Bend Oregon and Volcanoes (Who knew?)

We (believe it or not) turned EAST and headed to Bend to visit some friends we met in Alaska and our son-in-law's parents.
We headed east on Rt. 20 which is boring at times but eventually reaches the beautiful Williamette National Forest.

The road is twisty turney, up and down and quite narrow in spots but goes through a green tunnel of enormous firs for 20 or 30 miles. Beautiful!

There are also places where fires have left all but a few trees scarred and barren. In the distance is Mt. Washington (Oregon not New Hampshire)

We found this pretty pond among the devastation.












After settling in at our campground in Bend we met our Alaska friends Tonya and Cort for dinner at   the Worthy Brew Pub. They told us about places to visit including the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.
The next morning we took a ride south. The park consists of several sections, Lava Land, Lava Caves, the Tree Cast Forest and Newberry Crater. Newberry Crater is in the Deschutes National Forest where you can see the Obsidian Flow and Paulina Peak which overlooks Paulina Lake and East Lake.

At Lava Land you can drive to the top of the 500' tall cinder cone called Lava Butte.

Lava Butte looks out over a lava field toward Mt. Bachelor.

  The cinder cone's crater is about 150' deep.













Next we went to Newberry Volcanic National Monument to walk on the Obsidian Flow. Obsidian is black volcanic glass that Native Americans used for arrowheads, knives and scrapers. Obsidian can be fashioned to an edge 1 molecule thick which gives it an edge sharper than a steel scalpel.


This path took us through the a very small portion of 750 acre Obsidian flow. There is a large piece of obsidian to the left center of this pic.

This is a wall that looks like black brick but is black volcanic glass.

 A closeup of a piece of obsidian.

The Obsidian Flow from Paulina Peak with Paulina Lake in the background.

7935' Paulina Peak from the Obsidian Flow.















Next we drove the 4 mile gravel road up to the peak. The road had such bad washboard I had to use 4 wheel drive. I don't know how people made it up in cars, but they were at the top!








Of course we had to "hike" all of a hundred feet from the parking lot to the peak to take a selfie! Paulina Lake is behind us and we think Mt. Hood is to the left.

The Tree Cast Forest is a lava flow where molten lava moved through a forest. The trees were trapped in lava that eventually cooled and hardened. As the tree burned, or over time rotted away, a "cast" of the tree was all that was left.

The resulting casts look like this

 Next up: The moon