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canyonwalkerOregon Cascades Travelog #14
Bend, OR - Thu, 3 Jul 2025, 8:30pm
We're back from another fun day of vacation in the Oregon Cascades. Though today we weren't really in the Oregon Cascades.... Instead we headed east from Bend into the high desert volcanic scrub land. Along the way we explored mountains of glass, hiked a volcanic fissure in the ground... oh, and saw about 100 hawks.
We saw the first few dozen hawks as we were driving east on US 20 out of Bend toward Glass Butte. The hawks were perched on power line poles along the side of the highway. At first we didn't see any raptors. Then we saw one or two. "Huh, I'm surprised there's food out here for them," I thought to myself. The we started seeing them every half mile. There must be plenty of food for them! I've only seen this density of birds of prey in the wild twice before.
We arrived in the area of the Glass Buttes and turned off the highway. From there we'd see only dirt and gravel roads for the next few hours. Yay, choosing to drive our own car (4x4 SUV) instead of flying and renting a car! We drove around to sites specifically where Hawk could rock-hound for different varieties of obsidian. She filled a canvas tote bag.
After rock-hounding and eating a trail lunch in the car we drove back out to the highway and backtracked a bit to the west before leaving the highway again to traverse gravel and dirt roads for most of the next 50 miles to get to Crack-in-the-Ground, an interesting volcanic fissure. From there we parked the car at the trail head, strapped on our packs, and hiked over 2 miles, much of it in narrow a chasm up to 70 feet deep. As with yesterday's summary I'm skipping over sharing photos (and video!) for now to keep from falling too far behind in writing about this trip.
Oh, and we at least a dozen more hawks on the drive to Crack-in-the-Ground. Plus another dozen more as we drove to the remote little town of Christmas Valley afterwards for a light dinner. Yes, it was already after 6pm! Then there were lots more hawks as we drove west toward Fort Rock and Hole in the Ground.
Yes, there's a Hole in the Ground in addition to Crack-in-the-Ground. We didn't get to see the hole, though, because it was raining by the time we got there. It was raining— pouring, really, with occasional lightning in the sky— as we passed by Fort Rock, as well. These both would've been fun to see. Alas, maybe on a return trip to Bend a few years from now!
Update, 11pm: the rain and lightning hit us in Bend later in the evening, spoiling yet another part of our plans for the day. Having gotten back to our hotel around 8:30pm we looked forward to soaking in the hot tub before it closes at 10. Well, at 9:15 or so when we were ready to go, WHOOSH! rain started to fall. We thought maybe we'd wait it out but then CRACK! lightning. And the rain lasted for 2 hours. It's a bummer we didn't get to use the hot tub. My sore muscles would've appreciated it.
Bend, OR - Thu, 3 Jul 2025, 8:30pm
We're back from another fun day of vacation in the Oregon Cascades. Though today we weren't really in the Oregon Cascades.... Instead we headed east from Bend into the high desert volcanic scrub land. Along the way we explored mountains of glass, hiked a volcanic fissure in the ground... oh, and saw about 100 hawks.
We saw the first few dozen hawks as we were driving east on US 20 out of Bend toward Glass Butte. The hawks were perched on power line poles along the side of the highway. At first we didn't see any raptors. Then we saw one or two. "Huh, I'm surprised there's food out here for them," I thought to myself. The we started seeing them every half mile. There must be plenty of food for them! I've only seen this density of birds of prey in the wild twice before.
We arrived in the area of the Glass Buttes and turned off the highway. From there we'd see only dirt and gravel roads for the next few hours. Yay, choosing to drive our own car (4x4 SUV) instead of flying and renting a car! We drove around to sites specifically where Hawk could rock-hound for different varieties of obsidian. She filled a canvas tote bag.
After rock-hounding and eating a trail lunch in the car we drove back out to the highway and backtracked a bit to the west before leaving the highway again to traverse gravel and dirt roads for most of the next 50 miles to get to Crack-in-the-Ground, an interesting volcanic fissure. From there we parked the car at the trail head, strapped on our packs, and hiked over 2 miles, much of it in narrow a chasm up to 70 feet deep. As with yesterday's summary I'm skipping over sharing photos (and video!) for now to keep from falling too far behind in writing about this trip.
Oh, and we at least a dozen more hawks on the drive to Crack-in-the-Ground. Plus another dozen more as we drove to the remote little town of Christmas Valley afterwards for a light dinner. Yes, it was already after 6pm! Then there were lots more hawks as we drove west toward Fort Rock and Hole in the Ground.
Yes, there's a Hole in the Ground in addition to Crack-in-the-Ground. We didn't get to see the hole, though, because it was raining by the time we got there. It was raining— pouring, really, with occasional lightning in the sky— as we passed by Fort Rock, as well. These both would've been fun to see. Alas, maybe on a return trip to Bend a few years from now!
Update, 11pm: the rain and lightning hit us in Bend later in the evening, spoiling yet another part of our plans for the day. Having gotten back to our hotel around 8:30pm we looked forward to soaking in the hot tub before it closes at 10. Well, at 9:15 or so when we were ready to go, WHOOSH! rain started to fall. We thought maybe we'd wait it out but then CRACK! lightning. And the rain lasted for 2 hours. It's a bummer we didn't get to use the hot tub. My sore muscles would've appreciated it.
