Wandrer: Bend

Moving to Bend has been great. The mindset of the community and the vibe of the city promote a very relaxed lifestyle with plenty to keep you busy. We spend the majority of our first few months backpacking, finding amazing camp spots, and mountain biking.

If you are through bend stop at Backporch Coffee Roasters. Their cold brew is amazing.

Welcome to Oregon.

We went down into the Lava River Caves. It was such a relief from the hot temperatures as the caves were a ultra cool in the 40's. If you do go to this spot I recommend taking a real lantern, headlamps keep you from falling down, but lanterns light up the whole cave so you can enjoy the whole experience.

There are many other caves we visited throughout the course of our stay. Many are out on China Hat Road.

Lava Lake Camp turned out to be one of our go-to spots. It is located right next to a lake and there is plenty of hiking and biking to do around here.

So far I have been very satisfied with our solar set up. It has allowed us to run all of our appliances, charge computers, ipads, and other devices. Not to mention watching lots of movies on the PS3 on our 24" TV. Its overkill, but sometimes its fun to play some Uncharted in the forrest. Purchasing some sun shades and a 12V fan has saved us from the heat. On really hot nights we sleep up in the top bunk with the windows down.

Here we are leaving to attempt the Sisters Loop. We didnt make it too far before we realized that our timing was off. The severe amount of mosquitoes, and utter lack of planning for the blood suckers left us breaking out in hives from so many bites. Besides the bugs it was an amazingly beautiful experience that we would recommend to anyone who is looking to get away for a while.

Fresh water. We have been using the Sawyer water filter with Evernew water bladders. They compact small and are very easy to use many different attachments with. I have also attached a Katadyn charcoal filter that doubles as a Nalgene adapter so it is easy to filter water while you are setting up camp. The tubing I used for the system was sourced from a hardware store.

We hiked Black Crater. It was fun, we didn't expect snow at the top, but it was nice to see some mid summer. The trail is clearly marked and isn't that difficult.