 4-6 | Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center, Redmond
Find ideas to refresh your home at the Central Oregon Builders Association Spring Home & Garden Show. The free event will have exhibits for interior design as well as gardening and landscaping. Local vendors will have tons of contests and giveaways for your home as well.
Spring Paddlefest
May 4-6 | Riverbend Park, Bend
Been wanting to try kayaking, paddleboarding or canoeing? Looking to upgrade your boat or board? This weekend is the perfect time for both. Tumalo Creek Kayak & Canoe hosts Spring Paddlefest, a weekend of intro clinics for those looking to grab a paddle and hit the water. Demo different models from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 5. if you’d like a little more instruction, Tumalo Creek will offer clinics on May 4 and 6
Traditional landscaping (think large, lush grass lawns) aren’t sustainable in the high desert’s arid climate. Here are a few easy ways to make your landscaping at home more friendly for the environment and use less water.
Sustainable landscaping in the high desert is essentially planning, planting and maintaining your outdoor space in a way that uses water judiciously. Its benefits go beyond being stewards of a limited resource. A sustainable landscape saves time, energy and money. As a general rule, you can save up to 40 percent on your water bill if you’re managing your irrigation wisely.
Whether designing a new landscape or retrofitting an existing one, selecting low- to moderate-water-use plants and adhering to efficient irrigation practices are key to creating a sustainable outdoor space in our low-moisture environment, said Amy Jo Detweiler, associate professor of horticulture for the OSU Extension in Central Oregon.
In addition to proper plant selection and irrigation practices, Detweiler said that modifying the soil of plant beds is a smart way to conserve water and maintain a thriving landscape.
“Our native soils are sandy, which drain water really quickly,” she explained. “Amending the planting area with a nice organic compost helps with root establishment and keeps more moisture in the soil, which will lead to less watering.” Aim to add approximately one-third soil amendment to two-thirds of your existing soil.
Before you banish turfgrass from your landscaping plan altogether, consider this: While the traditional ratio of 90 percent turf and 10 percent beds doesn’t make sense in Bend, turfgrass does have important benefits, including reducing erosion and runoff and providing a fire-resistance barrier around your home.
“In a water-efficient landscape,” noted Detweiler, “put grass only where you need it, such as high-use or play areas, and then fill in with perennials, trees and shrubs, which require less moisture.” Be sure to choose a turfgrass rated for cool weather and drought tolerance.
Tia Hatton is one of twenty-one students suing the federal government for failing to protect the nation’s youth from the effects of climate change.
Photo by Robin Loznak
Tia Hatton, 21, grew up in Bend, and like many locals, spent time with her family hiking and playing outside. In high school, she joined the cross country and Nordic ski teams. She’s currently a junior at University of Oregon studying environmental science and nonprofit management. She also happens to be one of a handful of climate change student activists suing the United States government for failing to act on climate change. Hatton is one of twenty-one students in Juliana v. United States, a potentially landmark lawsuit put forward in 2015 by Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit based in Eugene. The case recently reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the case can proceed in the U.S. District of Oregon, a major step forward for Hatton and other plaintiffs. Hatton talked with Bend Magazine about being involved in the lawsuit and what it takes to change the climate conversation.
Tell us about growing up in Bend and your connection to the environment.
My dad’s family moved to Bend in 1969, and my grandfather Raymond Hatton completed his Masters thesis on tourism in Bend at the time, then taught geography at COCC for many years. Weekends during my childhood were spent in the outdoors. Some of my earliest outdoor memories are of being outside east of Bend in the high desert dust, sagebrush and juniper, as well as of walking along the Metolius River. As I grew up, I got involved in Nordic skiing and cross country. My favorite times in the outdoors are runs during the fall along the upper Deschutes past Meadow Camp. I also have fond memories of taking a break during a tough ski at Meissner, only to hear silence and feel in awe of the crisp, wintry scene around me.
Did you ever notice changes to the region’s climate or landscape?
My senior year of high school, low snow caused Nordic practices to be cancelled or solely held at Mt. Bachelor, because of its higher elevation. The following summer, all of Oregon was in a severe drought, and the wildfire season was bad. Those were noticeable changes, and science confirms the climate is shifting to higher average global temperatures and more extreme weather events.
How did you get involved in Our Children’s Trust?
In the spring of 2015 I heard about a meeting for high schoolers interested in taking local action to curb the effects of climate change, my friend and I attended. That’s when I got connected to Our Children’s Trust YouCAN, Youth Climate Action Now. In the meeting we learned about the successful efforts of Eugene youth to ask their city council to pass a climate ordinance. That’s when the other high schoolers and I decided to pursue similar actions to urge action on the part of our city council. I never ended up participating in these activities, as I moved to Eugene a few months later. Kelsey Juliana, who is the lead plaintiff on our case, emailed me asking if I wanted to take meaningful action to stop human caused climate change by suing the U.S. Government. I said yes.
What has the experience of being involved in the lawsuit been like for you?
Being a plaintiff on this lawsuit is a tremendous experience. I’ve learned about the government’s long-standing knowledge of the harmful effects of increasing carbon dioxide pollution and other greenhouse gases. I’ve experienced the intricacies of our court system after attending multiple hearings. It’s extremely powerful to hear our stories being told in front of judges and the Department of Justice lawyers. The lawsuit has attracted media attention, and I’ve been interviewed by CNN, MSNBC, Global Citizen, the Youtube channel Soulpancake, have been on C-SPAN, and more. I’m passionate about the subject, and the route we are taking as young people. I wish the U.S. government, and global community had listened when they first realized the science, and rapidly started making changes and advancing renewable energy technology. It is unfortunately a topic tied to politics. Due partly to this, there is some negativity from people who either don’t believe in human caused climate change yet, or don’t care to understand the importance and necessity of the case.
What kinds of changes would you like to see in Bend to reduce our impact on the environment?
I’m impressed to see solar going up around the city, and I commend those who support it. The city council has adopted a climate resolution. However, it isn’t binding in any capacity, and there is a lot of work to be done. It’s important for business owners, especially those who rely on tourism, to understand that climate change can negatively affect their business. I think it’s a good step in the right direction, however, climate change is already happening, and every year without concrete action to curb emissions just means that much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, where it stays for a long time.
The Environmental Center of Bend shares five easy ways to make your home more sustainable.
Here it is—another list to help you reduce your carbon footprint. How many of these lists have you skipped past or skimmed through? Just ponder this for a moment though—the act of doing just one thing. And the impact that one thing will have when an entire community takes action. When you act to reduce your energy use, you are part of something bigger than yourself. To put this in perspective: if every home in Bend were to replace just six low-efficiency light bulbs, our community would save $2.6 million each year. How’s that for making an impact? And that’s just light bulbs. Here are a few things that you can do to do your part—and while you’re at it, see if you can get your friends to do just one thing, too.
1. Install efficient LED light bulbs.
Let’s get you started on something easy! LED bulbs use 80 percent less energy than standard light bulbs. Get up to sixteen installed for free from The Energy Challenge
2. Reduce your hot water usage.
This one doesn’t require you to buy anything. Hot water accounts for up to 20 percent of the average home’s energy use, so by using less hot water, your savings can add up quickly. Think twice about how long the water is running when you’re doing dishes. Consider washing your clothes in cold water. These days, most detergents are just as well-suited to be used in cold water. On top of this, you can get new high-pressure, water-saving showerheads for free when you get your free LEDs.
3. Turn down your water heater thermostat to 120 degrees.
This helps your water heater work a lot less hard. Sometimes this can be tricky. The best bet is to just Google it. If you have what looks like a heavy-duty extension cord going into the top or side of your water heater, it’s electric. If you see a flue or something that looks like a metal chimney, it’s a gas water heater. You’ll need to refine your search based on which type of water heater you have.
4. Take control of your thermostat.
Optimize your heating and cooling by making sure you’re taking advantage of times when you’re not home and setting your AC at a higher temperature. Remember, you only need your home to be comfortable when you’re there. (Note to skeptics: energy audits have proven that it’s more efficient to reheat and cool a home on demand than it is to maintain a consistent temperature.)
5. Consider an electric vehicle.
Yes, this one’s a much bigger move, but hear us out. Make sure you have all the information you need—you may find an EV fits into your life better than you may think. Stay tuned for details on workshops to learn more, Ride and Drive events to take one for a spin and special deals over the summer.
You can find out more on each of these topics and sign up for free LEDs at theenergychallenge.org
Editor’s note: This article was written by Lindsey Hardy, the Environmental Center’s Energy Challenge program director.
Sara Wiener on finding community in Bend and running a small business.
Sara Wiener does not sit still for long. An athlete and entrepreneur, Wiener thought Bend seemed the perfect place for her to settle with her partner Joanne and their daughter Bella. Often recognized for her variety of businesses, first Sara Bella, then Sara Bella Upcycled and now her new project Sara Wiener Consulting, she is not one to be kept down. Whether leading the charge to provide a safe and equal place for all community members, starting the Procession of Species parade (now the Earth Day parade) or becoming a CASA volunteer, Wiener has begun to find that perfect grass she had been looking for is the one she planted here when she started her journey in Bend more than twenty years ago.
On Finding Community
When I met Joanne in 1991, I didn’t know what Bend was, but Joanne had come to Bend as a child to ski. We were living in Olympia, Washington and would come here on vacations and long weekends. We were training for triathlons a lot and we were done with the rain. I got pregnant and then we decided to move here. I looked in the yellow pages under the words “gay” and “Jewish” to see what type of community I would find here for both of those pieces of my life. When we got here, there were a few gay people here who were willing to talk to us, but not interested in being outed. They made that very clear. Not that that was my plan, but we were coming here as an out couple—and pregnant! There is a Jewish community as well, but there was no temple and they met in the basement of a church. That has since changed and grown. I think we were a little bit threatening to people because we were out and not interested in anyway of going into a closet just because we moved to a Central Oregon town, which was about 25,000 people at the time. So, there have been some big, big changes since we moved here.
On A Changing Town
I like that there is a larger gay community in town that is more out now. We don’t have to be the pioneers anymore. I feel like we were in a lot of ways, from moving here pregnant, having a child and Joanne adopting Bella. It was the first birth by a known lesbian in town, and it was the first same-sex adoption in Deschutes County. Nobody seemed to know anyone else who had done it. But in any case we were very consciously wanting to make a path that would be easier for people who followed. As were raising Bella, there was a hate crime at The Grove, a restaurant and bar. It was a big, terrible shock. We were regulars there. We would take Bella all the time. We loved that there was a place that was overtly gay friendly in town. The hate crime led to a lot of changes. I was on the special committee to work on changing our Equal Rights Ordinance. That was a big deal and a bit of an eye opener. I gave testimony, and many other people gave testimony, pro and against. Someone gave testimony that the mountains were smoking because of us. I thought, “Well, thank you for that power.” But it changed things.
On Misconceptions
When people hear I live in Bend, they immediately think it must be a progressive place. I have to correct them, sadly, that on any vote, on any candidate, any issue, it’s often fifty-one percent to forty-nine percent. That tells you something. That is not what people understand about Bend. If they are coming in from Los Angeles or San Francisco or Portland, they are funneled into a particular part of Bend and they only know that part, whether it’s the west side or the beer culture or the ski culture.
On Bend’s Next Generations
One of the really cool things that has happened is with PRIDE, which is something that has grown wonderfully along with the growth of the town. It’s not the families who are moving here that are getting involved, but rather it’s our kids! It’s the kids who have grown up here. Whether they are gay or straight, they are getting it. These kids are getting it on all levels of gender diversity, fluidity, non-binary and trans, and I am loving seeing what is going on here.
On Why They Stayed
Moving from Olympia to Bend, it really felt like we were going backwards. I hated that feeling, but at the same time, what we decided was that we were going to stay and make something of it. We stayed because we loved it here, and we made some great friends. We are not necessarily looking for people that look like us. We’re just looking for good people. We are also athletes and outdoors people, major hikers, bikers (mountain and road). We skate ski, so we love the Nordic center and Meissner. We love taking our dog to Wanoga, where it’s off leash for skiing. We love hiking at Smith Rock and in the Three Sisters. We’re in love with the outdoors and the environment here.
On Starting A Small Business
I started Sara Bella in the early ’90s and named it after my grandmother because she was the most important and closest person in my life. She taught me how to sew. It’s funny, I spent many years in Bend as Sara Bella people did not know that I had a different last name. Being a small business owner for the last twenty years here in Bend, I loved being in the public eye. And being the extrovert and a manufacturer, artist, retail person, it was always important to me to be in a downtown core. I loved being part of the downtown core, before I got priced out. I started with the fleece and then I closed when I kept getting priced out of rent. I was burnt out. Then I was working on developing a cyber cafe in a small village in Kenya. Around that time, my friend told me you could iron plastic bags. I was so enthralled with it that I went into my studio and started ironing plastic bags like crazy and then Sara Bella Upcycled was born.
On Changing Careers
I’m excited to start my new business, Sara Wiener Consulting, coaching teens on executive functioning, time management and organizational skills. I have a masters in social work with a focus on school social work, and I have a teaching degree. So, I feel like this combines all of my education and skill set with what I can do today. I am excited and nervous and not very confident, but I feel like that is the exact right place to be in right now.
On The Grass Always Being Greener…
As much as I get frustrated with Bend for a variety of reasons, and I’ve said this for twenty-one years, where would we go? Where is the grass greener? I was always that person looking for the greener grass. I noticed within a year of being in Bend, as much as I questioned raising a kid here, I said to Joanne, “I don’t know where the grass is greener.” I can’t come up with a place that would be better that I would rather be, and today, I cannot do that either. At any point in the last twenty-one years, I have not thought of a better place to be. So, that really says something about this community.
A weekend in Willamette Valley wine tasting includes plenty of glasses of the region’s award-winning pinot noir as well as history, culture and farm-to-table meals.
Allison Inn & Spa
We launched our weekend of wining and dining on a grassy bank of the Willamette River. It was an overcast spring day, the air damp and smelling of black cottonwood. There was no wine in sight. No gleaming glasses of award-winning pinot noir, no hand-printed flight menus, no luxurious views of vineyard estates. Just a historic pavilion, fronted by an engraved stone pillar, marking this meadow as the site where Oregon’s first provisional government was formed in 1843. Without the rich soil, there wouldn’t have been a steady march of early settlers to the Willamette Valley. Without early settlers, there wouldn’t have been a provisional government. Without a provisional government, there wouldn’t have been an Oregon at all. Therefore, no fine Oregon pinot noir, born from the rich soil of the Willamette Valley. Turns out in Oregon’s wine country, everything comes full circle. You can’t pull the wine apart from the history, or the history apart from the people. Which was fine with us. My friend and I had come for relaxation and indulgence, but we were willing to interrupt decadence for culture and history. Each winery and restaurant, it would turn out, had a great backstory. Every Willamette Valley destination we visited wound into a tapestry of landscape, community, innovation and dreams.
Day 1
Alexana Winery. Photo by Andrea Johnson.
A significant aesthetic pleasure of touring Willamette Valley wine country is simply the road trip. It’s postcard-scenic here, each segment of the journey passing bucolic farms, fields readied for spring planting and stands of grand oak trees. We took in the sights with a sense of adventure as we set out on our two-day tour.
We ventured to ROCO Winery, outside of Newberg at the base of the Chehalem Mountains. Owner Rollin Soles came from Texas to make wine in Oregon in the 1980s. After crafting award-winning vintages for Argyle Winery for a few decades, he planted his own pinot noir grapes in a vineyard he christened Wits’ End. We sipped on ROCO Private Stash pinot noir from a bottle bearing the winery’s thunderbird logo, inspired by the petroglyphs of the Columbia Gorge.
Next on to Alexana Winery, where the view commanded our immediate attention. The vineyard descends over ridges and slopes into a misty wood, the coastal mountains poking through the cloud cover beyond. Dr. Madaiah Revana of Texas loved the great wines of Burgundy so much so that, in 2005, he sought out a place to grow grapes himself. The answer was this eighty-acre parcel outside of Newberg. The incredibly diverse and complex soils here are visually represented in the glass front of Alexana’s twenty-foot-long tasting bar, which is filled with layers of earth. We sipped chardonnay and contemplated colors from light sand to a rich brown to charcoal grey, in textures from gritty to dense. This was the stuff—the origin story of everything around here.
From the soil also rise wild mushrooms, one factor that drew the Czarnecki family to Oregon from Pennsylvania in the 1990s. Bringing four generations of restaurant experience, they took up shop in the historic Joel Palmer House, a grand two-story home built by the co-founder of Dayton in 1857. Since, the Joel Palmer House has become one of Oregon’s renowned fine dining restaurants and a purveyor of delectable dishes featuring mushrooms and other local foods. We settled into a four-course meal that included sturgeon, risotto, truffle oil, morels, lobster mushrooms and a divine white chocolate cheesecake, accompanied, of course, by Oregon wine. Chef Christopher Czarnecki paid us a tableside visit, explaining that his family and their friends still gather a majority of the mushrooms for the restaurant.
We arrived at the Allison Inn sated and sleepy. For years, wine country visitors had few overnight options. In 2009, Ken and Joan Austin built an incredible eighty-five-room luxury hotel in Newberg. The couple had grown up on farms in the area, ultimately founding a successful dental equipment company in their hometown. As the region captured international wine-tourism attention, they’d looked on, eventually creating lodging worthy of the most distinguished visitor. Our deluxe room offered a view of the vineyard from our own personal plush window seat.
Day 2
Carlton Winemakers Studio
We began the day in JORY Restaurant, the Allison’s nod to both the renowned soil underfoot and Pacific Northwest farm-to-table dining. Chef Sunny Jin has his own garden onsite, and my omelet came with a petit salad as well as locally sourced maple-sage sausage.
Was it too early to visit a winery? No, it was not. Winderlea Vineyard is perched outside Dundee, and its tasting room is in a glass-encased building that feels like a castle on the hill. We sampled Winderlea’s small-batch wines in a bright tasting room as Donna Morris told us how she and Bill Sweat left Boston and successful business careers behind to craft an Oregon pinot noir winery. Surrounded by vast garage door-windows boasting views across the vineyards into the valley beyond, I didn’t blame her one bit.
Lunch was at Red Hills Market, a marketplace and restaurant I fell in love with immediately. The tall square building embodies the best kind of neighborhood gathering place, warm and inviting, smelling of delicious foods and bustling with chatter. Wood-fired pizzas, soups, salads and more farm-to-table treats are served from a busy counter. The Oregon albacore tuna melt with local cheddar, capers and arugula hit the spot. It came as no surprise that, when we met the market’s owner Jody Kropf, we learned he’s an Oregon native who grew up helping his parents with their business, the Brownsville General Store, and that he was drawn right back home after culinary school in California.
Red Hills Market
The Carlton Winemakers Studio was born of collaboration and community. Twelve individual vintners produce coveted wines under one innovative roof in this modern and light space. When we were there, winemakers sat together over tasting glasses, decanters and clipboards, immersed in the tasks of the trade.
Scenic rural roads delivered us to McMinnville, where we began our tour at the McMenamins Hotel Oregon rooftop bar. Below us was the charming downtown and a bird’s-eye view of shops, restaurants and entertainment. The hotel was built in 1905 and brought back to life in 1999 by Oregon natives Mike and Brian McMenamin, famous for their restoration of old Pacific Northwest buildings.
Tucked away in a glass storefront on a side street, we found Thistle, a cozy, eclectic restaurant that quickly made a name for itself with a menu that changes constantly based on available provisions from nearby farmers and ranchers. Our experience began with a cocktail called the Millionaire—rum, gin, apricot brandy and lime—poured into an antique champagne cocktail glass. At a wooden-plank table, from mismatched vintage plates, we enjoyed innovative flavors by way of oysters from Netarts, “wild weeds,” anchovies, duckling and kale.
We found our walk-up flat over the Odd Fellows Lodge. The owners of Third Street Flats want guests to immerse themselves in McMinnville. We had a small apartment of our own, walking distance to shops and eats, with a tidy kitchen stocked with everything we might need (read: chocolate and wine). Our “8th Flat” was decorated contemporary post-modern, in colors of indigo and white.
Quiet, lovely and comfortable, the flat made us feel as if we were local insiders. Drifting to sleep, we could dream of living right here ourselves. Perhaps we would plant a vineyard or start a farm. Maybe open a restaurant. We would put down roots, connect with a new community and create something wonderful out of the rich soils of the Willamette Valley.
Water is one of the most talked about resources in the high desert.
1. Don’t set it and forget it
The most efficient irrigation method is the one that’s being monitored. A monitored system—whether by hand or timed/automatic—takes current weather and location (i.e., not the sidewalk) into consideration on a routine basis. In general, Detweiler recommends that irrigators should water less at the beginning of the summer, more as it progresses and then taper off again in the fall. One way to stay on top of irrigation management is to purchase a smart irrigation system, which responds to real-time weather conditions and forecasts, offers intelligent watering schedules and gives you control of your sprinklers from anywhere via an app.
2. Avoid runoff
When hardscaping an area, consider permeable pavers, which allows water to seep into the ground below. Similarly, dry river or rock beds can be positioned to collect rainwater and direct it somewhere useful, say, a plant or flower bed.
3. Just the right amount
Grouping plants together with similar water needs into distinct beds or zones prevents overwatering plants that don’t need the extra moisture. For example, group moderate water use plants in one bed and low-use plants in another. When it’s time to set up your irrigation schedule, you can easily provide more water to plants that need it and less to those that don’t.
4. Top it off
Adding a layer of mulching materials to your plant beds helps keep moisture in, versus bare soil, which dries out quicker. Aim for a two- to five-inch layer.
A retreat, a remodel and a modern infill project showcase creative approaches to sustainability.
Photo by Alan Brandt
Central Oregon is well-known for sweeping mountain vistas, towering stands of pine forests and clear, cold rivers, so it makes sense that our love for nature influences the way we design and build our homes. A modern retreat in the forest, a nearly 100-year-old bungalow and a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home all show that there’s more than one way to be green.
1. Old Bend Meets New Modern
Photo by Alan Brandt
Realtors often tout “location, location, location,” and when it comes to sustainability, living in a home where you can easily walk to amenities means you can drive less. Just half a block from the popular Jackson’s Corner eatery in the Old Bend neighborhood sits Doug and Kathryn Collins’s modern 2,000-square-foot home. The home was born from a desire to live in the heart of Bend so they could walk to downtown, the Deschutes River, Drake Park and the Old Mill District. “We decided to forgo the mountain views for the simplicity of walking to nearby things that we like to do,” said Doug.
The couple had several ideas that required a creative approach to the home. It had to be single-story and it had to be sited and designed so that it wouldn’t dominate the neighborhood or be visible from a block away. It also had to be environmentally friendly. Sustainable features include a 3.2-kilowatt grid-tied solar electric system on the roof and a heat recovery ventilator, which brings fresh air into the home through an energy efficient heat exchanger. All the lights have high efficiency LED bulbs, and the landscaping consists of entirely drought resistant native plants for a low maintenance and low water use yard.
The Collinses are architectural buffs with a love for Frank Lloyd Wright designs, so local architect Eric Meglasson wove together a modern look with touches of Wright. Clerestory windows filter in natural sunlight, while still providing privacy in this dense central neighborhood. The entire home has concrete flooring with radiant heating for warmth, and simple, low maintenance finishes are found throughout the home. The fir trim, along with the cedar ceilings and art from local artists, is an intentional nod to Pacific Northwest materials and culture.
2. A Passive Solar Home in the Pines
Photo by Might Creature Co
When Susan Worden and her husband Bill were planning to build a home in Central Oregon, Susan distinctly remembers saying to herself, “I want to feel like I’m living in the forest.” The couple also had specific goals for their home. It had to, in this order, be affordable, efficient, sustainable, have “aging in place” features and be architecturally beautiful. All those factors combined to produce a one-of-a-kind home on a forested property in the Three Rivers South area, south of Sunriver.
Designed and built by the Wordens, the house is passive solar, meaning it maximizes the sun to heat and illuminate the home. Orientated so that the south side of the home has most of the windows, the home is designed so that the warm sun filters into the home in the winter, but not in the summer. A large concrete fireplace heats the home, and the wood comes from trees cleared on the property. By sustainable, selective tree thinning around the house and on the fifteen-acre lot, the couple already has enough wood for at least the next nine years.
Tightly sealed and well-insulated walls, ceilings and foundation, triple and quadruple paned windows, LED lighting and ultra-efficient appliances are just a handful of the features that make the home energy efficient. The Wordens were also conscientious about the materials in the home and made an effort to find local, recycled or repurposed materials. All the fill and concrete was sourced from five miles away, and noticeable throughout the home are repurposed materials such as an “upcycled” stainless steel countertop and a dining table made from bowling alley flooring.
Designed with health and longevity in mind, the home has a yoga room, an infrared sauna, and has “aging in place” features such as no stairs or steps, wide hallways and curbless showers. “We intend to live here for a long time,” Worden said with a smile. It’s easy to see why, in this south county retreat.
3. A Net Zero Energy Historic Bungalow and ADU
Photo by Mighty Creature Co
Experts agree that when it comes to energy efficient and sustainable buildings, the holy grail is “net zero energy.” While it might sound like a lofty phrase, it’s actually a simple concept. A net zero energy home is one that creates onsite as much energy as it uses, leaving the occupants with no energy bills and a home that contributes no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is usually done with a combination of renewable energy, usually from solar panels, and an extremely well-sealed, insulated and energy efficient home.
Designing and building a net zero energy home isn’t always simple to do, but Joe Emerson and Ann Brayfield have made it their mission to help people achieve net zero energy in their homes. The couple has built several net zero energy houses in Bend, and their latest project is a renovated 1926 west side Bend bungalow with a new accessory dwelling unit (ADU).
The 500-square-foot home evokes the yesteryears of Bend, when the lumber mills were churning out wood that was sent to build houses near and far, featuring a deep bungalow-style front porch, wide-trimmed windows and old fir floors.
“The house is amazingly well built, and we discovered right away that it has good bones, so we thought it would be an interesting home to transform into a zero energy home,” said Brayfield.
A closer look at the old home reveals features such as high-efficiency windows, blown-in insulation, new wiring, and high-efficiency LED lighting and heating.
The real powerhouse of the property is the new 600-square-foot ADU that sits behind the bungalow on the cozy lot. The small roof houses a 6.4-kilowatt solar panel system that provides clean, renewable energy for both units.
Since summer 2017, the two homes together have proven to be net zero energy—a green feat for this unique property.
Oregon’s newest resort near Burns, Silvies Valley Ranch combines Western ranch life with top-tier golfing for a unique and elevated ranch retreat.
Photo courtesy the retreat & links at Silvies Valley Ranch
Scott Campbell isn’t the kind of person who does anything halfway. Campbell is the veterinarian who did for animal care what Ray Kroc did for the hamburger, turning a sleepy Portland veterinary practice into a multimillion-dollar pet hospital empire. So when Campbell, now semi-retired, returned his attention to his native Eastern Oregon, folks who knew Campbell expected that he would come up with something big. He didn’t disappoint.
In late 2017, Campbell unveiled his latest venture—part luxury resort, part dude ranch and totally Oregon. Silvies Valley Ranch Retreat and Links is a 140,000-acre resort and golf destination located between Burns and John Day that ties the region’s colorful ranching history with what Campbell sees as its economic future.
Campbell grew up in nearby Burns, about forty-five minutes south of Silvies Valley, not far, at least by Eastern Oregon standards. It was in Burns that he developed his early interest in animal care, tending to horses and cattle on his family’s ranching operation. Campbell’s career took off in the late in 1980s when he grew his traditional veterinary practice into Banfield Pet Hospitals, a business franchise that pioneered concepts like health insurance for pets.
It’s no accident that Silvies Ranch sits far from the nearest city or international airport. Campbell wanted a project that showcased the diverse geography and natural beauty of Eastern Oregon, while also addressing the persistent lack of economic investment and job opportunity in places like Burns, where unemployment remains high and wages stubbornly low. Campbell looked to Bandon, another formerly depressed town on Oregon’s coast, and saw the economic transformation that followed the development of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.
Worth the Wait
Photo courtesy the retreat & links at Silvies Valley Ranch
Some seven years in the making, after a brief sneak preview last summer, the resort is now ready to debut for its first full year of operation. If you’re expecting Sunriver or Black Butte Ranch, think again. Unlike those sprawling resorts, there are no roads at Silvies. Guests check in at the welcome center and transfer their belongings into golf carts, the preferred mode of transportation around the property, where gravel paths connect the communal dining hall, cabins and golf courses.
While Silvies Ranch is plenty remote (the only traffic jam we witnessed involved a massive herd of resident elk), it’s also surprisingly accessible from Central Oregon. If you’re traveling from Bend, it’s hard to get lost. Head straight to Burns and hang a left. From there the two-lane Highway 395 climbs into the heart of the Malheur National Forest through a bulwark of massive lava rock and sandstone formations that at times pinch the road into narrow slot canyons, before climbing into a ponderosa forest that beckons exploration. Within half an hour or so, the highway drops into a broad valley where signs announce entry into the historic Silvies Valley Ranch, really a patchwork of pre-existing ranches and homestead properties that stretch into the surrounding hills to the east and west. Roadside signs direct guests along gravel roads into the ranch where they are greeted by a proverbial welcome wagon and concierge. The check-in process is eased by a causal refreshment station with a nice craft beer selection, wine by the glass and artisan cheese. (Cocktail hours are an enshrined part of daily life at Silvies.)
While 2018 brings the debut of a spa and fitness center, you won’t find a wave pool or waterslide. Instead, Campbell is betting that his unique approach to the destination golf resort will appeal to golfers who are willing to travel, sometimes across the globe, for one-of-a-kind experiences like Silvies. Designer Dan Hixson designed a “reversible golf course” that can be played as two different 18-hole layouts depending on the day. This year debuts an even wilder idea, a 7-hole, par-3 golf course dubbed McVeigh’s Gauntlet. The course, more an array of tee boxes and greens, requires players to make approach shots over narrow valleys to angular greens tucked onto hillsides. If it seems like cruel joke on average handicappers, consider this punchline: Silvies is employing trained goats to serve as caddies (the upside being that no tipping is required). There is also a short pitch-and-putt, par-3 course that offers players a taste of Silvies’ signature sloped greens and the links golf tactics they require. While the golf can be challenging, the views are beyond comparison with many holes featuring elevated tee boxes that offer broad vistas over seemingly endless rolling valleys that stretch to the foot of the Blue Mountains.
Off the Links
Photo courtesy the Retreat & Links at Silvies Valley Ranch
Schedules typically revolve around tee times at Silvies, which leaves non-golfers plenty of time for exploration and relaxation, both of which are in abundance at the resort. In addition to golf, Silvies offers hiking, horseback riding and fishing in a man-made pond. Come July, the resort will also reveal its new spa, which includes a fitness room, lap pool, saunas, a climbing wall and spa treatments to soothe golf-weary shoulders and backs. In addition to golf and spa activities, the ranch offers off-road biking and a shooting range where guests can play Wyatt Earp under the watchful eye of an instructor who will offer the finer points of gun safety and marksmanship. Regular cattle drives mean guests can also witness and partake in the time-honored round-up tradition.
If you’d rather just relax and take in the scenery, Silvies has you covered there, too. The cabins feature a deck-side hot tub for guests staying in the main guest room. (A lockout feature allows the cabins to be set up in multiple configurations for booking flexibility.) The cabins themselves carry the resort’s Western themes and feature rustic luxury—think antler chandeliers and leather couches—with plenty of modern touches like climate-controlled wine storage and radiant heat.
If the days offer solitude, meals are an event that draw guests from around the ranch. During our stay, a single group seating offered a chance to mingle with others, making new friends while enjoying the ranch’s hospitality. Guests were offered steak or chicken dinner, but the choice was clear for me as well as most of my dining companions. We were asked to select a carving knife from a deliberately mismatched selection of hunting knives that was passed around the table like a church offering plate. Once properly armed, we dug into perfectly cooked ribeye steaks with sides like mashed potatoes and roasted broccolini shared around family style. Afterward, we migrated to the patio for a bonfire and a last round of cocktails, watching as crackling embers drifted over our heads toward the first evening stars peeking through a fading desert sky.
In time, Campbell hopes that Silvies Ranch will draw guests from as far away as Japan and China, not just for the golf, but for a chance to immerse themselves in the Old West, or at least the idea of it. Campbell acknowledges that it will likely take several years for international travel buzz to develop around Silvies, which has only now just begun to break ground on many of its planned overnight accommodations. Given the singular and signature Western experience, he believes that they will come. In the meantime, he’s got Oregon’s hardcore golfers looking east and seeing green.
Jamie Brown, a sprint paratriathlete, is climbing the ranks of the sport and aiming for the 2020 Olympics.
Jamie Brown. Photo by Pete Erickson
Run, cycle, swim—every day. That’s what it takes to stay faster than almost everyone in the world. Just ask Bend’s Jamie Brown, who has been doing it for the past eight years while climbing the ranks of the world’s best sprint triathletes.
Sprint triathletes race a truncated triathlon that includes a 20k bike leg and 5k run. A multisport event, the sprint triathlon is to the Ironman what the 100-yard dash is to the mile race in track and field. It takes a special kind of athlete and a certain mindset to succeed in a race that is part endurance race and part mad dash.
“I guess I have always just liked pushing myself and my limits,” said Brown. In March, he won the continental championships, and he’s currently training for the New York City Marathon. He’s done it all without the benefit of a right leg. Brown was born without a right fibula, but he’s never allowed it to slow him down. An early surgery set him up for a prosthetic lower leg. He started playing sports like everybody else, always competing against able-bodied athletes. Eventually, he was pitching in the Division III College World Series for Chapman University in California. “It never registered as ‘I’m the disabled kid,’” said Brown.
That kind of can-do mindset has served him well throughout his life. When he turned his focus to paratriathlon races roughly eight years ago, it didn’t take long for the results to follow. Since then he’s amassed an impressive list of achievements at the national and international level, including gold medals on the world championship level. Athletic ability and a fiercely competitive spirit have brought him success, but Brown credits his wife, also named Jamie, for her unwavering support. “I most likely would not be able to compete at this level without her motivating and pushing me to go swim every morning.”
With each season comes another set of obstacles and another set of opportunities. Later this year he’ll be in the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon, plus racing in Japan and on Australia’s Gold Coast. The ultimate goal is the Olympics. Brown narrowly missed qualifying for the last summer games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. His recent successes have only added to his determination to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
Talent and a loving spouse propel him far, but Brown’s essential strength originates in positive thought. “The further you go in sports, the more challenges and adversity you are going to have to encounter,” said Brown, who until a recent rule change, found himself racing alongside para-athletes who had both legs.
“It doesn’t matter how many parts you’re missing,” he said. “Mind state is critical.”
“I’m pretty big on practicing sports psych and visualization. With endurance sports, you’re consistently going, and, sure, when you’re hurting, negative things start to fill your head,” he added. So, as part of his training, Jamie imagines himself in those scenarios. “It allows me to create ways to resolve these feelings.”
Brown isn’t the type of competitor who hoards his knowledge as a competitive advantage. He coaches other para-athletes, like the nation’s best (and world number two) above-the-knee amputee, Mark Barr. Jamie also works with local youth triathlon camps and is creating a team of young triathletes alongside Ironman coach Jaime Dispenza. Meanwhile, Brown and his wife lead adult fitness classes in Bend, including family-specific group workouts.
Advice from one of Bend’s top athletes? “Eat right, get sleep and allow your body to recover.”
As the population of Bend and Central Oregon continues to grow, so does the amount of waste we collectively send to the landfill.
While recycling is an important step in trash management, preventing waste from occurring in the first place is the gold standard in sustainability.
“We say ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ in that order because it’s the order of importance and impact,” said Denise Rowcroft, a sustainability educator and the manager of the ReThink Waste project spearheaded by the Environmental Center of Bend. Here, we share easy-to-adopt tips to help you begin a reduce-reuse-recycle habit. And for those who want to make an even bigger impact, we offer advice on how to take your home trash management and prevention routine to the next level.
About a quarter of the trash that enters the landfill is food waste. Once in the landfill, that food waste releases methane gas, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately global warming. Composting your food scraps not only reduces methane gas emissions, but also breaks down to create a nutrient-rich soil for your garden or flower beds.
While composting is highly recommended for disposing of unused veggies and fruits—just like recycling—it’s worth taking a look at your buying habits to prevent food from needing to be composted in the first place. It’s not just good home economics. Purchasing less means a reduction in your total carbon footprint.
“If you have a lot of fruits and veggies going bad in your fridge,” explained Rowcroft, “there is still a significant upstream environmental impact to ship that carrot grown in California on multiple trucks to Bend.”
1. Shop your cabinet and fridge first.
This has two benefits: You avoid buying duplicates and you may discover something to add to your weekly meal plan before it goes bad.
2. Make a plan before you buy.
Creating a meal plan and shopping list in advance of your trip to the grocery store helps you purchase only what you need.
3. Eat your leftovers.
Step 1 will help you remember to follow through with Step 3.
4. The freezer is your friend.
If you don’t have a plan for a specific food item before it will spoil, freeze it for later use. Just don’t forget to “shop your freezer” on a routine basis.
Tiny homes don’t skimp on design aesthetics and high-end features and contribute to the sustainable housing movement in Central Oregon.
A Wood Iron Tiny Home. Photo by Joshua Langlais
In 2014, mainstream America discovered the “tiny home movement” through shows like Tiny House Hunters, Tiny House Nation and Tiny House, Big Living. Four years later, tiny homes are still gaining popularity among builders and buyers. Part tree house, part camper trailer, so-called tiny homes come in many shapes, if not a lot of sizes. The mini cottages are typically built on camper trailer frames, offering a highly mobile residence with a bohemian feel for individuals and families who seek the comforts of home stripped down to the essentials.
Spud and MaryEsther Hooley of Bend’s Wood Iron Tiny Homes (WITH), like many in the movement, consider “tiny living” more a lifestyle than a floor plan. Before starting WITH, the Hooleys spent seventeen years on missions to impoverished countries. “For 75 percent of the world, living tiny is their only option,” explained Spud. After dwelling among those with so little, the Hooleys wanted their business to offer an alternative to American “McMansions”—something both elegant and economical. It seems many find the idea of pared down, sustainable living attractive, particularly in Oregon where interest in tiny home living and building is among the highest in the nation, according to Google’s search data.
Photo by Missy Mabel
The Hooleys migrated into the tiny home building market almost by accident. They tried RVs and remodeled a caboose, but discovered tiny homes had a winning combination of mobility and quality. They liked the idea of building something from scratch that was high on craftsmanship but low impact, environmentally speaking. For starters, tiny homes simply require less of everything, fewer raw materials, less space and energy. Mobility can also add to the dwelling’s efficiency.
“You can move a tiny home seasonally into shade or sun to conserve energy,” she added. Most tiny homes feature composting toilets, and WITH’s smaller model, dubbed McKenzie, sports portable solar panels and off-grid capabilities. The Hooleys keep transit costs down during building by shopping locally. Their debut model, North Sister, features hardwood floors, a cedar shake exterior, and granite countertops from Bend businesses and cabinets from wood milled in Sisters.
Photo by Missy Mabel
They see tiny homes conserving other things, too. “You shop less. With each purchase you consider, ‘Where would I put it? Do I love it more than what I have?’ So, your income goes farther,” said Mary Esther. Although WITH exists on the higher end of the tiny house price range, the Hooleys work to balance custom home quality with affordability. “You still have to come up with a six or seven-year payment, like a car, but it is better than a thirty-year mortgage,” said Spud.
Tiny Home resident Tamara Heauser bought the North Sister model last year, after touring it at an expo. “I wasn’t planning to buy a tiny house, I just wanted ideas for my own design,” explained Heauser. She had designed a custom home and remodeled a cabin previously. Although accustomed to beautiful aesthetics, she’s also lived in 400-square-foot spaces and even a tree house. She wanted mobility with custom-home quality, and her North Sister model fit the bill.
“I don’t feel it’s about not having things,” she said. “It’s more about choosing things that I use and value. It contributes to a simpler lifestyle.”
A thoroughbred racehorse destined for the racetrack suffers a twist of fate, but lands in Central Oregon, where a passionate equine community rallies to give him a second chance.
Kevin Thompson, Lisa Valenta and Norris
In the winter of 2012, a colt named American Pharoah was born in New Jersey. The thoroughbred spent his early life in some of the best barns in America, training to become an elite race horse. In 2015, he became the first horse to win the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup Classic, considered the Grand Slam in horse racing. Acclaimed for his speed, good nature and athleticism, American Pharoah became a legend, revered by the horse community and popular with the media and public.
Around the same time American Pharoah was born, his half-brother was born in another barn. They called that colt Party on the Nile. He had the same smooth stride and impressive physique as his brother as well as the same kind demeanor and hardworking personality. His career, however, ended differently. Plagued by a damaged tendon and hoof problems, all chances of becoming a star racing horse like his half-brother were gone.
It would appear that Party on the Nile was the unlucky brother. But Party on the Nile caught a break when he caught the eye of Lisa Valenta, a Bend resident and horse enthusiast. Valenta spotted Party on the Nile at After The Races, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that rehabilitates thoroughbred racing horses and finds them new homes, and ideally, new careers. Valenta was searching for a thoroughbred to adopt and train as a hunter and jumper horse. She was drawn to Party on the Nile’s build, and she loved the look in his eye.
“So often you’re looking for one thing, and you find something else,” said Valenta.
Valenta took a leap of faith. Party on the Nile left Pennsylvania in a trailer bound for Oregon. He had cleared his first post-race hurdle, avoiding the slaughterhouse in Canada or Mexico, the fate of many young failed racehorses. Instead he was welcomed by a thriving equine community that was willing to make a different kind of bet on a thoroughbred racehorse.
A New Home
Lisa Valenta and Norris
Valenta wasn’t sure what to call him. For months Valenta and her husband, Kevin, called him New Horse. That became Norse, and eventually, Norris. The horse had a new name and a new start, but his health issues lingered. Despite expert care, Norris’s leg wasn’t getting better, it was getting worse.
Lisa and Kevin own four horses and are no strangers to horse problems. As high-performance animals, horses require a whole team of care, from farriers to the veterinary team to chiropractors to masseuses and trainers. “It’s not just you, and it’s not just the horse,” said Valenta.
That means plenty of room for opinions and plenty of opportunity for healthy debate. The equine community is tightly knit, but not always in lock step. In this insular culture everything from saddle fit to bits to feed is dissected and analyzed. About the only thing that the horse community can agree on is the duty to a sick animal.
“Norris wasn’t available for adoption to anyone except [someone] who had the resources, the community, to deal with these issues,” said Valenta. “Not all communities are are as lucky as Bend to have as many professionals, farriers and vets that specialize in these types of issues.”
It Takes A Village
Dr. Patrick Young
Dr. Patrick Young is a large animal veterinarian who moved to Central Oregon from the South in 2014, bringing along his Texas drawl, cowboy hat and boots and habit of chewing tobacco. The last of ten children, seven of which are medical doctors, Young bucked tradition when he “cowboy’d” for two years on a ranch before going to vet school.
Young was one of many who rose to the occasion to help Norris. He describes himself as a mobile “horse mechanic” who travels all over Central Oregon diagnosing and treating high performance horses like Norris. “I just fix their wheels,” he said modestly.
He’s humble, but in fact Young is a specialist in equine lameness, arguably one of the most challenging diagnostic puzzles a vet can face. He carefully takes in every muscle movement, the geometry of the horse’s gait, and the speed and force of each foot fall, following up with modern diagnostic tools like x-ray, MRI and ultrasound. Young also heads a biotech company and has successfully researched and licensed a new vaccine for pigeon fever in horses. His passion for creative problem solving is exactly what Norris needed.
There’s a saying about horses that dates back to the 18th century and persists to this day: No hoof, no horse. Horses with poor feet often end up in constant pain and suffer from severe lameness. When the Valentas first called Young to look at Norris, “It was definitely a lot worse than I envisioned,” he said. “It was definitely a bigger problem than what they thought it would be. But I thought it was fixable. I think everything is fixable. I think I have an ‘S’ on my chest.”
After watching Norris and taking x-rays, Young began treating his ailments with a series of progressive treatments like corrective shoeing to reshape his hooves and cocktails of antibiotics and anti- inflammatories, “voodoo” as Young calls it jokingly, to treat the infections and abscesses that were also growing.
For weeks at a time, Lisa and Kevin had to fill a bucket with water, epsom salts and betadine, unwrap Norris’s foot and place it in the bucket, make him stand there for twenty minutes, pack the hoof with epsom salts, rewrap it, then place it in a protective boot. Norris waited patiently in his stall, healing and resting for the next round of treatments.
A Second Chance
Jeff Cook
For most of the 20th century, thoroughbreds ruled jumping competitions. In the 1980s, though, European breeds began to take over, displacing domestic thoroughbreds. “It was hard to be competitive with those horses,” said Jeff Cook, a trainer who works with Norris. “You might go through twenty thoroughbreds to find one that truly is competitive. There’s a risk to it.”
Many thoroughbreds were left without a second career after racing, creating the risk of an excess supply of retired race horses. Recently, there have been efforts to get thoroughbreds back into the hunting and jumping competition. Cook has a soft spot for thoroughbreds like Norris, especially those in the competitive hunting and jumping world. “I love a thoroughbred, refined type, and that he is,” said Cook, who is renowned for his discipline and decades of experience training horses. He spends his entire day around horses. It’s hot and dirty work, yet Cook manages to stay as crisp and clean as when he walked in that morning.
Adding to the challenge, thoroughbred horses in particular are known for having sensitive feet due to their flat and thin soles. Foot problems can shorten a horse’s athletic career and contribute to inactivity and muscle atrophy. Those that don’t have access to quality veterinary care or resources are euthanized.
“We’re trying to encourage thoroughbreds back into our industry,” said Cook. “To this day of any of the horses I’ve seen, the best horse I’ve ever seen was a thoroughbred. A good thoroughbred cannot be beat. They look to go to the fences, they look to go to the jump.”
Jeremy Thompson is a local farrier, the guy called in to work with Norris’s hooves. “He’s had a lot of recovery,” said Thompson. “His feet are way better than when I met him. He had no heels. He had abscesses constantly. He had issues with soundness, being able to walk out without any signs of lameness. From what I saw when he showed up at our place in the beginning of winter is 100 percent better than it was.”
With corrective shoeing, Thompson is working on getting Norris’ hooves to grow more naturally upright, instead of flattening out like they are prone to do. It will give him more support, which is healthier for the hoof and better suited to jumping.
Norris’s tenacious personality showed through even in the initial treatments and encouraged Valenta. At one point while he was on stall rest for a month, he jumped up and over the top of his stalls without touching anything—from a standstill. An incredible feat for an almost 1,500-pound horse. It’s part of what draws people to Norris and what encourages the community to find solutions to his problems.
“I had some really frank discussions with Dr. Young about whether we should keep him as a sport horse or whether we should find a home for him that would be less demanding,” said Valenta. “I just keep getting encouraged to keep on with it, because he is such a nice horse, that we feel in maybe another six months to a year, he’ll be in a position to really see what he can do. It’s doable, it’s just going to take time.”
Young is also hopeful for Norris. “If we can keep that foot in alignment, that’s the key to him,” said Young. “If we can keep his wheels under him, he’ll be fine.”
Lisa and Kevin have taken on a huge risk with Norris. If he does respond to treatment, the question remains as to whether he will be competitive. “Hopefully he’s going to really love jumping,” said Lisa. “If he doesn’t love jumping…” she trailed off for a moment looking at Norris. “He’s such a cool horse.”
Back in the Saddle
Jeremey Thompson
At the end of January, after dozens of epsom salt soaks, antibiotics, new shoes and wedges, stall rest and numerous other therapies, Young made another barn call to assess Norris’s progress. Norris was feeling good, perhaps a little too good. His energy had been contained a little too long in a twelve-by-twelve-foot stall. Everyone has learned that when Norris decides to rear and stretch his legs, there isn’t a lot that can stop him, which is exactly what he does.
Norris slipped away from his handler and ran hell-bent for the leather, as they say, in the opposite direction. The onlookers watched attentively. Seeing a horse like Norris strut his stuff can fill you with exuberance. But with his physical limitations, it can also make you cringe, hoping he doesn’t re-injure his sensitive soles.
Young broke the silence. “He looks pretty fucking sound to me,” he said, before they all chased after Norris.
City partners with developers to revive historic Redmond Hotel.
The Redmond Hotel today. Photo by Heaven McArthur
For ninety years, the New Redmond Hotel stood through depression, war, boom and bust cycles of Central Oregon, changing economics and outright neglect. Now, Redmond’s grande dame is getting a makeover—from top to bottom, inside and out—with the hope that she can be restored to her original splendor and prominence.
“We want an eighteen- to twenty-four-hour environment that includes living, working and staying downtown. The hotel will play a key role,” said Chuck Arnold, Redmond’s economic development and urban renewal manager. He estimates that the hotel will bring in about $2.4 million to downtown businesses in just the first year of operation.
Listed on the National Register for Historic Places, the New Redmond Hotel was built on the corner of Southwest Sixth Street and Evergreen in 1928 for $150,000 by William and Fanny Wilson, replacing a wood hotel on the same site, which burned to the ground in 1927. The new structure was bigger, sturdier and built to last, framed in steel and fir, and cased in brick masonry.
Bend architect Hugh Thompson designed the New Redmond Hotel in the Georgian Revival-style with touches of Art Deco. The Georgian style was based on classical Roman and Greek values of symmetry and proportion. The three-story, 43,000-square-foot hotel featured a Romanesque arched entryway, an open lobby with high beam ceilings, painted Corinthian columns, a banquet space and one of the first elevators in Central Oregon.
As the Wilsons’ intended, the hotel became a gathering place for locals and travelers passing through on the adjacent Highway 97. Room rates averaged $1.75 per night, and ads billed the hotel as the finest lodging east of the mountains.
However, records and news stories reveal alternating cycles of deterioration and renovation over the decades. It’s been more than a decade since the last guest checked out of the hotel, which ceased lodging operations in 2004. City officials and other proponents of the hotel never stopped seeing it as an anchor for downtown redevelopment and a cornerstone of long-range revitalization plans. The trick was finding the right partner to jumpstart a makeover of the building, which needed both structural and cosmetic work.
Photo courtesy City of Redmond
“The incredible ‘bones’ of the hotel drew us into this project,” said Bill Tremper, chief operating officer of California-based Alpha Wave Investors, LLC, which bought the hotel in 2017. “Our overall intent is to restore the hotel as a social gathering spot for the whole community,” he said, adding that the group hopes its efforts will draw other businesses to downtown.
The renovations are being financed by a $670,000 loan from the city and Alpha Wave’s private capital. If Alpha Wave maintains the property as a hotel for ten years, the city will forgive the loan.
“We want to bring out the age and patina of the older rooms while making sure they’re super clean,” he said. The owners will work to maintain different sizes and shapes of the forty-six rooms on the upper two levels, with nightly prices ranging from $100 to $150. Street level will include a spacious new lobby with the original stone fireplace, antiques saved from the early days, a market cafe with ready-made food, a large room for hosting events and perhaps a social club.
With a commitment to sustainability, Alpha Wave plans to repurpose the original fir floors, repair lath and plaster walls, replace single-pane windows with double panes, add solar panels to the roof, install LED lighting and use tankless, on-demand water heating. “We employ efficient processes throughout our properties, from solar to water conservation to composting and minimal waste programs,” said Ken Cruse, founding partner and chief executive officer. “In doing our part in minimizing our footprint, we’re helping the communities that host us to flourish.”
A highlight of the renovations will be a greenhouse-themed rooftop bar with seating for about fifty people and 360-degree views that include Smith Rock and the Cascade Mountains. The owner will begin opening the hotel in phases, with the rooftop bar targeted for July, the street-level cafe for September and guest rooms in February 2019.
Since bringing beer production in-house in 2014, Sunriver Brewing Company has been turning out consistently solid, flavorful beers while winning awards locally and nationally. Head brewer Brett Thomas leads a team of talented brewers producing a wide range of styles, including a series on the cutting edge of trends, hazy IPAs.
Photo of Brett Thomas by Alex Jordan
At Sunriver you’ve really embraced the hazy New England-style IPA, a style that has exploded in popularity in recent years. Why do you think the style is so appealing?
I think it’s appealing for a number of reasons. We’re really getting to work with different mouthfeel components from the wheat and oats in the grist, lower levels of bitterness and higher levels of residual sweetness from the yeast selection and a brave new world of hop flavors and aromas from the varieties being used, the quantities being used and where we’re using them in the process.
You have a solid lineup of award-winning beers and a firm grasp of the classic styles, but what’s the most “out there” style you’ve tackled?
From recent memory, I’d say it was the ThaiPA we brewed last summer. The beer was a moderate gravity, low bitterness IPA with the addition of ginger, lime zest, kaffir lime leaves, purple basil and dragon chilis. It was certainly one of the most unique beers we’ve worked on and was actually really tasty.
Going into Memorial Day to kick off the official summer season here, what are your favorite styles of beer to drink during the summer?
Mexican Lager, Fuzztail Hefeweizen, Electric Avenue Session IPA, and a new beer that we’ll be debuting at the Oregon Brewers Festival called Hugs and Flip Flops. It’s a pale, hoppy wheat beer brewed with Oregon grown Amarillo hops.
A Sisters ranch is poised to culminate the decades Kathy Deggendorfer has devoted to fostering an arts economy for Central Oregon.
Inside one of Oregon’s last remaining round barns, hand-built nearly a century ago on a Sisters ranch dating back to 1850, Kathy Deggendorfer is looking up at the elegant slope of the conical roof, supported by a swirl of wooden beams. She marvels at the craftsmanship, speculating about the Old World design origins of the space where horses had been trained for decades. A square opening cut into the wall frames a snow-dusted Black Butte, one of a swath of surrounding peaks. Beyond that, a grove of cottonwoods, some of the oldest east of the Cascades, rustles in the breeze. Whychus Creek winds by, singing its liquid song.
Along the creek, about a dozen more 1930s structures stand as sentinels to that era and make up what is called Pine Meadow Ranch. There’s a bunkhouse, caretaker’s cottage, woodworking sheds, tack rooms and a home designed by one of Oregon’s preeminent architects, Ellis F. Lawrence, the mind behind a score of historic buildings around the state, such as the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene.
Relatively few in Central Oregon may know of Pine Meadow Ranch—yet. The 260 acres was ranched, farmed and beloved for nearly a half-century by aviatrix and rodeo stalwart Dorro Sokol, who died last year at age 90. With riparian stretches close to town being scooped up for development, Deggendorfer swooped in and bought it in November to preserve the land, the views and historic buildings, and with the hope of creating a center for exploration of the arts and sciences through the lens of life on a working ranch.
This vision builds on her three decades of shaping the cultural life of the region, from grassroots work in the early days of the Sisters Folk Festival and the Sisters Quilt Show to supporting arts, education, environment and social services in surrounding counties and around the state. Hundreds of these efforts have been funded through The Roundhouse Foundation, which she began in 2002 with her mother, Gert Boyle, known as “one tough mother” from ad campaigns for her company, Columbia Sportswear. (The 94-year-old lives in Portland and has had a longtime affinity for Central Oregon.) Their goal has been to help celebrate creativity, particularly efforts in which artists serve as positive role models and mentors for children, and to create a new arts-driven economy for Central Oregon. With the addition of Pine Meadow Ranch, Deggendorfer is poised to take her vision to a new level.
“I thought, ‘What can we manage and what can we do here?’” she said, strolling the ranch in black boots, her hands in the pockets of a Columbia barn jacket. “I was not willing to see the loss of the view-scapes and the loss of agriculture. I don’t really need to take on this whole other project at 67. I could be a person who plays bridge and golf, but I just can’t. It’s just not right. I want to make a community that we want to live in, and if it’s done in the right way, the rest of the country might come along.”
For her, simply complaining about things is not an option.
A Creative Vision
Throughout her life, Deggendorfer, an accomplished painter, has found that the most inspiring discussions, and the most creative problem-solving, happen when artists and scientists of seemingly disparate disciplines come together to think and work. As she began formulating her vision for Pine Meadow Ranch, she wanted to look at potential models of the concept, but she also wanted others’ perspectives, too, so through The Roundhouse Foundation, she awarded scholarships to eighteen artists for residencies around the nation and abroad. “I chose working artists who are strong-willed, rather than someone who might try to say what they think I’d hoped,” said Deggendorfer.
The artists reported on their experiences, which helped Deggendorfer crystalize a vision for Pine Meadow Ranch. Her dream is to foster a place to connect the arts and sciences with the crafts and skills integral to ranching life: managing livestock, growing crops, preserving food, training horses and dogs, doing leatherwork, woodwork, glasswork, metalwork, ceramics and textiles, painting, photography, music, managing and enhancing Whychus Creek, riparian study, sustainable energy, recreation and social events.
“It’s about honoring that can-do, gotta do-it-yourself spirit,” said Deggendorfer.
For now, it remains a vision. In the short term, her focus is on inviting artists to do individual residencies on land zoned for agricultural and forest uses. “We don’t know what it can be, because we’re honoring the land-use laws and working diligently with the county to see what we are allowed to do, what we can do and how we can work with them to achieve the goal,” she said.
Preserving the working ranch would fit synergistically with a new creative space emulating the agricultural history of Sisters. It would be easily accessible to the community, a ten-minute walk for Sisters schoolchildren coming to the ranch for historical tours, and for artists to contribute to village life, too.
“A farm is a place where things happen—things are grown there beyond food,” she said. “There is a sense of community and thought, such that someday the next cure for whatever ails might come out of an author meeting with a scientist and a woodworker, and saying, ‘Did you ever think of this?’ And it sparks a whole new idea.”
For instance, she pointed to Finland’s Aalto University, which is gaining global awareness of a new environmentally friendly manufacturing process for making textiles. The multidisciplinary science and art community emphasizes that new opportunities and products require open collaboration across organizational and national boundaries.
Like the celebrated, visionary Fab Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which lets anyone design and execute small-scale manufacturing digitally and cheaply, the ranch could offer myriad opportunities, from environmental study to learning songwriting or painting from a resident artist.
“Sisters is a perfect place for this because we have a terrific brain trust and philanthropic community that wants to stay engaged, share what they have and create a place for young minds to grow,” she said.
Back at the Ranch
Since buying the ranch, Deggendorfer and her husband, Frank, have focused on cleanup, salvaging whatever is useful or speaks to its past, from an old forge and branding equipment to a vintage sleigh and enamel cookstove. A monitor-style barn is made of lodgepole beams harvested from the property and has floors of Douglas fir from a nearby stand, now gone. The cat’s-eye pattern of the wallboards was designed by nature—the sweating of the hay stored in the loft. Those who’d gone to house concerts there years ago had described the acoustics of the space, above the adjacent cattle sorting-pens and squeeze shoots. “It was like being inside a guitar,” said Deggendorfer.
She hopes that in the next few years she will be inviting scientists, woodworkers, ceramic artists, painters, chefs and authors to the ranch for residencies and to join locals, exchanging ideas and creative thought. The concept is an extension of her 2014 exhibit, “Painting Oregon’s Harvest: The Art of Kathy Deggendorfer” at the High Desert Museum, which is now traveling to museums around the state. For that show, Deggendorfer visited working farms, fisheries, cherry, pear and apple orchards, vineyards, Bandon cranberry bogs, and ranches in Central and Eastern Oregon, depicting the beauty and bounty of Oregon-grown food.
“All that study I did is coming full circle,” she said. “It’s not just an art project anymore. The ranch is the opposite of the virtual world, it’s about whatever the body needs and sustains it. How do we honor this place where we are, and how do we not defile this place?”
One Tough Family
Transforming a ranch into a new-styled center for the arts and sciences would be daunting to most people, but Deggendorfer isn’t most people. Those close to her point to a personal history that has primed her for it.
In 1970, when she was 19 studying at the University of Oregon, her father, Joseph Cornelius “Neal” Boyle, died suddenly of a heart attack at age 47. Her mother, a 46-year-old housewife with no business experience, took his place at the helm of Columbia Sportswear, a small and financially struggling outerwear manufacturer that her father had founded in Portland.
Deggendorfer’s younger sister, Sarah “Sally” Bany, said this was a formative moment for all three children. “Mom jumped into the business, and we are all seeing mom doing that. One day you’re this, and the next day something like this happens, and you’ve just got to go for it,” she said. “It’s ingrained in all of us.”
Many expected Boyle to fail, but with her son, Tim Boyle, now the company’s president, CEO and director, they turned it into a leading global retailer of outdoor apparel, footwear and equipment with sales of nearly $2.5 billion last year. The ads featuring Gert as “one tough mother” made her an industry icon, but Deggendorfer said her childhood memories reveal her mother’s true self. “Employees would come to her strapped for cash, needing money for rent or to have their teeth fixed, and even though she didn’t have any money at all, she’d give them money or somehow take care of them, knowing they’d pay her back. She is a very generous person and has a lot of empathy for people.
“That persona of a tough mother, she’s the opposite of that,” she said. “She’ll definitely tell you what she thinks and is not going to take guff from anyone, but she’s protective, empathetic, caring … and taught us [children] all to be.”
Gert Boyle’s book, One Tough Mother: Taking Charge in Life, Business, and Apple Pies, chronicles her journey. She wrote it with Kerry Tymchuk, director of the Oregon Historical Society.
He said, “What Kathy has done for Sisters, turning it into a hub for artistic, creative minds is remarkable, and [Pine Meadow Ranch] is another step down the road of saving an architectural treasure and turning it into something to benefit the region. The fact that her mom is still going strong at 94 is just a little hint of where she gets it. Kathy’s just a force of nature, with a wonderful, self-deprecating sense of humor—she takes her vision of what she wants seriously, but doesn’t take herself seriously.”
In that vein, Deggendorfer quipped that Gert’s spirit may have “skipped a generation” to Deggendorfer’s daughter, Erin Borla. The 38-year-old of Sisters spearheads Columbia’s ReThreads program, which encourages customers to bring in their used clothing to be recycled into fibers for new products such as insulation, carpet padding, stuffing for toys and new fabric, diverting tons of waste from landfills. One of the barns at the Pine Meadow Ranch is also a temporary staging area for the company’s end-of-season coats, boots and other sportswear, which is sorted and delivered to nonprofits.
Columbia’s chairman of the board, who still works daily at her office in Portland, reflected on what shapes one’s work.
“As life goes on, you really think, ‘This is what I’d like to do,’ but I don’t think it should ever be written in stone,” said Boyle. “Things present themselves. I took over Columbia and that certainly was not in the plan, for my husband to die and I’d have to take over, but things present themselves, like the new ranch that Kathy and Frank bought. They were thinking about doing something like that, and the opportunity presented itself.”
At the ranch, the round barn mirrors a round house for which the Deggendorfers’ foundation is named. Kathy recalled that growing up, her family had a small house in Lincoln Beach, and Neal Boyle would tell his children they could wander no farther than the round house. “It was that thing that Dad would say to us kids: ‘Run to the round house! They’ll never corner you there!’”
All these years later, it seems she’s still listening.
Recognized by his peers as an industry leader, Paul Israel has helped pioneer Oregon’s green energy movement.
Paul Israel with his son.
A New Hampshire native and longtime Bend resident, Paul Israel opened Oregon’s first Sunlight Solar Energy storefront in Redmond in 1997, selling RV power accessories and off-grid products. Since then the business has added offices in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Portland, Oregon and has completed over 2,000 solar installations. Israel was recognized in 2012 as Oregon’s Solar Professional of the Year by the nonprofit industry advocate Solar Oregon. He spoke with Bend Magazine about the state of the solar industry and what the future holds for renewable energy.
How long have you been involved in renewable energy and how did you get started?
I started with a Ralph Nader fuel oil buying cooperative in the late 1980s in Washington, D.C. I got a taste of the power of energy to shape our environment and society.
Is Bend a good incubator for solar businesses?
I was running a solar business in Portland and Eugene, which was before the technology was so widely spread or accepted as it is today. So the first question I always got in the Willamette Valley was, “We don’t get much sun here—does solar work?” When I came over to Bend the question was, “We have so much sunshine, shouldn’t everyone be using solar?” So, for a solar business, Bend was a perfect incubator.
How has the company evolved over the past decade?
We have gone from the proverbial one employee to eighty-four employees in five offices in Bend, Portland, Colorado Springs, Boston and New Haven. We have full benefits and are exploring employee empowerment programs such as employee stock ownership plans and the cooperative model.
Where do you see the biggest opportunities in the solar industry over the next decade and how does Sunlight Solar plan to position itself?
We see growth happening in the larger, utility-scale projects, requiring us to have more sophisticated, financially educated employees. We also see opportunity in community solar (projects where a single solar array is owned by, or serves, multiple customers), which means understanding a law that is currently being enacted in Oregon to promote that initiative. Also, we will keep abreast of building trends, such as the use of integrated solar panels, namely solar-ready shingles that look like average shingles but generate electricity.
What are the biggest changes and challenges facing the solar and renewable energy industry right now?
Increasing prices. China was found to trading unfairly and all imports into the U.S. have been slapped with a 30 percent tariff. In addition, the aluminum industry just saw a 10 percent tariff. These are direct increases that have stopped cold a decade of continual price decreases.
Can the solar industry survive and thrive without strong state and federal incentives for business and consumers?
One could ask if the oil, gas and coal industries could survive without incentives that have been around for decades longer and exponentially higher than anything the renewable energy industry receives. For the coal industry the answer is obvious. If the playing field were level, solar would be even more competitive. Likewise, the cheap power that folks in the Oregon rural co-ops pay is a result of taxpayer investment in hydroelectric power. Is that the “free market” or is that a government incentive? Finally, if you believe like I do, that climate change and its consequences are the biggest threat to our children, then you need a widespread social and community response. It seems it will take continued catastrophes to motivate the people and politicians to do the right thing and invest in solar. Our nation could easily generate 100 percent of its power with wind, solar and other renewables.
Top 5 Energy Sources in Oregon
Hydroelectric – 40%
Coal – 32%
Natural Gas – 17%
Wind – 6%
Nuclear – 3%
Biomass, solar, geothermal, biogas, waste and others – <1%
The best dishes in some of the region’s most popular brunch restaurants. Who decided that only moms love brunch? Yes, Mother’s Day is synonymous with brunch, but the dual-purpose meal has become a whole new ballgame. There’s a brunch restaurant for every culinary trend, monster-sized drinks that could easily be a meal on their own and a new use for that charming Craftsman in your neighborhood. In Central Oregon, the brunch line is as ubiquitous as the lift line. With so many options, it’s impossible to narrow down the best or the favorite, but these are the dishes that make us want to skip the standard soggy cereal and indulge.
Christie’s Kitchen
Order: The quiche, made special every day
Christie Bryant of Christie’s Kitchen in Redmond wouldn’t call her restaurant a brunch destination, even if other people might. “We’re a breakfast and lunch restaurant, but we serve breakfast all day,” she said. “Especially on the weekend, our guests really enjoy the option of all-day breakfast.”
Christie and her husband Gary sold their previous restaurant, the Country Nook, over a decade ago to retire. “But I got bored,” said Bryant. Christie’s Kitchen was born in a red house in downtown Redmond six years ago to immediate popularity, given the frequent line out the front door. The menu is diner happiness, from biscuits and gravy to an eight-ounce sirloin to a malted waffle. Homemade cinnamon rolls or muffins are a delicious smaller treat, or go big with chicken fried steak, country gravy, eggs and potatoes.
Bryant’s “brunch” choice? The quiche. She makes it herself with handmade pie crust and different fillings every day. “I like them all, as long as they don’t have mushrooms,” said Bryant. Try the bacon spinach Swiss quiche or the club quiche, which mimics the namesake sandwich with smoked turkey, bacon, American cheese, Swiss cheese, ham and fresh grilled tomatoes. The quiche comes with fruit or hashbrowns, or upgrade to a soup or salad. When you’re finished, wave into the open kitchen to thank Bryant yourself for a great meal—just don’t call it brunch. — Kim Cooper Findling
Chow
Order: The Blackstone
In peak season, there’s going to be a line out the door of Chow no matter what day of the week. Not to worry, though, as there are bloody marys and mimosas to tide you over until you can nab a table at the popular west side Bend breakfast and lunch destination. Known for its commitment to locally sourced ingredients, including from the onsite garden, Chow offers a unique take on traditional and Southern-style flavors. Everything is made from scratch, from the sourdough toast to the innovative hot sauces like habanero carrot at each table.
There are classic breakfast options to choose from, but Chow is the kind of place to get out of your breakfast comfort zone. The Blackstone is a new take on eggs Benedict, with cornmeal-crusted tomatoes serving as the platter for smoked bacon, spinach and two perfectly poached eggs. A bernaise sauce, similar to a hollandaise but with more acidity from white wine vinegar and includes shallots and herbs, is poured over the top of it all. The result is a savory dish that feels fresh with each bite.
Opt for the bacon cheddar grits on the side instead of standard fried potatoes. The Southern delight could be a standalone meal, with bits of bacon and melted cheese inside a not too mushy, not too grainy corn grit. This is comfort food at its finest and what keeps people coming back. — Bronte Dod
Jackson’s Corner
Order: The Cristo
When Jackson’s Corner opened its doors on the corner of Delaware Avenue and Broadway Street more than a decade ago, it was on the leading edge of the local farm-to-table movement, with an emphasis on fresh and local ingredients and handmade breads and pastas. Today the cafe is an institution in Bend, having expanded to a second location near St. Charles Hospital.
The breakfast menu is straightforward, but the execution is pitch perfect on standards like huevos rancheros, prepared with Imperial Stock Ranch beef chorizo, and the playful Green Eggs (and ham), pesto scrambled eggs with shaved parmigiano-reggiano. But if we had to select just one dish that embodies Bend’s brunch ethos, it would be Jackson’s Cristo, a sweet and savory delight that is part lunch sandwich and part breakfast plate in one decadent package.
A variation of the traditional croque monsieur, a fried ham sandwich that appeared in French cafes in the early 20th century, the Cristo takes the concept to another level with egg-drenched French bread enveloping thinly sliced Hill’s ham and Tillamook Swiss cheese. The entire concoction is then pan fried to crispy perfection. Jackson’s finishes the sandwich with a fried egg perched atop. A dusting of powdered sugar and a side of maple syrup completes this brunch de resistance. — Eric Flowers
McKay Cottage
Order: Stuffed French Toast
The service at McKay Cottage is just about as charming as the 20th-century Craftsman that was converted into the brunch destination. Servers buzz around the tables, topping off coffee, chatting with regulars and balancing the plates that come stacked with food. The restaurant is off the beaten path for Bend standards, overlooking the Deschutes River on O.B. Riley Road, but that doesn’t stop the hordes of people who will wait in line for a table.
McKay Cottage has been open for more than a decade and is well known for its scratch-made dishes and freshly baked treats. If your meal doesn’t come with an incredibly light buttery scone, splurge and order one for the table, especially one that comes with a seasonal fruit baked inside. There are more than enough options to choose from for breakfast, including classic favorites such as eggs Benedict and biscuits and gravy, as well as modern takes such as breakfast burritos and even what can only be described as breakfast nachos.
The stuffed French toast is one of the best options. The typical hearty slice of toast is swapped for a flaky croissant, which is stuffed with an Italian mascarpone, a citrus and cheese filling. The entire concoction is dipped in batter, grilled and topped with a strawberry compote. It’s less adventure-fuel and more indulgence, but entirely worth the wait. — Bronte Dod
Bos Taurus Chef George Morris leverages modern techniques for classic steakhouse fare with a progressive American twist.
It’s the early ’90s in suburban Chicago. A 7-year-old boy, at home on the couch in his basement, is flipping through channels and comes across a cooking show. It’s with a lady who talks funny, so he stops, then watches as Julia Child prepares coq au vin. He’d never seen anything like it before.
That moment was what set George Morris on his life’s path. He asked his mother about the dish of chicken braised with wine. “That weekend, my parents took me downtown to a French bistro,” he said. “They were really good at recognizing how interested I was, and they’d take me to new, hip restaurants, ones with open kitchens where I could watch the cooks and chefs doing what I do now.”
Chef George Morris
Today, as the chef of Bos Taurus, an intimate downtown Bend restaurant serving some of the highest quality beef from around the globe, Morris feels that he has finally found his true home after nearly two decades in the industry. While at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., he’d done stages at some of Manhattan’s best restaurants, from Le Bernardin and Daniel to Per Se and WD-50. He was sous chef at 5 Ninth in New York City (working with Chef Zak Pelaccio, James Beard Award winner of Best Chef Northeast) and at some of Chicago’s top restaurants. He rose to executive chef at Truffle Pig in Steamboat Springs, Colo. By 2015, he’d become executive chef at The Madeline Hotel and Residences in Telluride, Colo., overseeing the luxury resort’s three restaurants.
After he and his wife, Kellie, visited her father in Bend, George asked his father-in-law to let him know if he ever heard of any executive chef positions here. At the same time, the team behind 10 Barrel Brewing, founders Chris and Jeremy Cox, company president Kyle McKee and James Meskill, director of operations of The High End (the craft brands of Anheuser-Busch, which bought 10 Barrel in 2014), were looking to launch something new in Bend’s culinary scene. They got a lead that Barrio was looking to expand and leave its spot on Minnesota Avenue.
“It had been super successful, and some of our favorite restaurants had been there, such as Mars,” said Meskill. “And all of us remembered how much fun that place was, and we were excited to be the next in line.”
The space dictated the concept—a twist on a classic American steakhouse. “We wanted to keep it simple, classic, somewhat timeless, with clean lines, but with a Bend feel, not stuffy. We wanted to have fun with it.” Morris learned of it, came out to meet the team, and they hit it off. He said he wanted to grow with the endeavor, and they offered him a partnership.
Morris researched ranches, selected thirteen, and sourced seventy-five steaks. “Every cut we thought we wanted to use: porterhouse, ribeye, filet, New York, bavette and hanger.”
In one night, the five partners and general manager Jim Kiefer tasted all of them. “It was one of the greatest and worst days of my life,” said Meskill. They compared notes and voted unanimously on about a dozen steaks from five ranches. The ones that made the cut for the opening last year range from Japanese Hokkaido A5 Wagyu, with its off-the-chart marbling for tenderness and flavor, to the hanger steak from 7X Ranch in Hotchkiss, Colo., where the sustainably raised cattle graze on nine types of grasses.
Morris rubs the steaks with hickory-smoked salt and a blend of peppercorns and seasonings, sears them on a custom-made, two-inch thick, 200-pound, cast iron slab heated to 550°F, removes them, rubs them with local butter, lets them rest, and re-sears them to achieve the perfect crust and medium-rare doneness.
“I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to cook a perfect steak … every time,” said Morris. “It’s hard to find a staff that can do that daily. They’re amazing.” Morris and Meskill said the most important ingredient in any restaurant’s success is the quality of the staff, and they’ve got it.
Tumalo couple Rand and Holly Rodes Smithey are both self-taught artists who collaborate on contemporary art.
Randy and Holly Rodes Smithey
Lovers of contemporary art and natural desertscapes will find the perfect confluence of the two off Innes Market Road near Tumalo. That’s where Rand and Holly Rodes Smithey have built their home on ten acres with Cascade Mountain views and studios for making and showing art. The place is relatively easy to spot—just look for the contemporary metal sculptures rising from a former hay field in seemingly random displays of curves and geometry.
As they walk visitors through their two studios, the couple recounts meeting each other in 2002, marrying in 2006 and the collaboration that’s defined their lives. “It’s been about us coming together and having a similar eye,” said Holly, with Rand adding, “We tend to gravitate to the same pieces when viewing art.”
Rand Smithey
Their artistic expression is decidedly abstract and non-representational. In general, Rand creates steel sculptures, large and small, on wood and stone pedestals. He and Holly occasionally collaborate on large sculptures and metal paintings. Holly assembles patinaed metal and mixed media into paintings for wall display. Both spend time metalsmithing in the studio they built in 2004 and remodeled three times to accommodate their growing need for space. They recently finished a second studio with high, open spaces and a profusion of natural light for Rand’s big acrylic and oil paintings.
Self-taught, Holly enjoys the sense of discovery and physical aspects of making art. She moved to Bend in 1996 and worked for five years at the paddle company, Kialoa, where she hand-shaped outrigger canoe paddles. “I liked using my hands to create things,” she said, using that experience to segue into welding to express her art after meeting Rand.
“I draw inspiration from a sense of place and its connection with architecture and the natural world,” she said. “The work is guided by this combination of transitions, a fabric of rhythm and pattern between the visual and physical in a sculptural way.”
Also self-taught, Rand was influenced by “the wonderful sculpture collection” at Western Washington University in Bellingham where he studied science and literature. “I take pieces of vocabulary, transform and recombine them to create my own abstract visual language,” he said. “Sometimes I use explicit symbols. In my paintings, the ladder is metaphor for aspiration, our need to become more than we are, more than we think we can be, more than others expect of us. It’s about transcendence.” Rand often borrows from literature to title his paintings, including “Sea Starved Hungry Sea,” from a poem by W. B. Yeats or “Earth in Forgetful Snow,” from a poem by T.S. Eliot.
The Smithey’s gallery and workshop at home.
To share their love of art and artmaking, the Smitheys conduct workshops and are offering a new series of one-to-three-day classes from May through August. They’ll be teaching welding, mixed media techniques of acrylic paint on copper, abstract painting with the influence of poetry and abstract painting with the influence of sound. “We love the amazing energy participants bring,” said Holly, and Rand adds, “It’s a relaxed atmosphere with lots of room for people to explore.”
Both Rand and Holly have joined the Peterson/Roth Gallery in downtown Bend as gallery artists and will be the featured artists in May. Gallery Director Ken Roth said the pair has been active in the Central Oregon art scene for years and has a loyal following. “It’s unique to have a married couple who share ideas and a work space,” he said.
The Smitheys also do commissioned pieces, and their work, which sells for $500 up to $9,000, is collected coast to coast. Members of the public can make an appointment to visit their studios and meet the artists.
Five of the best mountain biking trails to ride in Central Oregon this spring. The snow has (mostly) melted off the lower elevations and some of the region’s best mountain biking trails are opening up for spring rides. Check out these easy to intermediate mountain biking trails across Central Oregon.
Cline Butte
Inside the Cline Buttes Recreation Area, the Cline Butte Trail is a perfect spring mountain biking trail. While the rest of the area is low in elevation, this trail climbs up Cline Butte. There are some steep grades that will get your heart pumping, as well as a fast downhill on the way back. The downhill is technical, with some steep rocks, but there are three routes down that all lead back to the trailhead, so you can pick the best option for you. The views at the top overlooking Redmond and the Cascades are well worth the ride.
Location: Redmond Type: Loop Level: Intermediate Length: 8 miles Open: Year-round; Best riding in late fall to late spring.
Lower 66
The Ochocos are well known for stellar trails, but most are ranked intermediate to advanced. Lower 66 trail system is close by in Prineville and offers some easier trails for beginners. There are five trails to choose from that all connect, but Rocky Racoon is the easiest loop in the trail 66-acre trail system. The trail has a few rocks to navigate as well as as a rock bridge over a creek.
Location: Prineville Type: Series of loops Level: Beginner to intermediate Length: 4.2 miles total, but can be broken up into shorter loops Open: Year-round
Black Rock Trail
This is one of the oldest mountain biking trails in Central Oregon. It begins at the Lava Lands Visitor Center near the Newberry National Volcanic Monument and ends at a connection on the Deschutes River Trail between Bend and Sunriver. The ride doesn’t have much elevation gain and isn’t considered technical, so it’s a good trail to try if you’re new to mountain biking. The name comes from the lava flow that the trail parallels. Take the turnoff about halfway down the trail. You’ll ride on a quarter-mile trail to an overlook that’s worth the detour.
Location: Between Bend and Sunriver Type: Out and back Level: Beginner Length: 8.2 miles total Open: May-October
Lake Creek
You won’t find many people on this trail, which is one of the newer hiking and mountain biking trails near Sisters. The 4.5-mile trail begins near Camp Sherman at the community hall. The double-track trail winds through the old-growth forest, a section of the Metolius Preserve before finally reaching Suttle Lake. While there are a few hills, the trail is considered easy and a great ride for beginners who want to work on their skills riding over roots and rocks without the crowds sharing trails.
Location: Camp Sherman Type: Out and back Level: Beginner Length: 9 miles total Open: Year-round, condition dependent
Catch and Release
Catch and Release is in the Wanoga Trail System, which doesn’t open until June. It’s a connector trail from the Forest Service Welcome Station on Cascade Lakes Highway to the more difficult trails in that area, but it’s a great trail for beginners to try. You also extend your ride and catch the loops of Lower Stormking or Tyler’s Traverse.
Location: Bend Type: Out and back Level: Beginner Length: 9 miles Open: Year-round
Mark your calendars for these concerts and music festivals in Central Oregon this summer.
Photo by Mitch Wiewel. Courtesy of Elk Lake Resort.
While Central Oregon regularly produces a solid lineup of shows and festivals throughout the year, summer is really where we hit our stride. From raucous shows on the lawn at the Les Schwab Amphitheater to folk festivals out on high desert ranches, these are the concerts and music festivals in Central Oregon and beyond that you don’t want to miss this summer.
Note: This list will be updated as more shows are announced and dates are confirmed, so check back throughout the summer for the latest shows.
Ray Lamontagne and Neko Case
May 30
Les Schwab Amphitheater
In a pairing that ensures the music gods were looking out for Bend this summer, singer-songwriter Ray Lamontagne and Neko Case (with her first solo album in five years) will be performing at the Les Schwab Amphitheater and opening a summer concert lineup of your dreams.
Jethro Tull
June 8
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Classic rock favorite Jethro Tull comes to the Les Schwab Amphitheater. Jethro Tull just released a new album and is on its 50th anniversary tour.
Slightly Stoopid
June 9
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Reggae band Slightly Stoopid will be in town again this summer. If last year’s performance is any indication, the reggae band will throw a party the whole town will be talking about.
Corner Gospel Explosion
June 16
Elk Lake Resort
One of the region’s best places to listen to live music in the summer is also one of the most scenic. Elk Lake Resort hosts a series of outdoor concerts for everyone. This season kicks off with Corner Gospel Explosion.
Michael Franti
June 19
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Is there any other town that loves Michael Franti more than Bend does? Back again this summer, Michael Franti will be taking over the lawn at the Les Schwab Amphitheater with his feel good summer jams.
Chris Isaak
June 21
Athletic Club of Bend
Singer-songwriter Chris Isaak kicks off the Clear Summer Nights concert series at the Athletic Club of Bend. The musician is known for the hit songs “Wicked Game,” “Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing” and “Somebody’s Crying.”
4 Peaks Music Festival
June 21-24
Stevenson Ranch
Each year, 4 Peaks Music Festival brings in some of the best acts in bluegrass, folk, Americana and more to a four-day festival in Bend. The event includes plenty of camping sites and activities for the whole family to enjoy.
Primus and Mastodon
June 23
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Rock bands Primus and Mastodon take the stage by the Deschutes River. These two acts bookend the “prog” rock genre but share a cult-like following. Pack your “moshing” shoes and your ear protection. It’s about to get loud.
Bill Keale
June 23
Elk Lake Resort
Spend one of the longest days of the year, at least in daylight terms, up at Elk Lake for an outdoor concert featuring Bill Keale. Pack some chairs for a picnic or eat at the lodge while you listen.
ZuhG
June 30
Elk Lake Resort
ZuhG is a jam group from Sacremento that will surely have the crowd on its feet at Elk Lake Resort.
Crawfest Music Festival
July 6-8
Powell Butte
The Crawfest Music Festival is a three-day music event that rocks Powell Butte in July. You’ll rock and roll, country, hip hop, EDM and more across two stages at an old ranch. There’s local food and drink vendors onsite as well as activities that the whole family can enjoy, including a nightly bonfire. It’s also one of the most affordable summer music festivals in Oregon.
Steve Martin, Martin Short and the Steep Canyon Rangers
July 6
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Steve Martin has completed one of the most successful pivots in show business and we are fully on board. Actors and comedians Steve Martin, also a successful folk musician, and Martin Short will be at the Les Schwab Amphitheater to perform their comedy/music act. The Steep Canyon Rangers and Jeff Babko will also be performing in the show dubbed “An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life.”
Wheeler County Bluegrass Festival
July 6-8
Fossil
Bluegrass connoisseurs won’t want to miss the Wheeler County Bluegrass Festival held in Fossil. The annual show brings out bluegrass bands to entertain throughout the weekend and hosts other activities and events for families.
Broken Down Guitars
July 7
Elk Lake Resort
A Central Oregon favorite, Broken Down Guitars will be playing at Elk Lake Resort on July 7. Get to the resort early to find a spot because this concert will be busy.
Bookends
July 14
Elk Lake Resort
Bookends, a Simon and Garfunkel tribute band, will be playing at on the shores of Elk Lake.
G Bots and the Journeymen
July 21
Elk Lake Resort
Hometown band G Bots and Journeymen will be at Elk Lake. Take a break from your normal weekday routine and head up to the lodge to listen and a enjoy a hot summer evening.
Jackson Browne
July 24
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Seventies icon and erstwhile Eagles collaborator, Jackson Browne makes a stop in Bend on his West Coast tour. The “Running on Empty” singer-songwriter is a must-see for classic rock lovers.
Sheryl Crow
July 25
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Everyone’s favorite rock-country-pop crossover Sheryl Crow will be at the Les Schwab Amphitheater this summer. Her last studio album was released in 2017.
The Decemberists
July 26
Les Schwab Amphitheater
A Pacific Northwest favorite from Portland, The Decemberists arrive on the banks of the Deschutes River on July 26. The band always puts a great show and will be performing songs from their newest album, I’ll Be Your Girl.
Newberry Event Music & Arts Festival
July 27-29
Diamondstone Guest Lodges
Don’t miss this music festival in La Pine, a benefit for Defeat MS. The Newberry Event Music & Arts Festival in the woods at the Diamondstone Guest Lodges will have more than twenty bands throughout the weekend. It’s a family-friendly festival full of activities everyone will enjoy.
Kayleb James
July 28
Elk Lake Resort
From Redmond, Kayleb James and his guitar will be at Elk Lake Resort for a show.
Sisters Rhythm & Brews Festival
August 3-4
Village Green City Park
A new festival comes to Sisters this summer. The Sisters Rhythm & Brews Festival is a two-day music event with craft brews and live music from John Mayall, Nikki Hill, Curtis Selgado, Hillstomp and more.
Willie Nelson and Alison Kraus
August 4
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Tickets are already sold out for this show. Willie Nelson takes the stage in August along with Alison Krauss, creating a folk lineup that will surely be talked about for awhile.
Doc Ryan and the Whychus Creek Band
August 4
Elk Lake Resort
Doc Ryan and the Whychus Creek Band is an Americana and blues band taking the stage at Elk Lake Resort in August. It’s a popular band in the region that always puts on a great show.
Pixies
August 5
Les Schwab Amphitheater
The seminal alt-rock band of the 1990s is still going strong and will be in Bend at the Les Schwab Amphitheater playing songs from a catalog that reads like college radio playlist circa 1993 along with material from the more recent studio albums from 2015 and 2016.
Amos Lee
August 9
Les Schwab Amphitheater
The rock, folk and soul singer-songwriter Amos Lee (“Windows Are Rolled Down” ring a bell?) comes to Bend this summer on tour with his most recent self-produced album.
Cosmonautical
August 11
Elk Lake Resort
Bend indie-rock band Cosmonautical, who released their first album in 2016, will be at Elk Lake this summer.
Joe Russo’s Almost Dead
August 12
Athletic Club of Bend
Playing “mostly Grateful Dead songs,” Joe Russo’s Almost Dead will take the stage at the Athletic Club of Bend this summer. The rock band was formed in 2013 in Brooklyn.
Rebelution
August 15
Athletic Club of Bend
Summer plus concerts plus Bend equals reggae. Rebelution, a popular reggae band, will be in Bend at the Athletic Club of Bend to perform for a night.
Moon Mountain Ramblers
August 18
Elk Lake Resort
Around for more than a decade, the Moon Mountain Ramblers are a favorite local band in Central Oregon that takes bluegrass to a new level.
Steve Miller Band and Peter Frampton
August 21
Les Schwab Amphitheater
They bring down the house every year. Steve Miller Band and Peter Frampton will once again perform by the river and will produce a show that is one of the most popular tickets in town.
Brandi Carlisle
August 25
Les Schwab Amphitheater
With a new album under her belt, Brandi Carlisle will be in Bend at the Les Schwab Amphitheater on August 25. The singer-songwriter puts on sought-after shows that everyone will love.
Honey Don’t
August 25
Elk Lake Resort
Fans of American and folk music will want to head to Elk Lake for the Honey Don’t concert in late August.
Dave Matthews Band
August 28
Les Schwab Amphitheater
The rock band that you couldn’t get out of your head in the late-nineties and early-aughts will be at the Les Schwab Amphitheater in August. Dave Matthews Band recently released its ninth studio album. Update: Tickets have sold out.
Portugal. The Man
August 31
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Portland darlings Portugal. The Man, fresh off their recent Grammy win, will be at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. Tickets are already on sale and are likely to go fast, so get yours now if you want them.
Melanie Rose Dyer and Daniel Cooper
September 1
Elk Lake Resort
Soak up the last days of summer at Elk Lake with a performance from Melanie Rose Dyer and Daniel Cooper in style they call “American roots music with R&B influences.”
Sisters Folk Festival
September 7-9
Sisters
After last year’s wildfire season left the town of Sisters too smoky to host the Sisters Folk Festival, the festival returns this year with high hopes. The festival always brings some of the best acts in folk, Americana and bluegrass music to the Western-themed town for a weekend with music around every corner.
Mark Ransom
September 8
Elk Lake Resort
Mark Ransom, who also founded Bend Roots Revival will close out the summer concert series at Elk Lake Resort. Don’t miss this outdoor concert from the popular folk duo.
The Head and the Heart
September 19
Les Schwab Amphitheater
Indie-folk favorite The Head and the Heart will be at Les Schwab in one of last days of summer. Portland band Blind Pilot will also be on stage with them.
It’s a great weekend to be in Central Oregon. There’s a new play opening, a classic golf tournament, and live music and art walks to check out. Here are our top five picks for the best things to do around Bend this weekend.
Photo courtesy of Aspen Lakes Golf Course
“And Then There Were None”
Opens April 27 | Cascades Theatre, Bend
The classic Agatha Christie mystery comes to the stage this weekend. In “And Then There Were None,” considered Christie’s masterpiece, ten strangers arrive on an island. Each with their own secret, the characters are killed off one by one. The play is being produced by the local Cascades Theatrical Company.
Central Oregon Shootout
April 26-29 | Bend, Sisters, Redmond
The Central Oregon Shootout is an annual golf tournament held at some of the region’s best golf courses. Build a team of at least two players and join the fun competition. The cash prizes doled out last year totaled more than $20,000.
Bend Art Conference
April 27-29 | Bend Art Center, Bend
This weekend is the inaugural Bend Art Conference, held at the Bend Art Center. The three-day event for artists will have workshops, talks and creative opportunities. Art connoisseurs will have the chance to browse exhibits from the featured artists and take part in events throughout the weekend. The art center will also be hosting an annual Print Fair on April 28 and 29, where you can find prints from international and local artists.
Art Walks
April 27, 28 | Sisters; The Workhouse, Bend
Two art walks are happening around the region this weekend. On Friday, head to Sisters for Fourth Friday, and don’t miss the exhibit and reception of award-winning Navajo artist Jason Parrish at the Raven Makes Gallery. On Saturday, The Workhouse in Bend stays open late for the last time for its final art walk. Find live music, sips and bites, and art and goods from local makers.
Live Music
April 25, 28 | McMenamins, Tower Theatre and Volcanic Theatre Pub, Bend
There are a lot of great events around Central Oregon this weekend for everyone, from runners to anglers to kids to cyclists.
Photo by Timm De Salis
International Fly Fishing Film Festival
April 19 | Tower Theatre, Bend
Anglers will want to head to the Tower Theatre on Thursday for the International Fly Fishing Festival. The one-night festival showcases a series of short and feature-length film excerpts covering all aspects of fly fishing from professional filmmakers working around the globe.
High Desert Horse Expo
April 20-22 | Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center, Redmond
Equine enthusiasts flock to Redmond for the annual High Desert Horse Expo, the only event of its kind in the region. There will be demonstrations, deals, workshops, and horse experts.
Bend Bike Swap
April 20-22 | Thump Coffee NorthWest Crossing, Bend
The Bend Bike Swap offers deals on new and used bikes and biking gear, as well as a chance to connect with fellow cyclists. You can also try to sell your old gear. A portion of the profits support local groups like Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation and Bend Endurance Academy.
Earth Day Fair & Parade
April 21 | Downtown Bend
Celebrate conservation by watching or joining the Earth Day Parade. The parade ends at the Environmental Center in downtown Bend, where there will be live music, arts and crafts, local vendors, and games and activities for the whole family.
Bend Marathon and Half
April 22 | Drake Park, Bend
There will be new courses to race at this year’s Bend Marathon and Half, which will begin and end at Drake Park. Join the full marathon, half-marathon, 10k or family 5k races, then stick around for the finish line party that features local and national vendors.
Central Oregon’s ever expanding fleet of food trucks rivals the region’s brick and mortar restaurants when it comes to culinary variety and creativity. Whether it’s a fusion of different styles or a new take on classic stand-bys, the region’s food trucks always seem to hit the mark. While it’s tough to narrow it down, here are the five Bend food trucks to track down and try.
A Broken Angel
A Broken Angel is one of Bend’s best food truck options and one of Bend’s best all-around options for vegan dining. Operating from the tiny cart parked next to Palate Coffee Bar, Chef Richard Hull creates dishes bursting with flavors. The menu features Southern dishes with French and Pacific Northwest influences. A Broken Angel’s range of options makes it one of Bend’s best lunch spots.
Find Them: 1124 NW Newport Ave., Bend
A Broken Angel food truck in Bend. Photo by Alex Jordan
Big Ski’s Pierogi
If you’ve never had a pierogi, get down to GoodLife as soon as possible. Big Ski’s Pierogi is a Polish food cart serving an incredible variety of dumplings. Find traditional ingredients like beef stroganoff, sauerkraut or potato inside the perfectly crisp dumplings, but don’t be afraid to try out the seasonal morel or white button mushroom varieties. The pierogi pairs perfectly with beer, and are a great alternative to traditional Bend pub fare.
Find Them: 536 NW Arizona Ave, Bend
Sol Verde
Breakfast is not often on a food truck menu. While there are a few great breakfast options in Bend for a sweet morning indulgence, Sol Verde takes care of the savory side. The New Mexican-style food truck has a great menu of burritos, including a solid vegetarian option. The chili verde is another great option to try.
Find Them: 1040 NW Galveston
B’s Teriyaki
Ben and Lindsey Stuart never intended to open up a food cart when they moved from Washington to Prineville. But amid a pandemic and struggling with nine-to-five fatigue, they decided to take the leap. The Stuarts purchased a used food cart in early 2020 and took advantage of their time at home to hone their new craft. After fixing up the cart, they elected to focus on a dish that Prineville lacked: rice bowls. They kicked it into high gear, continued to adapt to change and launched B’s Teriyaki. “We decided to flip the switch and start up right during the middle of the pandemic. Our first day of business was August 20, 2020,” said Lindsey. The cart offers rice bowls with your choice of meat, salads topped with grilled chicken teriyaki, and the newest addition, Yakisoba noodles, all of which have been embraced by Prineville’s patrons.
Find them: 1255 NE 3rd Street, Prineville
Westside Taco Co
The menu at Westside Taco Co. is unlike anything you might expect from a taco cart, with options like Thai curry chicken, root beer carnitas and the best-selling blueberry brisket. “The blueberry chipotle brisket is an Oregon favorite, and the root beer braised carnitas taco took second place overall in the biggest taco competition in the country, Tacolandia by the LA Times,” said Amber Amos, co-owner and operator. Amos and her partner, Aaron Notarianni, relocated to Oregon from Southern California, where they owned and operated a catering company. “We grew up on street food, and it was something that we wanted to put a spin on. [Opening a food cart] was the quickest way to introduce our food to the community,” she said of their decision to open Westside Taco Co. “The community support has been insane.” The couple, who also own the Redmond restaurant Westside Local, attribute a few factors to their success: work hard, play hard and have a good sense of humor.
Running events, live music, beer and art. There’s a lot happening in Central Oregon, and here are our picks for the best things to do in Bend and beyond this weekend.
Vertfest Photo by Brian Becker
Bend Beer Yoga
April 5 | Wild Ride Brewing, Redmond
Yogis and beer lovers will want to be at Wild Ride Brewing in Redmond on Thursday. Bend Beer Yoga is a new event that combines traditional yoga poses with drinking beer. It’s a fun and casual event that travels to breweries throughout the region.
First Friday
April 6 | Downtown Bend
Head to downtown Bend for First Friday, the monthly series that celebrates artists, makers and small businesses. The streets will be filled with people checking out new art exhibits at the downtown galleries, listening to live music, sipping complimentary wine and beer, and supporting small businesses.
Vertfest
April 7 | Mt. Bachelor, Bend
Backcountry adventures have seen a major spike in interest over the past two decades. With that comes the need to spread the word about backcountry safety. Vertfest is a multi-stop event at Mt. Bachelor packed with backcountry clinics, fun races, gear demos, drinks and more that’s become one of the largest events of its kind in the country.
Running Events
April 8 | Sisters High School, Sisters; Athletic Club of Bend, Bend
It’s advertised as a fun, low-key event, but the Peterson Ridge Rumble in Sisters is not for the casual runner. Take part in the 40- or 20-mile trail run races through the Peterson Ridge and Metolius-Windigo trail systems and compete for cash prizes. Those looking for shorter races this weekend should check out the Salmon Run in Bend, now in its thirtieth year. Join the half-marathon, 10k, 5k, or Little Fry Kids’ races.
Live Music
April 4-7 | Tower Theatre and Oxford Hotel, Bend
Some big names is music will be in Bend this weekend. Start the weekend early at McMenamins on Wednesday night with Ashleigh Flynn and the Riveters, called the “darlings of the NW Americana scene.” On Friday, Precious Byrd & High Street Band will be playing at the Tower and country/folk duo Matty Charles and Katie Rose will be at The Capitol. China Forbes is the featured performer for the Jazz at the Oxford series this weekend. And on Saturday, don’t miss one-of-a-kind guitarist Kaki King at the Tower.
Spring has arrived in the high desert, and there are events around the region this weekend to take advantage of the new season. Check out the jump competition at Mt. Bachelor or the running event east of Bend. There’s also the kickoff to rodeo season and this year’s TEDxBend conference.
Photo by WT Bruce
High Desert Stampede
March 30-31 | Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center, Redmond
Watch top rodeo competitors from around the country compete for cash prizes in events such as bareback riding, steer wrestling, barrel racing, bull riding and more. The High Desert Stampede is one of the newest rodeos in the region and kicks off rodeo season in Central Oregon.
TEDxBend
March 31 | Bend Senior High School, Bend
This year’s lineup of TEDxBend speakers includes thirteen speakers on topics such as ecotourism, life on the Asperger’s spectrum, artificial intelligence, the importance of reading “girl” books to boys and more. The TED spinoff also features local entertainment acts and a chance to network and socialize.
Hella Big Air
March 31 | Mt. Bachelor, Bend
Skiers and riders from across the Pacific Northwest will be at Mt. Bachelor for Hella Big Air. They’ll brave the ninety-foot jump and compete for the $30,000 prize. The event takes place at the West Village Lodge and can be seen from Pine Marten. There will be live music and giveaway for spectators.
No Man’s Land Film Festival
March 31 | Tower Theatre, Bend
The all-woman adventure film festival No Man’s Land comes to Bend this weekend. Based out of Colorado, the film series will feature short documentaries about women in the outdoor industry, from climbers and base jumpers to skiers and surfers.
Horse Butte 10 Miler
March 31 | Horse Butte, Bend
The Horse Butte 10 Miler is a popular running event in Central Oregon. There are only 200 spots in this race that takes place at Horse Butte east of Bend, with scenic views along the dirt trail course. Race packet pick-up noon to 6 p.m. Friday at Foot Zone in Bend. Registration information is here.
There are a lot of great events around Central Oregon this weekend, including a stellar lineup of live music, a new performance from Bend’s opera company, and fun adventure and challenge events across the region.
Sunriver March Mudness
Live Music
March 22-24 | Midtown Ballroom; Riverhouse on the Deschutes; Tower Theatre, Bend
Opera lovers will want to head to Redmond or Madras this weekend to catch a performance of “The Secret Garden,” an opera from OperaBend. The show is the kick-off to OperaBend’s season this year and will feature a talented cast of local and guest performers.
Questival
March 23-24 | Deschutes Brewery Warehouse, Bend
Questival is an adventure race that takes place over twenty-four hours. The event starts and ends on the lawn at the Deschutes Brewery warehouse. Teams compete for prizes in a series of categories such as fitness, service and camping. The result is a unique and fun race that will take you all over Central Oregon. The event is produced by Cotopaxi, an outdoor gear and apparel company.
Han Oak at The Suttle Lodge
March 24 | The Suttle Lodge, Sisters
Han Oak took Portland by storm this year and was quickly placed in the top ranks of the town’s competitive culinary scene. Chef Peter Cho will be at The Suttle Lodge in Sisters for a Guest Chef Dinner. The meal will feature Han Oak’s signature set-menu format that makes this Korean-American restaurant one of the hottest tables in Portland right now.
Sunriver March Mudness
March 25 | Sunriver
The Sunriver March Mudness run returns on Sunday. Take part in the competitive race or join the just-for-fun crowd that kids and families participate in. The race is a run and obstacle event through a 1.5-mile muddy challenge course.
Where to hike in the spring in Central Oregon when the mountains are still snowed in.
Photo courtesy of Christian Heeb and traveloregon.com
Some of the best hiking in Central Oregon can be found in the spring. The wildflowers are popping up, the weather isn’t too warm yet and the summer crowds haven’t yet rolled in. Here are five hikes from around the region for all ages and abilities. They each lead to some stellar views of the region.
Hager Mountain
This is one of the least trafficked hikes close to Central Oregon in the Fremont-Winema National Forest, and there are a few options to make it a short two-mile hike, or extend it for a six- or eight-mile hike. At the peak, where it’s possible to see as far south as Mt. Shasta on a clear day, there’s an active forest service fire lookout that is staffed in the summer. This is a hidden gem to spot wildflowers in the spring. The hike has some steep elements to it as you trek through the Ponderosa forest until you reach the clearing at the summit.
Distance: 2 miles out and back Hiking level: Moderate Parking: Free at the Hagar Mountain Trailhead Open: June-November
Iron Mountain Trail
The wildflowers won’t pop up here until July, but that just means that there will be less people on the trail when it opens up in June. There are a few trails from the Iron Mountain Trailhead. The Iron Mountain Trail is a little over one mile to the peak, but it is a scramble up switchbacks to get there. There’s a viewpoint where you can spot Mount Adams, Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson. The trail is west of Sisters off Highway 20 and about ten minutes past the Highway 26 intersection.
Distance: 3 miles out and back Hiking level: Moderate Parking: $5 or NW Forest Pass at the trailhead Open: June
Marion Lake Trail
In the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness area, the Marion Lake Trail is a great option for a moderate-level hike in the spring, with less traffic than it normally gets in the summer. The hike is the access point for a few lesser-known waterfalls in the region. Marion and Gatch Falls are just off the trail, while Gooch Falls is just off the road on the drive there. You’ll also pass Lake Ann along the way.
Distance: 5.2 mile loop Hiking level: Moderate Parking: $5 at the trailhead, or NW Forest Pass, and fill out a permit to enter Open: Year-round, but there may be some snow still past Lake Ann in early spring.
Gray Butte Loop Trail
Popular with mountain bikers and horseback riders, the Gray Butte Trail in the Ochoco National Forest and Crooked River Grasslands leads to some stellar views of the region at a little more than 5,000 feet in elevation. The trail is maintained by the Ochoco National Forest and the Central Oregon Trail Alliance, and they both caution that hikers and mountain bikers can do a lot of damage to the trails if it is too muddy. If you run into a lot of mud on the trail, it’s best to turn around. There are few other loops and trails in the area that lead to Smith Rock State Park. It’s labeled as “difficult” because of the steep terrain and loose rocks.
In the Deschutes National Forest, the Sand Mountain Lookout Trail is an easy two-mile hike that leads to a view of the Cascade Range as well as some of the region’s large alpine lakes. There’s a forest service lookout at the top of the trail that is staffed by volunteers. The region is a “geologic special interest area” for the forest service, with a one-of-a-kind cinder cone formation that you can see from the summit. This is a family-friendly hike that would be better to try in the spring before the weather gets too hot.
It’s a big weekend for music lovers in Central Oregon. Find live shows in Bend and Sisters from popular bands like Darlingside and Joseph. There’s also literary and running events and a party on the slopes at Mt. Bachelor to round out the weekend.
Photo from St. Patrick’s Day Dash
Darlingside
March 14 | Sisters High School, Sisters
The fan-favorite folk band Darlingside will close out the Sisters Folk Festival Winter Concert Series. (Does that mean we’re finally getting closer to spring?!) Darlingside, a Massachusetts-based quartet, is touring with its new album “Extralife.” Don’t miss the show in Sisters that is sure to be a sell-out.
Elizabeth Strout
March 16 | Bend Senior High School, Bend
Olive Kitteridge is a book we recommend to friends and family all the time. The author Elizabeth Strout, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has also penned the popular novels My Name is Lucy Barton and The Burgess Boys will be in Bend to talk about writing and her work. Stout’s talk will close out this season of the Author! Author! series from the Deschutes Public Library Foundation.
St. Patrick’s Day Dash
March 17 | Old Mill District, Bend
The annual St. Patrick’s Day Dash takes place on Saturday, March 17. The family-friendly, 5k run is staged at the Old Mill District. Expect costumes, fun and plenty of green to celebrate the holiday and raise money for nonprofits in Central Oregon.
Subaru Winterfest
March 14-18 | Mt. Bachelor, Bend
If you’re skiing at Mt. Bachelor this weekend, check out the Subaru WinterFest, which will be based at the West Village Lodge. There’s tons of giveaways, along with live music, drinks and snacks to enjoy after a day on the snow. More
Beer is big business—$110 billion every year in the United States. While the nation’s more than 5,300 breweries are all duking it out for market share, there are really two competitors here: Craft and Big Box. It’s a David and Goliath tale, and in recent years, David’s been getting the best of the behemoths.
The story is in the numbers. For instance, in 2016 the beer industry saw zero growth overall, with national total output stagnating at right around 200 million barrels, according to the Beer Institute, the national beer trade association.
But Americans threw back 6.2 percent more craft beer than the prior year. The year before that, the increase was 13 percent, and it was 18 percent growth in 2014. Craft sales are now 22 percent of the total market, according to the Brewers Association, which tracks trends in the microbrew industry.
The craft brew industry has been pouring on the incredible growth for eight consecutive years as the nation’s brew pubs, microbreweries and regional breweries chip away at the market share that mega-breweries such as Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Pabst have held for more than one hundred years.
Losing ground has forced these and other industry giants to retool their strategies, including snapping up micros for themselves.Now, more than 30 microbreweries that were once trailblazers in the craft field are owned by titans: Ballast Point Brewing, Goose Island, Elysian and Lagunitas, just to name a few.
Here in Oregon, the trend began in 1997 when Widmer Brewing sold about 30 percent of itself to Anheuser-Busch InBev. Since then several other breweries have followed suit—either selling a portion or all of their interest to big beer—including Bend-based 10 Barrel Brewing, Hop Valley Brewing and Portland Brewing Company.
These arrangements allow large breweries to throw their weight behind these micro labels using their near-guaranteed shelf space and deep marketing pockets to try to grab a foothold in the growing craft industry. Still, even with this leg-up, the data shows that it’s the true micros that appear to be making the greatest strides in the industry, proving that, when it comes to beer, it pays to think, and to drink, independently.
Is this winter a precursor to Central Oregon’s new normal?
When it comes to snow, Central Oregonians are something like Eskimos. We have an entire vocabulary dedicated to the frozen white crystals (the “pow was totally blower, bro”) and whole industries dedicated to leveraging it for recreation. While the novelty of shoveling snow by the foot off your roof wears thin quickly, even those who never click into a ski or snowboard find something to appreciate about the abundance of snow that falls around Central Oregon.
It’s the reason that our most recent drought is a cause for concern, not only among skiers, but also scientists, retailers, resort owners and anyone else that benefits from Central Oregon’s position as a winter tourism destination.
As of early February, snowpack in the Deschutes basin was less than half of the annual average, with little hope of recouping the shortfall before the onset of spring. The winter that wasn’t comes on the heels of an epic Central Oregon winter last year when snow loads collapsed roofs and shoveling seemed a daily occurrence.
Yet, the barren winter of 2017-2018 is only three years removed from one of the warmest and snow free winters on record in Oregon, 2014-2015. That winter, or lack thereof, is linked by scientists to an intense wildfire season that followed, severe stream flow reductions and drought conditions that affected everyone from fishermen to farmers across the state.
Though no one is predicting an end to winter altogether, projected changes in global climate are expected to result in significant temperature increases in Oregon. Under the most extreme cases, winter temperatures could increase by an average high of 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050, while summer temperatures could increase as much as 6.3 degrees. By 2080, winter high temperatures are expected to soar by as much as 7.4 degrees on average, with summer highs jumping by a sweltering ten-degree average.
Northwest climate scientists believe that the “worst-case” scenario model can be avoided, but even the most conservative estimates predict a sea change in Oregon’s climate over the next century, according to researchers at the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI). Under the “low emissions model,” which assumes that the world will find a way to cap and ultimately reduce its greenhouse gas pollution, Oregon’s average winter high temps would increase by more than three degrees by 2050. By 2080, that jumps to four degrees warmer than today’s average winter highs. Compare that to the last one hundred years, when Oregon’s average temperatures increased an average of roughly two degrees.
“When I started working on the subject twenty years ago, climate change was about what would happen in the future, and now we’re surrounded by evidence of climate change,” said Phillip Mote, OCCRI director and a climate research at Oregon State University.
Mote’s team at OCCRI is charged with quantifying and localizing climate change research specific to Oregon. A multitude of state and federal agencies, including the Bureau of Reclamation and the Portland Water Bureau to name just a few, rely on its research to inform their operations. The publicly funded institute releases a semi-annual report to the Oregon legislature, which spells out some of the observed impacts of climate change in Oregon. The most recent report was released in 2017 and contains some dire predictions. For snow lovers and farmers and others who rely on water, the report is particularly concerning.
According to Mote’s research team, Oregon’s snow levels are expected to rise, and most of the state’s high country is expected to move from a rain-snow mixture in winter to a predominantly rain dominated weather pattern in winter. By 2080, all of Oregon, save parts of the Blue Mountains, are projected to become rain dominant. That’s right, most of Oregon won’t see snow—at all—in another sixty years. In the meantime, the frequency of warm winters is expected to increase as part of a pattern of increased variability and propensity for more extreme weather, the report found.
While there is no guarantee that we will see another warm winter next year—or even the following year—the current drought offers a window onto some of the economic impacts and the reality of living with a winter that barely musters a whimper.
At Elk Lake Resort, owner Wendy Prieve said her business, which caters to snowmobilers and cross-country skiers, is down almost 35 percent from last year. The resort is booked full to its projected close on April 1, but Prieve is concerned that some of those guests will cancel their reservations if the warm weather trend continues. As of early February, there was only a five-to-six-inch base around the resort. The resort has largely idled its sno-cat transport that picks up guests at a locked gate near Mt. Bachelor, because there isn’t enough snow to make the journey. Snowmobile trails that access the resort are worn almost to dirt.
“Snowpack is so poor and non-existent that the local snowmobile clubs have stopped grooming,” Prieve said.
Prieve and her husband Dave, who purchased the resort in 2013, are weathering their second drought in four seasons. While closing for the winter is an option, it’s not their preference. The winter season allows them to keep key staff on payroll and provide a needed service to guests. Prieve isn’t holding out a ton of hope that Mother Nature will rescue them this year. She is already talking to the Forest Service about opening the locked gates on Century Drive early, which would allow guests to drive directly to the resort, something that hasn’t happened ever before. If the warm weather continues they might just start renting paddleboards, said a half-joking Prieve.
Nearby at Mt. Bachelor, the conversation rarely turns from weather—good, bad or otherwise. As Oregon’s highest ski resort and one that attracts frequents storms, Bachelor is somewhat insulated from the impacts of climate change and drought. This year, the resort opened prior to Thanksgiving and has only suspended operations due to winds and ice removal. Compare that situation to lower elevation resorts such as Willamette Pass, which had yet to transport a single skier on its lifts as of mid-February. In Southern Oregon, Mt. Ashland also didn’t open this year. It was the same situation at Warner Canyon, a one-lift ski community owned resort that services Lakeview and surrounding areas.
Though Mt. Bachelor is clearly in better shape than most, the year hasn’t been without its challenges, said Mt. Bachelor President and General Manager John McLeod. “We are down from last year and where we would have hoped to be this year, but we are not down as far as we could be,” McLeod said in January.
While weather will always be the biggest variable in its operations, Mt. Bachelor has already taken steps to hedge against warming winters. In 2016, Mt. Bachelor’s parent company, Salt Lake City-based Powdr Corp., acquired Sun Country guiding and rafting service in Bend. The resort has also added summer chairlift rides and high elevation dining at its mid-mountain lodge restaurant. It has also constructed a disc golf course and invested heavily in a downhill mountain bike course.
“We are in the business of adapting to what Mother Nature serves up, and that’s always been true. If there’s an increase in variability, we have to increase the rate at which we adapt our operations.” McLeod said.
For Central Oregon powderhounds, that may mean waiting longer for snow to arrive, traveling farther to get to it and coming up with more four-letter words for rain.
If anyone walks the walk, it’s Kim Brannock. She’s a freelance outdoor apparel designer in Bend that spends as much time outside as she does in her busy design studio. And she’s on mission to save the Deschutes River.
Photo by Sarah Grigg
Kim Brannock calls herself a designer of anything. “Give me something and I just problem-solve a solution,” said Brannock, 47, who spent ten years working for Portland-based Columbia Sportswear. For the past eleven years she has run her own outdoor apparel design studio, SY Design, which is sought-after by some of the biggest brands in the outdoor industry, including Filson, Simms, Nike, Columbia Sportswear and Patagonia (yes, she’s fly-fished with Yvon Chouinard and yes, you should read the account of that day on her website). She sat down with Bend Magazine to talk about designing for sustainability, Bend’s outdoor economy and more.
What are some of the challenges SY Design faces in Bend?
When I lived in Portland, there was a lot of up-and-coming young talent that I was working with all the time. That’s not as easy to find here. There are a lot of product brands, but not much in the soft goods arena. The bulk of what I do is technical, things that are seam-sealed or driven by function. There aren’t a ton of people who do that and do that well. It’s become a niche for me. Also, being a female who spends a ton of time outside, I’m a user, and I bring that to the design work I do, which is a rare combination.
Being a designer and user of this gear and apparel is interesting.
I work largely in outdoor, workwear, hunting, fishing, snowboarding and skiing. It’s interesting that a lot of these brands are located in major cities. They’re in an office in a place where it’s not that easy to get outside. When I lived in Portland, I thought I was a real user. That changed dramatically when I moved here. The accessibility is so good that I can get up in the morning and go on a backcountry tour, come back down and design all day and go back out in the afternoon and paddle or fish on the river—all while I’m working.
Has that lifestyle changed how you approach your designs?
Yeah, and I think that working with Patagonia has changed some of it, too, because I’m very environmentally conscious, and I’m fascinated now with designing things purposefully to make them not fail. I used to want to use every new technology in my designs. I didn’t even think about if it was durable. Now, I think about that a lot, from how you place seams in garments to what types of material you choose. As designers, we have this big impact at the product level to make these choices that can impact change. When companies are building, five, ten or twenty thousand pieces of something you designed, that’s a big environmental toll.
Do you think outdoor products and companies in Bend are being conscious of their environmental impacts?
Yes, I think it’s really exciting right now. Many smaller brands aren’t in business to become billion dollar brands. They have a reason that they started and usually have some meaning behind it. The biggest challenge is that some of that is superficial right now. It’s popular right now to be a brand and have this social or environmental story but not understand the depth of what that means. Everyone wants to say they’re doing something great, but the next step is for people to research their story and what that actually means to act on it. It’s one thing to say it, but it’s another to be authentic and transparent about it.
You have a river conservation project. How did the Coalition for the Deschutes begin?
I ended up rescuing fish on the upper Deschutes the first year I moved here. There were thousands of fish that died, and through that, I felt compelled to do something more. I discovered that there was a big problem that nobody wanted to tackle, but meanwhile the river is in a rapid decline. Most people don’t know that. It looks beautiful on the surface, but below, it’s extremely unhealthy. There’s a lot going on in the outdoor industry right now with creatives using their skills to do grassroots advocacy work. It’s rewarding to use my creative skills toward something meaningful, has a lot of depth to it and also supports the place where I live and the soil I’m connected to. But grassroots advocacy is hard, hard work.
Savoring six local breakfast desserts from Bend’s growing bakery scene.
There may be no sweeter wake-up ritual than that of indulging in a morning pastry. Still floating somewhere between the dream world and the to-do list, one’s senses awaken when entering a bakery. The rich aroma of sweet breads mingling with coffee comforts the soul. Catching sight of a case full of palm-sized treats brightens the eyes and kindles salivation. Bend’s bakery scene is growing along with the number of alarm clocks that keep its burgeoning population humming. Classics such as Sparrow, Nancy P’s and the Village Baker are still impeccable. Newcomers such as Too Sweet Cakes, Foxtail, La Magie and Thump Baking sweeten the pot. So, take a day off from your 6 a.m. run—or come afterward if you must—and revel in the delight of a pillowy morning treat. We think you’ve earned it.
Marionberry Turnover | La Magie
In Oregon, a blackberry is not just a blackberry. Our state grows up to 33 million pounds per year of marionberries, a type of the beloved dark fruit that was bred at Oregon State University. La Magie, which has locations in downtown Bend and Sisters, celebrates the marionberry by tucking it neatly into a triangle of laminated dough. An egg wash creates a crunchy casing—just the right vehicle for transporting the sweet and slightly tart compote of local antioxidants into your grateful pie hole.
Owner Di Long said that all of La Magie’s marionberry-infused goodies are popular with Oregonians. Visitors often don’t recognize the berry, she said, but end up leaving with a box to take home as edible souvenirs.
Lemon Tart | Foxtail Bakeshop
Lemon bars are well and good. A flawless lemon tart, though? That is the stuff of poetry. Sure, it may be known as a dessert more than a breakfast food, but we say, live on the wild side. At Foxtail Bakeshop, owner and pastry chef Nickol Hayden-Cady makes the curd for her lemon tart with fresh lemon juice and zest, egg yolks, vanilla beans and butter. A smooth texture lets the crisp, natural flavors speak. The pâte sucrée tart crust is “rolled quite thinly so you’re not having to struggle with the fork,” said Hayden-Cady, and the result is decidedly struggle free. A cloud of savory whipped vanilla bean mascarpone cream with thyme infusion sits atop the masterpiece.
The Box Factory in Bend got a lot sweeter this month when Foxtail moved to the business hub from its Columbia Street matchbox. The airy new location allowed Hayden-Cady to add a café and dessert bar. With space comes a broader selection of breakfast baked goods, locally roasted coffee, craft cocktails, tapas and desserts—all of which are appropriate to order in the morning hours.
Gluten-Free Lemon Blueberry Poppy Seed Muffin | Too Sweet Cakes
Bend native Shelbi Blok, 23, is the youngest bakery owner in Central Oregon, but her achievements belie her age. Already, her Too Sweet Cakes baked goods are carried in eleven shops around town (from Backporch Coffee Roasters to Spoken Moto), and she opened her first storefront, complete with dessert bar, in March. Blok started baking at age 7, then followed her dream of attending Portland’s Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts after high school. We’d sure like to get her secret recipe for passion, raw talent and success.
Wedding cakes are Blok’s specialty, but her gluten-free lemon blueberry poppy seed muffin is a dream whether you have celiac disease or just love a good treat. The muffin has a straightforward flavor profile with the nuttiness of the poppy seed and an ever-so-slightly-zippy lemon current running through each bite. Applesauce and tofu lend a moist lightness to the cohesive treat.
At Too Sweet Cakes’ first storefront on Cleveland Avenue in SE Bend, find dessert flights with wine from noon until close. “Flights and all the things I do are reminiscent of my growing up and of being in culinary school,” said Blok. “I like flavors that remind me of my journey, of being a kiddo.” We think nostalgia pairs nicely with sugar, too.
Ocean Roll | Sparrow Bakery
Whitney Keatman, who co-owns Sparrow Bakery with her wife and fellow pastry chef Jessica Keatman, knew that every successful French bakery needed a distinctive cornerstone pastry. Turning to her Finnish roots, Keatman landed on cardamom, a Scandinavian spice, to lend a special quality to the bakery’s croissant recipe. At that moment in 2006, the foodie movement was still germinating, and cardamom was not yet a word or a flavor on American’s tongues. But the real, laborious secret to the Ocean Roll is the hand folding of the dough. If you’re a pastry neophyte, all you need to know is that this method is virtually unheard of in commercial baking. The result is a bit more dense than flaky, and memorably delicious.
Keatman politely evaded a question about what’s next for Sparrow Bakery, only alluding to “stuff in the works” which she hopes to reveal within the next year. “My partner and I are young. We plan to do this for twenty-five, thirty more years, so we’ve always got stuff in the works,” said Keatman. “To stay relevant in business, you’ve got to keep it vibrant.” Acknowledging the growing competition for sweet tooth business in town, she added, “Our response to that is to really focus in on ourselves, on the basics, and to make sure that the product we are putting out is the best it can possibly be, if not the best it has ever been.”
Almond Croissant | Nancy P’s Café and Bakery
Known for its buttery, scratch-made scones and an entire case of gluten-free options, Nancy P’s Café & Bakery has been a neighborhood mainstay on the west side for seventeen years. High ceilings and walls of windows provide the ideal lighting for sitting down with the Sunday paper. Among Nancy P’s many savory and sweet goodies sits the unassuming almond croissant, and it’s worth branching out of your scone-ordering habit to savor its flavor. Chef Tommy Clabough starts with a buttery, flaky dough and fills it with small-batch almond paste. Baked to perfection, the pastry is lightly glazed and sprinkled with delicate almond slices and powdered sugar. Plus, almonds are said to boost brain power and memory.
Big Eddy | Village Baker
It started out as a Christmas dessert that served ten. Fortunately, the Village Baker owners long ago realized that we are all kids at heart who want the twinkle of Christmas morning available on a daily basis. The “personal”-sized version is best shared with a sweetie though, as its diameter is about the size of a hand. The beloved Eddy came to be when co-owners, bakers and spouses Lauren and Bill Kurzman—who opened the bakery in 1996—wanted to create a pastry take on a flourless chocolate cake. It sounds counterintuitive, but isn’t that how ingenuity sparks? Cream cheese and dark chocolate swirl together in harmony while the pastry dough forms a pie-like cradle for the rich decadence. “Always use cold ingredients,” mused Kurzman when prodded to reveal her pastry secrets. “And take our pie dough class.”
From food truck to foodie fixture, Spork and its visionary trio fused a melting pot of flavors with urban style.
Spork owner Erica Reilly and chef Jeff Hunt | Photo by Joshua Langlais
Stories about Spork, a Bend favorite offering creative, globally inspired fare at an affordable price point, generally focus on the kitchen. And there have been some impressive stories, including several “best of” nods and even a profile in The New York Times. The attention is well deserved. When you eat Chef Jeff Hunt’s innovative interpretation of street food and traditional dishes from around the world, you can taste his years of travel in countries such as Spain, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia, as well as his genuine passion for what he does.
While the heart of a good restaurant may lie in its menu, a great one also needs a soul and a vision. Spork has it all. The mutual respect and complementary talents of owners Hunt and Erica Reilly, general manager and beverage guru, along with help from consultant and idea-man Chris Lohrey, elevate this casual, counter-service spot into something much more.
Photo by Joshua Langlais
Our story begins in 2001 at the old Astro Lounge on Minnesota Avenue, back in the (recent) olden days when Bend was still the Wild West to most people east of the Mississippi. He was a snowboarder from Illinois. She was a bartender from Orlando. Erica was Astro’s bar manager, and Jeff was in the kitchen. (“She took advantage from her position of power,” Jeff joked.) Their relationship ended after five years, but their partnership didn’t.
Jeff went on to cook in several other kitchens including Marz, at the time considered the best restaurant in Bend. Erica and Chris (who eventually were dating, but are no longer) partnered to buy in to legendary hotspot The Grove on Bond Street in 2003. When it was time for Erica to embark on her next venture in 2009, Jeff was the clear pick for chef.
Years before food carts were parked around every corner in Bend, Spork was a pioneering and popular food truck housed in an old Airstream. In 2013, they put down roots in their current location on Newport Avenue. Already expanded once in 2015, it’s a thoughtfully designed space with high ceilings, metal and wood industrial notes and a pervasive air of cool that isn’t at all cold.
The partners were a winning combination from the start. Erica was the hospitality maven and glue holding the whole thing together, who Jeff also characterizes as “the boss lady—like in Vietnam—the one in the corner with a box of cash who everybody’s afraid of.” Jeff,of course, was the talent behind the food and oft-world traveler on a constant quest for new flavors and culinary ideas. And Chris, who Erica describes as “the visionary, tastemaker and ethos designer,” consulted on concept and design.
They set out to ensure that Spork wasn’t going to be your average restaurant, nor your average workplace. All three were longtime veterans of the industry and wanted to do things differently. Spork opened with a mission to create a deeply satisfying dining experience, as well as a commitment to quality, locally sourced, green-conscious ingredients. But just as important was making a decent living while maintaining work-life balance for themselves and a positive work environment, fair pay and ample time off for their staff.
Photo by Alex Jordan
Even if you don’t know exactly why the experience at Spork is deeply satisfying—and it is—the food itself is only a part of it. A visit to Spork is always flavored by the atmosphere, the culture the owners have created, and the deep appreciation Erica, Chris and Jeff have for each other after so many years and so much change. “We’re a special team, and it’s just as rewarding as making a bunch of money,” said Erica.“At the end of the day, we are artists more than capitalists. We have a passion for what we create on each and every level.”
Dish Spotlight: Spork’s Korean BBQ Short Rib
Photo by Joshua Langlais
Kalbi, beef short ribs often served raw and grilled at the table, is a staple at Korean barbecue restaurants around the world. But you won’t find Kalbi in Bend. And that’s sad.
We do, however, have a close approximation at Spork in the beautifully marinated short rib served with a perfectly fried organic egg, kimchi, jasmine rice and bean sprouts sprinkled with scallions and garnished with crispy flash-fried nori. It’s one of the best of Spork’s many delicious offerings and highly recommended, particularly to anyone in desperate need of a Korean fix.
As Chef Jeff Hunt will tell you, his food is “not trying to be authentic. It’s about flavor profiles.” But for a lover of Korean food—one of the more elusive cuisines in our area—Spork’s Korean BBQ Short Rib certainly hits the mark.
Fashion veteran Summer Robbins carved a niche in Central Oregon’s flourishing wedding and event market.
Summer Robbins’ florist studio is an oasis in the high desert, nestled at the end of a long, dirt road, surrounded by juniper and open space. Like most of Robbins’ Central Oregon life, that’s by design.
She was previously a menswear fashion designer in New York. “But I had a dream of getting out of fashion,” she said. Robbins and her husband also dreamt of living somewhere smaller and spending more time outside. She accomplished both in one fell swoop, moving to Bend in July 2015 and launching her floral business at the same time.
She’s since grown Summer Robbins Flowers into a flourishing business, recognized as a preferred vendor by many of the region’s top venues and deemed “Best Florist Outside of Portland” last year by Oregon Bride magazine.
Planting A New Career
Robbins attended Parsons School of Design and spent the next thirteen years as a menswear designer and personal stylist in New York City. She lived in New Jersey and was spending twelve hours a day out of the house and away from her family.
At the same time, she was losing her passion for fashion. Robbins found herself imagining other creative careers, from interior design to event planning. Then she took a flower designing class. “I’d always been inspired by flowers and their color palette,” she said. “I had this warm feeling when I’d work with flowers, and I knew it was the right thing.”
At 38, Robbins quit her job to go to flower design school for a year and apprenticed with some of New York’s best florists. “I was learning how to do this new thing, and everyone else was twenty years younger than me,” she said. “But it was really fun and inspiring to do something new.”
Growing A Business
As Robbins contemplated how to transform her new skills into a career, she and her husband also considered leaving the city. Robbins had grown up in many places, including Virginia, where she had loved the fresh air and playing outside. She and her husband were avid rock climbers, and her husband loves to mountain bike and ski.
“We always talked about moving somewhere where we could live off the land, live a little more sustainably, and have fresh air and water,” she said. “We really wanted to do that for our kids.”
They visited Bend for the first time in spring 2015 and fell in love with the town. She’d planned to open a florist shop, but quickly realized during her visit that it likely wouldn’t be a sustainable business.
Not for long, though. Robbins holed up in the AirBnB while her husband explored the local mountain bike trails, researching the Central Oregon wedding business. She discovered that there were some talented florists already here, a sign that the market was there for even more artistic floral design. And the idea of helping couples design their weddings filled her up. “I really love people and hearing their stories. I fall in love with them,” she said.
By the time her husband returned, she had a plan for a studio and a wedding flower business. She launched her website a few weeks later and booked her first-ever wedding for the weekend she and her family moved to town.
A Flourishing Future
Today, Robbins receives floral deliveries from Portland every Tuesday at her studio on Bend’s east side and forages on their twenty-acre property for additional materials. She employs four people and recently established a project minimum that allows her to spend more time with each client and her family. She also planted peonies this winter in hopes that they’ll thrive in the high desert—much like Robbins has.
Former fashion photographer Paula Bullwinkel now focuses her creative lens on paintings and prints that evoke magic, motion, surrealism and feminine figures—sometimes in disturbing ways.
Photo by Milly Dole
Paula Bullwinkel worked in the highest echelons of fashion photography. She shot for Vogue, British Elle, GQ and more and counted Andy Warhol among her clients. She lived in New York City and London photographing the famous such as Kevin Bacon, Morgan Freeman and Kate Moss. So how did she end up in Bend?
“I was in New York City on 9/11, had two small children. The competition was cutthroat. I was exhausted,” she explained. “My mother lived in Bend, and we wanted to be closer to her. I had stepped out of fashion photography and started painting about five years before leaving the city.” She moved with her husband and two girls to Bend in 2007. “The area transformed me with its exquisite physical beauty and a gentler pace of life,” she said.
Esme in the Lobby
“Paula moved from image making with a camera into painting, where she continues to create magical realism with surreal elements,” said mentor Bill Hoppe, professor of art and director of the 2D program at Central Oregon Community College. “Her study of the human figure through the lens of a camera is now translating itself into ideas on canvas.”
Women and girls, including her own daughters, figure heavily in her current body of work. “My painting expresses the complications of relationships, violence, sometimes the celebration and joy of life,” she said, adding that her pieces can appear both dreamlike and nightmarish. “My paintings often have something disturbing and unsettling, like life itself,” she said. “There’s no smooth sailing.” She takes inspiration from Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh.
She paints in oil on canvases that average thirty-by-forty inches, but recently she’s been working on five-foot canvases. The subjects invariably include the female figure (she rarely paints men) and often feature theatrical elements such as costumes and hybrid animal-human forms, although she said the latter have become so trendy that she’s moving away from hybrids.
Teaching others and passing along her techniques and passion are integral in Bullwinkel’s life. She’s a part-time instructor of photography and painting at COCC, a printmaker at Atelier 6 and teacher at Bend Art Center. She recently won two prestigious residencies, the monthlong Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Santa Cruz, California, and two weeks at the PLAYA Residency at Summer Lake, Oregon. “She’s reaching out and making connections with artists outside our community and bringing them back to our community,” Hoppe said. “She sets a high mark.”
She recently lost her biggest fan and mentor, her mother, Ann Bullwinkel, who died suddenly in December. She was a local landscape artist and ceramicist. “Mom pointed out colors to me as a child, took me to art galleries and museums and instilled in me the spirit that I could do anything,” she said.
The Portland Art Museum has several original Bullwinkel paintings in its rental gallery. To see more of Bullwinkel’s work, visit Franklin Crossing in downtown Bend in April where she’ll be the featured artist.
Tawna Fenske and Marie Harte are best-selling romance authors living in Bend.
Photo by Alex Jordan
You never forget your first romance novel. Mine was Outlander, the popular time-traveling, historical romance book. I tore through the tome, but dismissed the genre, thinking the rest are like the Nora Roberts novels I always saw my grandma reading.
That is until I did some, ahem, research. I read one of Bend author Tawna Fenske’s recent books This Time Around, a romantic comedy that was smart, with depth and humor that grabbed me from the first page. One week and five romance novels later, I was hooked. But it didn’t click for me just how huge the romance novel industry is until I tried to check out one by Marie Harte, another Bend author, at the library and had to join the (long) hold waitlist. When I did get my hands on A Sure Thing, I read the book, filled with quick-wit and endearing characters, in one sitting.
According to the Romance Writers of America, romance novels account for one third of the fiction market. It’s a $1 billion industry. There are thousands of romance novels published each day, and there is a growing market for niche-genre novels. Popular feels like an understatement; romance novels are a phenomenon.
Harte and Fenske fall under the contemporary romance category, and Fenske even more into romantic comedy. There’s also historical, LGBT, sci-fi, mystery—a romance novel on the shelf for every whim and fantasy. And there are a lot of shelves. “Romance readers are rabid readers,” said Harte, who has written more than one hundred books since she started writing in the early 2000s. Both Fenske and Harte consider themselves fast writers, cranking out thousands of words a day. It’s a common trait of romance authors, who today need to publish books as quickly as possible to meet the demands of readers and keep up with the ever-evolving trends of the industry that publishes almost as many ebooks as it does print.
“Now it’s all about discoverability,” said Harte. “There are so many authors publishing, and not just for publishers but for themselves.” Both Harte and Fenske, considered “midlisters” in the romance industry, have published books with traditional publishing houses and on their own. They’ve both reached bestseller lists with their novels and have a dedicated following of readers.
Both authors talked about how, despite the popularity of romance novels, many people still scoff at the genre because it’s not literary fiction.
“Everyone tries to say that they’re all bodice-rippers, you know the old historicals where she says no but she really means yes,” said Harte. “But they’re not all like that. It’s so different now—so much plot-driven, so much character-driven.”
Both Fenske and Harte also said that dialogue about consent and birth control have been industry-standard for years, far ahead of the social trends.
While there are formulas and contrivances to the romance novel, the best ones are turning those on their heads. One of Fenske’s most popular books, Marine for Hire, does exactly that, with an ex-Marine hired as a nanny by a single mom.
For all the changes in the romance publishing industry, though, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed: the ending. The hallmark of a romance novel is not the sex, but the HEA, industry-speak for the Happily Ever After.
“It’s the bargain we strike with our readers,” said Fenske. “You’ll be taken on a ride and there will be ups and downs, but in the end we promise you that you will get your happily ever after.”
It’s the casual conversations that remind Veronica Vega that, as brewmaster of Deschutes Brewery, she’s still an unusual figure in the industry.
“Typically if I say that I work for Deschutes, they assume that I’m a waitress at the pub,” said Vega, 39, who took over her top role in 2015. “When I explain what I do their eyes open up really wide in disbelief.”
Across town it’s a similar story for Tonya Cornett, innovation brewer with 10 Barrel Brewing since 2012.
“If I’m at a beer event or I’m around a bunch of brewers, there’s always that moment when I get introduced to someone, and then all of a sudden their perception of me changes,” said Cornett, 48.
These two women make up a small cadre of elite female brewers in the industry who are bucking the dominant trend—less than five percent of top brewmasters are women, according to a national study by Stanford University. But a renaissance is blooming as women take over lead roles in the boardroom and in the brewery. This Stanford study estimates about 20 percent of top leaders in the industry are female now. We talked to Vega and Cornett about how the industry is changing and what it means for beer.
It’s 2018 and female brewers are becoming so much more integrated into the industry. Is there even a “women in brewing” story anymore?
Veronica Vega | Photo by Jeff Kennedy
Vega: I have definitely wondered about that, but I keep coming back to these interviews because I get feedback from other female brewers that it inspires them. It makes me realize that it’s important to keep telling my own story.
Cornett: There was a time a few years ago when I was hooking up a jockey box (a mobile tap system commonly used at events) at a festival and someone asked where the brewer was. They didn’t believe my husband when he told them it was me. And I’ve heard of someone walking out of a pub when they learned the brewer was a woman. For a while, my joke was that you can’t even taste in the beer that I’m a woman. But honestly I don’t really get that much anymore.
What’s changed?
Vega: I think the story is moving away from male/female because there’s just an overall diversifying of brewers. More people from all backgrounds are going into brewing. And it’s the consumers who are benefitting from that. If everyone in the room is a guy in brewing, and you’re trying to create a brew for a wide variety of people—well, the diversity is key if you want a diverse consumer. I think that’s being valued more.
Cornett: I think one of the things influencing brewing right now is the popularity of all the cooking shows. In the grocery store there are, like, fifty kinds of ketchup now. That’s translating into all kinds of food, including beer. There are just a lot more diversity of flavors and approaches accepted in the industry now.
Are there approaches that still feel distinctly female?
Tonya Cornett | Photo by Alex Jordan
Vega: I remember this point of realization that I am really being trusted with this senior decision-making authority of the brewery, and it hit me hard. I think it’s possible that men would take that authority more for granted—like, of course, they belong there. For me, that realization was empowering and freeing, but I still feel so much pressure to get it right.
Cornett: I think there may be ways that women are more comfortable learning or managing before executing on a beer. Like for me, I want to make 100 percent sure I know what’s up before I tell someone what I think about it. I’ve noticed that men can feel more confident with less information but that women seem to really like to know what they are talking about beyond a shadow of a doubt before moving forward.
Across the country and right here in Central Oregon, nonprofits, social events, competitions and beer-drinking clubs are cropping up for women, by women.
At the national (and international!) level, the Pink Boots Society is the primary instigator of driving more women into the ranks of professional brewing and now boasts more than fifty chapters across the world.
In Oregon, the 2018 fourth annual SheBrew homebrew competition and pro-festival in early March featured more than 100 entries making up a vibrant female brewers-only event that’s grown dramatically year over year.
In Bend, the Central Oregon Homebrewers Organization, or COHO, has long fostered a strong showing from gals who are just as psyched as guys to spend an entire Saturday brewing up a batch of all-grain.
And the Central Oregon Beer Angels has turned beer drinking into a legitimate social club, attracting more than 850 women in five years with a current membership of 350.
Sam McCoy and her husband, Dan, have grown Atlas Cider from an idea hatched by two teachers to a business expected to produce 7,000 barrels of cider in 2018. Five years in, Sam sat down with us to reflect on the part Atlas has played in the growth of a nascent industry that is upsetting the apple cart in craft-made market share.
It all starts with the apple tree. What are some nuances of using Oregon-grown apples?
The juice has a small carbon footprint—there’s no shipping it across the country or shipping cheap concentrates here from overseas. Cider companies should thrive in apple-growing regions of the country. An interesting challenge with fruit is that each batch we receive from our supplier varies, a factor reminiscent of vintage differences in the wine industry. We can make minor changes to our blends to compensate, we want the fruit to do the talking and embrace the diversity of each batch we produce. This is a major differentiator from making beer or soda pop, where consistency is king. Also, we do not grow our own fruit so we are at the mercy of the often-exorbitant price of the specialty fruits that most of our ciders are made from.
Even though the number of cideries in the U.S. has more than doubled (now 800+) over the past four years, Oregon is one of the few states where cider sales are more than 3 percent the size of beer sales. What shift have you noticed in cider drinking clientele?
People are much more educated about cider in the Northwest now. When we first started sharing our ciders we had to explain what cider was and how it is different from wine and beer. Now we can focus on the things that set our brand apart from others and let people simply taste and form their own opinions.
Cider appears to be the great equalizer, with research showing that market share is fairly equally distributed among men and women (according to international food and beverage market research firm CGA Strategy). This is not the case in the beer and wine industries. Thoughts?
Cider, done right, is the perfect beverage. It all stems from the core of what it is: fruit. Not many would disagree that a fresh bowl of blackberries, apples, apricots, cherries is a wonderful thing. Our cider is at its best is when it is viewed in this way, with no preconceived notions of what it is or what it is supposed to taste like. When we first started I looked at us as the black sheep of Bend beer culture. We still are really proud of that. It can be a more sophisticated choice for the beer drinker, but at the same time it is a more casual choice for the wine drinker.
Cider naysayers tend to poo poo cider for its sweetness, yet some of yours are quite dry. How would you respond, sweetly of course, to these sugary claims?
Cider still has a bit of a problem with the less informed drinkers that have a black-and-white view of it as, “I do or don’t like cider.” Just as a light beer to a triple hopped IPA there is just as much variety, if not more so, in cider. We started the company because we were not impressed with the offerings in the marketplace and we were quite certain we could improve upon it with enough knowledge and the right fruit suppliers.
Atlas was one of the anchor tenants for the revival of the now-thriving Box Factory. You are the first cider partner of the Portland Trail Blazers. What other trends do you plan to set?
Summarized in a quote, “Fine fruit is the most beautiful and useful thing that the world knows.” Cider is about as Northwest as you can get and here in cider country, we are the biggest cider drinkers in the United States. Put simply: drink the fruit that grows here. Over the next few years we look forward to exploring the nature of how and why fruit thrives here. We also want to recognize the people who dedicate their lives to growing fruit and weathering the challenges of each season’s harvest.
Atlas is distributed in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. In Portland, you have a Washington Square taproom and plan to open another in the Pearl District. What percent of your sales comes from your brick and mortars?
Taproom sales make up less than 10 percent of what we sell through traditional channels (bars and supermarkets) but our Oregon taprooms are an important aspect of our brand. We want to give customers a place to experience our cider in an authentic way, to get a sense of who we are in addition to having a few pints. Dollar sales of craft cider were up 39 percent from 2015 to 2016 at off-premise retailers (grocery/convenience stores).
What has surprised you recently about the cider industry?
I see a packaging as a big factor. We started with twenty-two-ounce bottles but we have seen a shift toward customers choosing to buy ciders in cans. It makes perfect sense, especially for sessionable ciders, like ours, that beg to be sipped at any opportunity—not just for a special occasion or with friends. Customers also expect bars to serve it on draft, with many bars now offering multiple handles. Maybe there is something to be said for the phrase, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
What are your top three sellers?
Blackberry has remained our number one selling cider since we released it. We took a risk on making a cider from nontraditional fruits and once we figured it out from a production standpoint we were really able to stand out in the marketplace with a cider that not only tastes delicious but looks the part. Our new dry organic apple and apricot ciders are the next most popular options.
Why are flavored ciders are growing in popularity, up 4 percent from last year off-premise and now representing 16 percent of overall cider sales in the country?
Variety is the spice of life! At our taprooms, our customers flock to our more creative fruit blends. Some of our locals have become cider sommeliers (or pommeliers), perfecting the art of mixing flavors.
How much do you think the newfound cultural awareness of gluten has played into the growth of the industry?
Anything that differentiates cider from beer in a positive way can only help grow the industry. It’s really cool when local breweries sell our cider. It supports what we are doing while giving their customers a gluten-free option so they can enjoy a pint along with their friends.
One of the most popular IPAs in Oregon, Boneyard RPM was first brewed by owner and brewmaster Tony Lawrence in 2010. Lawrence’s aim was to create a hoppy, but not necessarily bitter, beer. The early recipe for RPM had the beer coming in at 7.5 percent alcohol by volume. In 2013, inspired by Firestone Walker Brewing’s Union Jack IPA, he scaled the recipe back to about 6.7 percent alcohol. This didn’t hurt the beer’s popularity, as it still made up nearly 82 percent of Boneyard’s sales for 2017. For old-school RPM lovers looking for a throwback to its early years, rumor has it the brewey’s Hop A Wheelie IPA is based on the original recipe.
Black Butte Porter | Deschutes Brewery
When Deschutes Brewery opened its doors in June 1988, there were four beers on tap: Bachelor Bitter, Cascade Golden Ale, Wychick Weizen and Black Butte Porter. Today, Bachelor Bitter is still on tap at the pub, and Black Butte Porter is the company’s flagship. Frank Appleton, who opened the Horseshoe Bay Brewery in British Columbia in 1980, wrote the initial recipe, but brewer John Harris felt it was too light and tweaked it with more chocolate and dark malts. Harris went on to brew with Full Sail Brewing and open Ecliptic Brewing. Today, Black Butte Porter accounts for approximately 15 percent of all the beer Deschutes brews.
Blonde Bombshell | Cascade Lakes
First brewed in 1999 by Tom Kemp, the recipe for this crisp and popular blonde ale has changed little over the years. Originally brewed as a summer seasonal, the light ale was so popular that the brewery included it in its year-round lineup by 2003. Two-row malt and wheat round out the grain bill, and Liberty hops provide balance against the malt. (These days, the popular Citra hop variety backs it up as well.) In 2017, Blonde Bombshell comprised 26 percent of all beer sold at Cascade Lakes.
Tucked off the highway in quiet Tumalo, Kelly Roark is busy fermenting ciders that intrigue Central Oregon palates while impressing festival judges. From inspired years collecting and hand-pressing windfall apples in Bend, to building his own eco-friendly cidery and releasing the first kegs in 2016, to adding stainless steel fermenters and a bottling line last summer, Roark and business partner Jeff Bennett are carving out a dry cider niche in Oregon.
The growth of their Tumalo Cider Company over the last few years has developed as naturally and destined as a volunteer apple tree. Location proved crucial. Roark sources his custom pre-blended apple juice from orchards in Hood River and Yakima, and buys heirloom varieties from Salem—all an easy truck ride away. Distribution now reaches Portland, but Central Oregon remains Tumalo Cider Company’s priority.
“The people of Bend are the people who created us,” said Roark, surrounded by shiny fermentation tanks in the compact, clean cidery that family and friends helped construct. “In a way, they steered our flavor toward a drier cider. Bend’s support has been priceless.”
Tumalo Cider Company labels up to six different ciders at a time, including an unfiltered Farmhouse series and a few seasonals, like Alpenglow, which won the People’s Choice award at the 2016 Central Oregon Winter Beer Festival, beating out all the beers. Their latest seasonal, Winter Perry, took the same award in 2017.
For now, Roark crafts and bottles Tumalo Cider by hand, but a spacious tasting room and expanded production in Tumalo, plus cans for the outdoorsy Bend lifestyle, are in the plans. Part of Roark’s successful recipe stems from his appreciation of the apple’s myriad varieties and its seasonal differences and from his upbringing in the Willamette Valley’s wine country.
“Cider brings together that holistic kind of feeling. It comes from a tree, you can process it, and then you have this juice and cider, and the work was worth it.” A sip of vibrant, golden green, blossom-perfumed Tumalo Dry Cider deliciously proves Roark’s point.
Three beers made in Bend that have changed the brewing industry.
Sahalie | The Ale Apothecary
Owner and brewer Paul Arney has a knack for turning beer styles on their ear, melding modern techniques with Old World tradition. Though many of his beers can be considered groundbreaking, it was the flagship, Sahalie, that started it all. Brewed with a mix of wild yeast and bacteria and aged for a year in oak barrels, it presents layers of flavor and character and an ever-evolving sensory experience for the drinker.
Ching Ching | Bend Brewing
This Berliner Weisse-style sour wheat ale was at the forefront of the new American sour beer movement, with former brewermaster Tonya Cornett helping to pioneer the kettle souring technique that gives this beer its crisp, lactic-tart snap. Cornett was inspired to create something pink champagne-like, yet fruity and tart, and the addition of pomegranate and hibiscus give it its distinctive rosy color.
Farmhouse Saison | Crux Fermentation Project
Prior to Crux Fermentation Project entering the scene in 2012, if you wanted saison style ale on the regular, you had to prowl the bottleshops for imports or one-offs. Saison is a drinkable Belgian-style pale ale that’s fruity, spicy, dry and refreshing, yet for whatever reason it’s largely underserved. Crux not only brewed an excellent version in Farmhouse, but made it available year-round, opening the door to other Belgian-style brews such as Doublecross.
The life and times of the storyteller, naturalist and namesake of Hosmer Lake, Paul Hosmer.
Paul Hosmer was a master of words. More than anyone else, he took the pulse of Bend’s millworkers and painted their tough world in vivid details. He was their champion.
Hosmer was an enigma. He was the scribe of the community but left a few cookie crumbs behind to explain his upbringing and life before moving to Bend, according to his son Jim Hosmer. Born in 1887 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hosmer shared a glimpse of his formative years in a 1924 article in the 4L Magazine (The Loyal Legions of Loggers and Lumbermen). Hosmer told readers, “Received my diploma in football, baseball, basketball and spelling. Took a postgraduate course in boxing and had intentions of becoming lightweight champ.”
The spelling diploma presumably led him to newspapers “in half a dozen cities” before Hosmer ended up in Bend in 1915 working for the Shevlin-Hixon Lumber Company.
World War I put a hold on Hosmer’s career. Together with his good friend, Frank Prince, he enlisted in the 20th Engineers (Forest) Regiment. The outfit was designed to set up sawmills in France to provide building materials for the Allied forces. The two friends arrived in Europe in August 1918. Hosmer became a war stenographer, stationed away from the front lines. “After the armistice, I traveled around France playing banjo in a dance orchestra and made enough money to get into the crap games every night,” Hosmer wrote.
Hosmer’s orchestra was one of the most sought-after attractions in the ’20s | Photo courtesy of The Deschutes Historical Museum
In the early ’20s after returning to Bend, Hosmer left the Shevlin-Hixon company and “moved across the river” to work for Brooks-Scanlon. One of his first jobs was to dream up the company newsletter that would define his life, Pine Echoes. Based on personal experiences, Hosmer told the stories of the workers at the mill and timber-fallers at the mill camps.
Hosmer’s articles also found their way into magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and Oregon Motorist. In the 1930s, he shopped a story about Bend’s “Klondike Kate” Rockwell to the big Hollywood studios. Nothing came about, and the yarn eventually dreamed up by Tinseltown screenwriters for the 1943 film Klondike Kate had little to do with either “Aunt” Kate’s life or Hosmer’s script.
The lack of Hollywood success didn’t slow Hosmer, who remained a prolific writer and photographer throughout his years. It was Hosmer’s antics as much as his stories and images that imbued him with local celebrity status. Hosmer and his friend Prince were inseparable. Hosmer’s son Jim called them “the two roustabouts.”
A photograph Paul Hosmer took of a timber-feller in Bend | Photo courtesy of The Deschutes Historical Museum
“Frank had a lot of money, and dad had a lot of time and ideas, so they paired up and had all these escapades,” said Jim.
Like the time they lit a smoke bomb during a meeting at the Percy A. Stevens post of the American Legion and managed to keep the stunt a secret for several days. They were eventually hauled in front of the high court of the legion. The crowded hall was in full laughter throughout the proceedings. Although their defense strategy was built on an “insanity” plea of “temporary pyromania,” Hosmer and Prince were declared “guilty” of the crime and fined nominally for the prank.
Today, it’s hard to imagine just how isolated Bend was 100 years ago. Most of the culture was either homegrown or imported from family traditions. The mills attracted a large contingent of Scandinavian workers who had worked their way west in pursuit of timber jobs. Bend’s massive sawmills and the region’s extensive timber stock were a siren song for first and second-generation mill workers who came to Oregon from Minnesota and Wisconsin. (Both of Bend’s mills were owned by Minnesota-based companies.) Workers who came to Bend left behind extensive relations in the Midwest and abroad, but they brought along their passion for outdoor living—skiing during the winter and hiking and mountaineering all summer long. Eventually, they founded Bend’s ski club in 1927.
Hosmer came up with the name for the club, Skyliners. He also became the president of the club in 1929 and 1930. When Skyliners celebrated its ten-year anniversary in 1937, one of the founders, legendary cross-country skier Emil Nordeen, wrote that Hosmer was the “faithful pilot, without whose tireless effort the Skyliners’ dream could never have materialized.”
An amateur naturalist, Hosmer lived close to the outdoors throughout his life.
Janis and Paul Hosmer on Mud Lake, which was renamed Hosmer Lake in 1962 | Photo courtesy of The Deschutes Historical Museum
“His idea of having a good time was to walk into the woods with his canoe and paddles and go canoeing,” said Jim. In many ways, it is fitting he is the namesake of Hosmer Lake. Known previously as Mud Lake, it was renamed for him in 1962.
Hosmer retired from Brooks-Scanlon in 1961 after forty-one years as the editor of the Pine Echoes. He died a year later at the age of 74. One of the editorial writers for the Eugene Register-Guard, Bob Frazier, wrote, “the sage of the sagebrush country died last week.”
J Paige & Co crafts artisan leather handbags to hang on the arms of connoisseurs coast to coast.
Paige Bruguier in her studio | Photo by Alex Jordan
After Paige Bruguier graduated from Sisters High School, she left home to attend the Art Institute of Portland. Her goal was to become a jewelry artist—she’d always been creative and had taken jewelry-making classes at Sisters High School. “Metal had always been my medium,” she recalled.
But a trip to Portland leather supply outlet Oregon Leather Co. during her first year of college changed her trajectory forever. “I walked into this incredible shop, this room filled with hides,” she said. “It was so inspiring. I hadn’t realized what it meant to shop for leather.”
In a way, it was a return to her roots. Bruguier was born on a Native American reservation in Montana, and her father has long been a maker of tipis. As an infant, she’d played at his feet in his studio as he ran the industrial sewing machine. Sitting down at a machine to make a leather bag for the first time felt nostalgic. “I absolutely fell in love with bag making,” she said.
Just a few short years later, Bruguier, 25, is at the helm of her own business, J Paige & Co. (Her first name is actually Jessica.) The company creates leather handbags and other home goods sought after throughout the United States. Her artisan bags are simple and beautiful, each handmade by Bruguier in a clean, simple style. “I’ve always liked classic products. I started making what I wanted, and then other people wanted it, too.”
Photo by Alex Jordan
Bruguier left the Art Institute after a year and returned home to Central Oregon to launch her own endeavor. Both her parents are self-employed in artistic fields, and the teachers and peers she’d found here had been particularly supportive and nurturing. Being back home, she felt, would be a good incubator. “Bend is a very good place for artists,” she said. “They make you feel like being a maker is actually possible.”
It was two local shows—at Bend’s creative co-working space The Wilds and then at the athletic apparel store Lululemon—that kicked things off for Bruguier. Her work ended up on a Lululemon blog, she received a flood of orders, quit her job and was able to become a full-time artist. “I love having my own business,” she said. “I feel so free. I have the freedom to create what I want to.”
Bruguier’s process is self-admittedly unstructured. “I grab a hide and start cutting,” she said, demonstrating with a flourish of her hands and a smile. At the same time, she said, leather is famously unforgiving. “It requires me to focus. I have to be patient. It’s good for me.”
Late last year, Bruguier moved production from her living room into an industrial space. This allowed her to acquire a third industrial sewing machine and an industrial kick press. “I’ve become super geeky about machines,” she said. “You feel invincible. You can sew through anything.”
Bruguier’s bags range from $60 for a pouch to $480 for a Wild West bag and can be purchased online or in specialty shops. She hopes to keep J Paige & Co high quality with a modest volume. “I used to think I wanted this to be huge. But there are so many factors to being self-employed that take away from the creative process, and that aspect is very important to me,” she said. “I want every bag to be meaningful, even if that means I don’t sell as many.”
In any case, along the way, she’ll continue to benefit from support from the Central Oregon artist community, as well as from mentors a little closer to the heart. “My parents have been very helpful,” she said. “They are still who I go to for advice.”
Set into an outcropping above the Deschutes River as it tumbles through Tumalo, a modern home is built on the foundations of principles, patience and respect.
Photo by Rick Keating
Rare are the buildable sites in Central Oregon where one can see both the river and the Cascades. The challenge for principal architect Nathan Good and lead architect Lydia Peters of Nathan Good Architects was to design a home that not only took advantage of the views without disturbing nary a rock or tree, but also addressed the homeowners’ criteria in aesthetic design, self-sufficiency and environmental impact, as well as in human factors, including aging in place and universal design.
“Site dictated the design,” said Good of the slim band where the home sits with its mandated river and mountain views. “It was challenging to design a building that could be woven around ghost juniper trees, boulders and other features.”
Working with builder Dennis Szigeti of Leader Builders and a team of landscape experts and subcontractors, Good and Peters set about fulfilling the homeowners’ wishes in a four-year-long project.
Surrounded by stone patios and wrapped in natural stone, plaster and locally sourced wood, the low-slung home is visually tied to its surroundings. It also boasts an abundant use of glass to permit views from the house, through the house and, even from the front walk, over the house.
Photo by Rick Keating
Named Kalorama (from the Greek for beautiful vista) by the homeowners, the finished structure is formed in deliberate zones to delineate the home’s public spaces and private areas. To the left of the main entry sits the great room, the center of the 4,000-square-foot house. Anchored by a massive wood-burning fireplace set on a single raised hearthstone, the spacious area accommodates a welcoming seating arrangement, an expansive dining table, a music area with grand piano and a large open kitchen—all of which have views of the Cascades. (Only one room in the house is viewless, pointed out builder Szigeti, and that’s the wine cellar.)
Meeting the couple’s request that materials be sustainable and welcoming are a fir ceiling, fishtail oak floors made from repurposed shipping containers, a wood, live-edge dining table, frames of European larch wrapped around triple-pane windows and cherry wood kitchen cabinetry. The further use of wood in the floating shelves near the piano and in the bookshelves that form a pony wall by the staircase leading downstairs reinforce the space’s welcoming warmth.
Strategically positioned by the kitchen are a pantry, a mudroom (complete with a dog shower) with access to the garage and a solarium/greenhouse where the couple can grow small fruit trees, flowers and vegetables. (Cold frames are conveniently set just outside.)
Also by the kitchen is an elevator installed to accommodate guests who cannot use stairs and to ensure accessibility for the homeowners as they age in place.
Photo by Rick Keating
Downstairs is the mechanical room, a game room with a television and bar, a guest room with a private patio and a bathroom designed for universal use. Also downstairs is the wine cellar which, while viewless, has a speakeasy window in its door.
Upstairs and on the other side of the front entry is the homeowners’ sanctuary. Separated from the public space by a wood pocket door, a hall gallery of wood bookshelves and storage drawers face two offices that look toward the mountains. The offices’ shared wall is also a sound barrier to suit the working styles of the wife who wants perfect quiet and her husband who wants to play music. Past the offices and per the couple’s instructions, the bedroom was created as a simple sleeping space with a nearby laundry room, spacious closet and master bath.
Throughout the home, the use of common materials such as wood and stone, fittings such as bookcases, and design features such as live edges, chevrons and the home’s Kalorama logo provide visual unity.
Chief among the couple’s wishes was a sustainable and self-sufficient home that could be a harbor in all conditions. “There are eighty-four solar panels on the roof to provide power,” explained Peters. Other practical features such as LED lighting, exterior solar shades, an EV car charging station and connecting the solar panels to Tesla Powerwalls helped the all-electric LEED platinum home garner an energy performance score of zero. Elsewhere on the property, a HAM radio tower, potable water cistern and orchard ensure self-sufficiency.
With retirement in view, the homeowners made aging in place and universal design a priority. In addition to the elevator, doorways are thirty-six inches wide to accommodate wheelchairs. Intentional design decisions, such as zero threshold showers and grab bars in the bathrooms, ergonomic door and cabinet hardware and abundant lighting (even in the closet rods), were made throughout the house to ensure the couple will continue to successfully live in their home.
Photo by Rick Keating
The project was not without bumps. While the lot had been purchased in 2008, the homeowners decided to put construction on hold for two years during the recession. It was a break that became serendipitous because much of the technology used in the completed home, such as the Tesla Powerwalls, had yet to be invented when the project first started. And, pointed out Good and Peters, the interval was also a testament to the couple’s dedication to their original vision because there were few changes when the project started anew.
Builder Szigeti credits the relationship between the architects, the homeowners and all the other professionals and subcontractors to the project’s success. “Everyone listened, everyone was respectful of everyone else,” he explained. “All the subcontractors who started with the project finished with it, too. Everyone felt valued.”
Jenny Green believes that art is for the masses and has spent her career dedicated to making fine art accessible. She has a master’s in fine and decorative arts from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London and has worked in galleries, museums and auction houses in London and San Francisco. She moved to Bend twenty-two years ago and has been a cultivator of the arts community in Central Oregon, most recently as a founder of the At Liberty Arts Collaborative. Green sat down with Bend Magazine’s Teafly Peterson to talk about art, community and ensuring that Bend’s economic growth benefits everyone.
On Finding Home at First Sight
My husband, Tim, and I moved here in 1994. We’re pretty different people, so we were trying to figure out where our divergent interests would meet up. We were living in Wyoming, and he came home one day and said, “I think I found the place for us. It’s called Bend, Oregon.” I went to the University of Wyoming’s library and looked up Bend, Oregon in the card catalog. And, of course, all the things in the card catalog were, like, skiing, fishing—all the things Tim was interested in. It was a small town, but it had the Sunriver Music Festival, a few restaurants and an art gallery. We came to visit in 1993 during that last huge snowstorm. We fell in love with the town and moved here.
Discovering Art
My grandmother had art and jewelry and beautiful objects. I grew up in a family that wasn’t that interested in that kind of stuff. But for me, it was like finding treasures. These objects could have meaning beyond simply being an object—that someone could take the time to make it beautiful or to care enough to translate an idea. I remember going through her house, her holding my hand, and talking to me through paintings that were special in some way.
On the Democracy of Art
I wish that everyone understood that art is for the masses. I get really frustrated that people see it as elitist. We’ve had this professionalism take over the arts, where you will talk to someone and say “Oh, are you an artist?” or “Are you a musician?” and they will say no. And then you’ll ask “Do you ever paint or play the guitar?” and they say “Oh, yeah, every weekend.” But they will not call themselves an artist or a musician. If we start embracing that everyone has artistic means and capabilities and that all these things are available to all of us, then I think that would change.
Creating an Arts Collaborative
Kaari Vaughn, René Mitchell and I started At Liberty because we always dreamed of having a permanent contemporary art space that promoted the arts and lifted up other nonprofits by providing space for them. This kind of fell into our laps (while we had also been pursuing it for five years). There was already a history of BendFilm, Muse and other organizations using Liberty Theater as a hub, but we wanted to turn this into something that was more quotidian and that people would know as a space downtown where there is always something interesting going on.
Embracing Diversity
I would like to see us embrace that small town feeling where we are concerned about our neighbors, where there is affordable housing and room for everybody. I get worried that we might become too homogenous in our economic sector. I want to see more room for different ways of thinking, different ways of being. I want us to hold onto that core piece that was here when I moved here, which was community first. I think we have an awesome community, and I want us to continue wrapping our arms around everybody here.
On the Rising Tide in Bend
I feel like the nonprofits and the arts are starting to blossom in these little pockets and are getting stronger. People have the impression of Bend as only an outdoor town, but there have always been these side interests, and those are finally starting to come forward a little bit more. I think that right now we have this rising tide in our community and I am just hoping that it lifts all the ships—the artists, the organizations, the community. If we are having this good moment for our town, I hope we make sure everyone is on board.
“I saw on your Facebook page—you guys are having a baby!” said a customer as Schoolhouse Produce co-owner Jeromy Cockrell rang up her groceries.
“Yep, baby number one’s due anytime,” Cockrell replied with a grin as he went back to hand labeling that day’s beef delivery.
Cockrell pointed to the sign clipped to a Mason jar next to the register that read “New Baby Fund.” “We put that up because Sarah and I kept losing track of who we told,” he said of his wife and co-owner. More shoppers came in and out of Schoolhouse Produce over the next thirty minutes. Cockrell’s banter with each person was affable and often involved first names. Most people bought just an armful of items. The steaming pot of soup, scratch-made daily and also sold frozen, was a hot seller.
Schoolhouse Produce is located on a busy corner in Redmond just a few blocks from Fred Meyer, Jeromy and Sarah’s former employer. The market isn’t large. Let’s say a game of catch spontaneously erupted using one of the oranges stationed by the front door. You wouldn’t need much of an arm to lob a pitch into your co-conspirator’s mitt in the opposite corner of the store by a cooler emblazoned with author Michael Pollan’s admonition “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly greens.”
Schoolhouse Produce co-owner Jeromy Cockrell | Photo by Megan Oliver
“I think we fall more on the health-store side rather than purely the grocery side, so people seek us out when they have health issues or to supplement what they’re getting at the bigger stores in town,” said Cockrell. “We are a year-round produce stand. Most people assume that means it’s all local and organic, but that’s just not possible, as much as we’d like it to be.”
The grocer’s two main produce suppliers are in Portland, but Schoolhouse stocks beef from MC Cattle out of Terrebonne, Tumalo lamb and goat milk soap, honey from Deschutes County bees, Redmond salsa and jelly, Bend toffee, Prineville cheese, twenty-odd other locally sourced products, a number of regionally sourced items and a handful of other essentials such as, you guessed it, La Croix.
“We probably have a couple of things in here that are no bueno from a strictly healthful perspective, but we try not to carry any products with MSG, preservatives, artificial colors or sweeteners,” he said. “The less ingredients the better.”
Cockrell explained that he and Sarah see people turn their energy levels around by looking to real food and supplements that are 100 percent food based.
Jayne Simmons, from whom the Cockrells bought the business in 2014, was a former school teacher. “She said she wasn’t a very good one, but she found that when she started selling produce, she felt that she could teach people how to use, learn and interact with food,” said Cockrell. “We’ve carried on that spirit. Just eat real food. It’s pretty simple.”
When you need to escape the last dregs of winter, retreat to McKenzie Highway where mist rises from the forest and reliable cell phone service is spotty. Find scant snowfall, easy hiking trails, rustic hot springs, a cozy historic lodge and whispers of spring in this charming river community.
Terwilliger Hot Springs
You could drive back and forth along the McKenzie Highway dozens of times and never spot Loloma Lodge. The rustic retreat is nestled in the dense temperate forest, hidden behind layers of green. Driving under the modest wooden archway onto the property and spotting the log-cabin lodge feels like stumbling upon a hidden treasure.
About a year ago, Wallis Levin had that same feeling when she discovered Loloma Lodge. Self-described as obsessed with miscategorized or misspelled items on sites like eBay or Craigslist, Levin found Loloma incorrectly categorized as a single-family home on a real estate website. She and her husband, who both moved to Bend four years ago, jumped on it, and less than a month later found themselves the owners of this historic McKenzie River lodge and resort.
Historic Loloma Lodge
Built in 1932, Loloma is one of the last historic buildings in the area. It’s been through a handful of owners who have added their own touches to the property, but much of its past has yet to be uncovered. “I wish I knew more about the building,” said Levin. “We’ve been told that it’s related somehow to Timberline, but I don’t know if that was the architects or the actual builders. Loloma is a mystery, from what I can tell so far.” The mystery is part of its charm though, as if each person who finds Loloma gets to uncover the story for themselves, and add to it.
Levin and her husband didn’t know much about running a lodge when they became the owners. She has a background in wedding set design and runs an artisan pop-up shop in Bend. Her husband Tyrone works in product development. But they’re committed to holding on to the property and starting a new chapter for Loloma. They’ve had the lodge open to travelers since they purchased it, and they also inherited a full season of weddings booked on the property. Making updates slowly and deliberately, Levin wants to preserve Loloma’s function and character.
“This is definitely a life project, and I’m trying to build [the business] so it actually works,” she said. “I just want to do it right.”
A room in the main lodge at Loloma.
Levin did add her personal touch to the interior design. Her bohemian aesthetic mixed with mid-century modern furniture and color palette blends seamlessly into the property, making it feel modern and comfortable. With chickens running around the property’s eleven acres, a firepit tucked inside a grove of trees and the river as the backdrop, Loloma is an idyllic place to escape.
Roadside Americana
The handful of restaurants just off the highway are charming places for a quick meal. For breakfast, the place to be is Takoda’s. The classic diner’s breakfast options are generous and affordable. Close by, McKenzie Bridge Pub feels like a home kitchen. With a full bar as well, the restaurant is the place to swap fishing stories.
Farther down the road, Vida Cafe is a shoebox-size diner that happens to make some of the best homemade pies in Oregon. Expect classic comfort food dishes that satisfy after rainy outdoor adventures. Case in point: A woman at the table next to us noted that my eyes rolled into the back of my head when I took the first bite of my cheeseburger.
A trip along the highway isn’t complete without a stop in Christmas Treasures, where it’s Christmas all year long. The shop has hundreds of decorations and ornaments for sale. There’s holiday music playing year-round and usually a fire going. This year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the shop, and the owners will relight the big Christmas tree that helped make the shop famous more than two decades ago.
Belknap Covered Bridge
Take a short detour to the Belknap Covered Bridge, which is just a few minutes off the highway. The wooden, white covered bridge provides a classic photo opportunity and is a reminder that some of Oregon’s best-preserved treasures are just off the road.
Hiking Trails and Hot Springs
Nature doesn’t always comply with the itinerary. Higher up in elevation along the McKenzie River highway, the trails to Sahalie and Koosah falls can have snow on the ground when the highway doesn’t. A fresh layer was melting on our hike along the trail that follows the ice blue, roaring McKenzie River. The Waterfalls Loop Trail is accessible to Sahalie Falls, then turns into a gravel path to Koosah Falls. The short hike is great for families as a destination for a day-trip or as a way to stretch your legs on a long car ride home.
About thirty minutes from the highway is Terwilliger Hot Springs, one of Oregon’s famed naturally warm pools that still feels rustic. You’ll meet a ranger at the trailhead, who gives you the rundown about the four natural pools, which are just a quarter-mile walk up the trail. Clothing is optional in the pools, and that credo is taken seriously, as in there are as many people in a birthday suit as there are in a bathing suit. Spend a few hours soaking in the warmth, protected from the rain by a canopy of trees.
Tamolitch Blue Pool
Pockets of blue sky finally peeked out behind the gray cloud cover on our last day as we hiked from the Blue Pool Trailhead on the McKenzie River Trail to Tamolitch Pool, the impossibly blue and clear natural wonder. Coming from the high desert, the McKenzie River Trail felt like walking into an enchanted forest. Green moss drips from the trees and cascades over the rocks along the trail. And seemingly out of nowhere, you reach Tamolitch Pool, looking down over it from the lava-rock trail. The dry weather and hints of sunshine were a welcome treat after two days of rain. Signs of the seasons to come.
Heart of Oregon Corps empowers marginalized youth to make powerful changes.
Photo by Abacus Photography
As Sarah Larocque-Fields continued the downward spiral of family drug addiction that included homelessness, crime and jail time, she considered herself broken beyond repair. But when the then-24-year-old became pregnant, she was determined to fix herself, raise her child drug-free and end the cycle of substance abuse that took the life of her brother and mother—and she turned to Heart of Oregon Corps to help.
Bend nonprofit Heart of Oregon Corps (HOC) is in the fixing business. They do so by giving at-risk young people the tools—quite literally—to turn their lives around, pursue educational goals and gain real-world work experience. Youth earn wages, stipends, and scholarships that increase economic self-sufficiency and financial literacy.
After meeting with HOC (her new baby girl in the stroller next to her during the interview) and being accepted into its AmeriCorps program, Larocque-Fields found herself in the Sisters wilderness working on wildfire prevention projects. It wasn’t long before she was leading the crews. She then moved on to building homes for needy families, all the while earning her GED through three months of college courses.
The key to HOC’s nearly twenty years of success is enrolling young people who truly want to make a change in their lives. “It gives you every single thing you need to be the person you want to be,” Larocque-Fields said. “It’s up to you to use the tools they give you.”
Because HOC is community-service based, it’s a society that benefits from the labor of volunteers like Larocque-Fields. “The projects our youth complete keep our community beautiful and healthy,” said HOC Executive Director Laura Handy.
Larocque-Fields’ success story comes full circle. Now 34, she spent nearly a decade working for BendBroadband and now works for a local real estate agent. And she serves as the secretary of Heart of Oregon’s board of directors. “I inspire myself when I think about all the things I’m doing,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what I’m doing ten years from now.”
Volunteer Spotlight: Mimi Ladine
Mimi Ladine began volunteering with Heart of Oregon Corps when she moved to Bend three years ago. Ladine is a mentor with the program and helps students with everything from schoolwork to getting signed up for healthcare. “A lot of negativity exists in the world today,” she said. “I think that’s why it’s more important than ever to instill optimism and hope in young people. People should work together to ensure that students have the opportunities and support to achieve their dreams.”
Federally protected salmon and steelhead returning to the Deschutes basin will have one less obstacle to survival thanks to a new fish passage project on the lower Crooked River. Work is set to begin in early summer on a 28-foot fish ladder on the lower Crooked River at Opal Springs Dam, allowing salmon and steelhead as well as resident trout to move freely between the Crooked River and Lake Billy Chinook.
For returning salmon and steelhead who begin arriving in early fall, the fish ladder will add 120-miles of spawning and rearing habitat in the Crooked River and its tributaries. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Brett Hodgson said that he and other fish managers have noticed many returning salmon and steelhead are swimming up the Crooked River only to have their journey cut short. Adding a fish ladder will allow these migrating salmon and steelhead to follow their natural instincts.
“We are confident that we will see natural reproduction and eventually a self-sustaining population once these fish establish themselves in the Crooked River,” said Hodgson.
The project, which is expected to be completed in fall 2019, is a long time coming for fish and fish advocates, due in part to the high price tag. The final project cost is expected to exceed $10 million, with a large portion of that coming from the Deschutes Valley Water District, which operates the dam at Opal Springs.
Christina McKeown is a professional paddler and watercolor artist in Bend.
Oregon’s river systems offer tremendous opportunities for the paddler: premier access, world-class rapids and breathtaking vistas. For professional paddler and watercolor artist Christina McKeown, it’s also a place to paint.
McKeown’s life and career have been about as predictable as a Class V rapid. She’s experienced different paces for different currents, large drops that lead to something new and exhibiting pure grace when being hammered with another oncoming wave. The one-time wound care nurse has not only displayed precise maneuvering when coping with these changes, but also has managed to earnestly pursue her first true love: art.
McKeown, 31, has been living in Bend since she was 13 years old—the same time she first hit the waters of the nearby McKenzie River. Since first appearing on the professional world circuit in 2006, the currents have swept her off to competitions both local and abroad, some as far away as New Zealand and Chile. Sometimes, she was the only woman who showed up to compete.
“There were several races where I was just thrown into the men’s category,” she said. “I even placed second and third in a few of them. But I never felt ostracized or alienated. It was just, ‘Sweet, you’re here, let’s race.’”
Photo by Josh McKeown
McKeown is retired from professional competition, but her fascination with water has evolved into a means of self-expression. As a plein air watercolor artist, she focuses on the Cascade’s imposing landscapes and grand tributaries. Her artwork doesn’t come at the expense of her passion for paddling. Quite the opposite. No matter the season, she’ll typically toss her art supplies inside a dry bag and take her tools of the trade along for the ride.
“I like the flexibility of the watercolors and ink,” she said about her work. “With water, you have control, but you don’t. Things dry differently and it’s kind of a guess sometimes. I just try and interpret the river through my own lens and make it into something that hopefully speaks to other people.”
McKeown has started selling her prints of highly saturated and vibrant colors that reveal a unique perspective of the sceneries as seen from the water. Her work has now evolved from basic prints into cards, holiday ornaments and solid wood canvases. She also works with companies such as Free Range Equipment, applying her art to its versatile adventure backpacks.
As for the future, McKeown hopes to partner with other companies to produce more wearable art and to further display her work at local showings.“I try to be open and present to everything that’s happening,” she said. “I accept it for what it is, just like when you’re paddling.”
Six day trips around Central Oregon to please all kinds of families in all kinds of weather. Consider this your spring break cheat sheet.
Photo by Adam McKibben
Spring break is tricky around here. The kids will be out of school for a week—that much we can count on. The rest is harder to pin down. Seize control of your time off by booking a trip to relax on a tropical island or soak up some culture in a big city. Stay around here, and, well, what is the weather going to do? It could snow sideways. It could rain buckets. Maybe the sun will come out. It’s likely to freeze. But it might hit 65 degrees. I’ve seen every one of those conditions arrive in this single late-March week. Here are a few ideas for you staycationers. No matter what your family is in to or what the weather is up to, at least one of these should fit the bill.
Wander to Waterfalls
Chush Falls | Photo by Adam McKibben
Upper and Lower Chush Falls on Whychus Creek are accessed by a relatively accessible, mellow hike with a great payoff. South of Sisters towards Three Creek Lake is Whychus Creek, which underwent a massive restoration process in the past decade.
These falls are along the upper creek, reached by a very moderate climb on a trail that follows a cliff high above the creek for about a mile and a half. The Pole Creek Fire burned through here several years ago, clearing out brush and trees with the silver lining of better waterfall views. Through the thinned forest, see the fan-shaped falls as it tumbles 200 feet
Eat: Three Creeks Brewing Co. in Sisters is Western-themed and family friendly. The Thai Chicken Nachos are a great choice for the adults, while the kids may just prefer a big ol’ basket of fries
Savor the Snow
Between December and the end of March, the U.S. Forest Service leads free winter ecology tours on the flanks of Mount Bachelor. Strap on a loaner pair of snowshoes and follow a ranger naturalist around the rim of the mountain, working up a sweat while taking in incredible scenery and plenty of fresh alpine air.
On the way you’ll learn about ecology, geology, the watershed, and plants and animals from mountain hemlock to pine martens (the animal, not the ski lift). Beginners are welcome, though the USFS asks that each participant be at least 10 years old, and leave the doggies at home. Tours begin daily at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Eat: On your way back into Bend, stop at The Row at Tetherow for lunch. Views of the Cascades, the rolling high desert and an award-winning golf course come with burgers, beer and an everything-is-$7 kids menu.
Seek the Sun
Oregon Badlands Wilderness | Photo by Christian Heeb
A good bet for tracking down sunshine is made by journeying into the desert. Head east on Highway 20 to the Oregon Badlands Wilderness, which exemplifies the untamed high desert landscape of old-growth juniper, rimrock and dusty volcanic soils. Fifty miles of trails wind through the wilderness, with some family-friendly hikes that pass by Native American pictographs and juniper trees approaching 400 years of age. In spring and summer, vibrant desert wildflowers appear like small colorful gumdrops on the side of the trail.
Speaking of Native American pictographs, more are to be found on the aptly-named Picture Rock Pass, the high point between the Silver Lake and Summer Lake valleys, about ninety minutes south of Bend. On the south side of the highway, right at the flat top of the summit, are petroglyphs carved into the rocks. Take a little walk and keep your eyes peeled—you’ll find the figures of animals and humans clearly visible in the rock. The kids will love the treasure hunt to find them.
Eat: The Lodge at Summer Lake is home to the Flyway Restaurant, one of my favorite stops when I’m in the Oregon Outback. A homey interior and friendly staff cook up big plates of great food. Try the club sandwich.
Catch a Wave
Bend Whitewater Park | Photo by Paul Clark
We may be nowhere near the ocean, but that doesn’t mean you can’t catch a wave in Central Oregon. Right in the middle of town is Bend’s Whitewater Park, where a state-of-the-art underwater system creates four wave features. Whitewater kayakers, surfers and paddleboarders on the higher-end of the skill set will enjoy this recreational option. The rest of us enjoy watching the action from the footbridge over the park.
For a mellower, indoor wave, visit Sunriver Fitness and Aquatics, formerly known as Maverick’s, which reopened last year. The recreation center’s main attraction is the FlowRider 1800 perpetual-wave machine. Billed as the ultimate surf machine, this beauty makes waves all day long. Ride to your heart’s content on a skimboard or boogie board.
Eat: You can’t go wrong with a visit to Sunriver Brewing Co., where the beers are yummy and award-winning; try the Fuzztail Hefeweizen. The menu is diverse enough for the whole family, and there’s even a kid’s corner with toys and a chalkboard.
Immerse in Culture
High Desert Museum | Photo by George D. Lepp
Cruise the museum strip! Begin in downtown Bend at the old Reid School, Bend’s first school, built in 1914. Today, it’s home to the Deschutes Historical Museum. Visit Ms. Reid’s classroom, learn about pioneer life, shop for books about Bend’s history and more in this grand historic building.
South of Bend is the High Desert Museum, a treasure hunt of history, culture and wildlife. Some of the delights include living history; exhibits covering Native Americans, butterflies, quilts, watersheds and fur trappers; outdoor pathways on which you can see otters, teepees, a homestead and a sawmill; and birds of prey that just might fly right over your head.
Finally, head north to the Museum at Warm Springs, which interprets the cultural and historical journeys of the Warm Springs, Wasco and Pauite tribes. See Pacific Northwest Native American paintings, sculpture, masks, ceremonial clothing, ritual implements and beadwork, and experience firsthand the sounds of ancient songs and languages.
Eat: There is a truly terrific Mexican restaurant in Madras called Rio Distinctive Mexican Cuisine. An unassuming little house right on Highway 97 harbors fresh, amazing dishes and innovative cocktails well-worth the stop on the way back to Bend. Don’t miss the ceviche.
Go Back In Time
Photo by Alex Jordan
Parts of Oregon used to be a lush tropical rainforest populated with prehistoric horses, elephants, camels and saber-toothed cats. Then it all got encapsulated in time. The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument east of Bend represents one of the most complete fossil records in the world. It’s also a really cool place to visit.
Drive east through Prineville and the Ochoco Mountains to the Painted Hills unit first. These gentle mounds of red, pink, bronze, tan and black ash and clay are layered in uneven stripes, surreal and lunar. They were created by deposits of sediment accumulating over thousands of years, like a river laid down a painting to last all time.
Continue east to the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center.Beautiful murals represent the environments that used to exist here, along with more than 500 fossils. Viewing windows allow the public to watch the scientists at work studying of fossils right before your eyes.
Eat: Sometimes I dream about the house-made pie at the Sidewalk Café in Mitchell. If they’ve got blackberry, that’s your no-brainer selection. The juicy burgers and handmade shakes are memory-makers, too.
The best things to around Bend this weekend, including a conference celebrating women and girls, dinner from a James Beard-nominated chef, running events, an exhibition for outdoors enthusiasts and classic folk music.
Muse Conference
March 1-4 | Bend
A four-day event designed to inspire and empower women and girls that brings in activists, entrepreneurs, artists and athletes. Find a community of like-minded people who are leading the charge in social change. The sixth annual conference will also kick off Muse Women’s March, a month-long event that features inspiring women in the community.
Central Oregon Sportsmen’s Show
March 1-4 | Deschutes County Fair & Rodeo, Redmond
Outdoor enthusiasts will want to head to Redmond this weekend for the Central Oregon Sportsmen’s Show. It’s a four-day event filled with gear demos and seminars from experts that will have you stoked for the upcoming season. Kids under 12 get in free and can try their hand at fishing in the trout pond. Find everything related to fishing, boating, hunting, camping and more.
Running Events
March 3 | Bend, Tumalo
Winter returned just in time for these early season running events. This is the sixteenth year for the Grin and Bear It run that’s held at the Old Mill District on Saturday. The Mastondon 10ish Miler, held on the Maston Trail Network in Tumalo, is also happening on Saturday.
Guest Chef Dinner at the Suttle Lodge
March 3 | The Suttle Lodge, Sisters
Head to Suttle Lake Lodge this weekend for a gourmet meal from Katy Millard, executive chef at Portland’s renowned Coquine restaurant. Millard is a James Beard-nominated chef that will put on a family-style meal as part of the lakeside lodge’s ongoing guest chef series. Make a weekend out of it and cozy up in one of the cabins.
Lonesome Traveler with Peter Yarrow
March 4 | Tower Theatre, Bend
Americana comes to Bend this weekend. Lonesome Traveler, a unique event featuring the music from the popular musical, will be at the Tower on Sunday night. The show will feature classic folk and Americana music from the 20th century, including Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and more.
