The first was at the upper falls that we hadn't made it to the day before - by the time we got to the lower falls it was too late in the day to hike the extra mile round trip. We've seen a lot of falls on this trip, and these ranked fairly high. Especially since they could be accessed with a 60 yard walk from a parking lot!
Next up was a drive over the Santiam Pass, through a 90,000 acre forest fire-burned area, to Black Butte. You may remember it from a couple posts ago as looking like this:
Or like this:
Black Butte, a very conical, isolated volcanic cone, rises about 6,400 feet above Bend and is quite hikeable. A forest service road takes you to about 4,800 feet, leaving you with a fair climb to the top. My legs were pretty knackered from the 18k the day before, but it was worth every step.
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| On the way up - that's the Sisters in the back left. |
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| The second half of the trail edges around the side of the butte - it's sandy and you need to watch your footing if you don't fancy a tumble down the side! |
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| A boarded up ranger station from the 1920s - if you look closely you can see there are numerous lightning rods sticking out from every corner. |
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| If you look closely, you can see a bit of Mt. Hood in the back right among the clouds |
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| The Sisters on the right, Broken Top on the left |
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| On the way down with great views to the valley below. |
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| Lots of smaller tree-covered volcanic cones dot the valley |
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| I made it! |
Back in Bend, we checked back into the Rainbow Motel and headed for Deschutes for a brewery tour. We've been on many, but theirs was one of the best for sure - a really knowledgeable, friendly guide, free tasters, and a big, sparkling operation to show. They are now the 5th largest craft brewer in the USA, and their surprisingly compact line bottles 1 million bottles of beer per week. Not a typo: 1 million bottles per week of proper, tasty beer (at a rate of almost 7 bottles per second when operating).
Employed people can buy the Collage collaboration between Deschutes and Hair of the Dog. At $11 for a 330 ml bottle, we decided to wait.
Hanging out in the tasting room.
Deschutes' winter holiday seasonal is their Jubilale. Each year they commission a local artist to design the label, and all the paintings hang in a mini-gallery in the building. This is from 2010.
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| Outside the brewery. These are their big new conditioning tanks. There is space for 5 more of these tanks, which will take their capacity above 500,000 barrels per year |
After dinner at 10 Barrel Brewing (which was packed and had live music early on a Sunday night), we finished off the evening by visiting Bend's newest brewery. The Crux Fermentation Project opened only about 3 weeks ago. They have a slick new brewpub in an old Aamco building with tasty beer on tap (but only one of their own so far, a "sweet IPA"), and tasty nut-free stout brownies.
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| Great view of the mountains out the roll-up door |
A great way to spend our last night in Bend!
