Bend

Karen and I spent a week in Bend, Oregon for some much needed R&R. Despite the cloudy and sometimes showery weather, we wanted to be outdoors. We used caching to direct us to different areas.

The caching culture in Bend is sure different than here. For instance, we spent one day southeast of Bend in Juniper forest and old lava flows on BLM land (think thousands of acres). A number of the caches in the area were multi-caches requiring 4 stops before finding the final. Each stop was .25 to .5 miles apart. Here, each of those stops would be a cache. I found no evidence of any power caching trails around Bend.

Another day we drove northwest from Sisters, crossed over Green Ridge near Black Butte and down to the Metolius River, then north and back up over and along Green Ridge. It was great having the Ridgeline to drive these forest service roads. Regrettably, it was so cloudy we missed the great views of Mt. Jefferson.

Last year in August we were prevented from going to some locations by the Black Crater fire. This time we drove to a cache placed near the origin of that fire. In fact, forest service crews were busy in the area cutting down the dead snags.

We explored a bit of the badlands east of Bend along highway 20. There’s more to see, with some lengthy hikes involved (no vehicles since it’s now designated a wilderness).

We thoroughly explored Charcoal cave, which impressed me as one of the most unique locations for a cache (it wasn’t in the cave). It took 3 trips (not all on this visit) and several hours to locate the cache. The coords are off and the hint doesn’t help narrow the search area. Finally located after reading all the logs and finding some hints in them.