Deschutes River Trail Bend, Oregon Revisited

Where we went and why

We went back to the Deschutes River Trail in Bend, Oregon. We went there last Saturday, but we didn't do nearly as long of a hike that day. The trail is pretty long, but we only did part of it today. We had been there twice before last Saturday. We've done the Centennial Loop and the Mill A Loop. This time we set out to start at the Old Mill District and go south to the second bridge, but we ended up parking on the other side of the river from Old Mill District and a little south. 

The Walk

We started out in a parking lot that's across the street and a little south of the Old Mill District. We then walked south. The path started out as a paved brick walkway that was very flat. It went along the river and had a grassy area to the right. There was some sort of even going on in the grassy area, but we never did figure out what it was. Shortly after we got to that point, my camera battery died. My husband is such an awesome guy and took pictures with his phone so I'd have something for the blog. I couldn't take pictures because I was using the BodyMedia app on my phone to track the calories for the walk and the workout tab doesn't like to be in the background. If it's in the background too long, the connection between the armband and the phone goes away and the info gets lost.

Once you get to the bridge that takes you across the river to Farewell Bend Park, the trail turns to gravel. It was still pretty flat after a short while, the path went down under a bridge. I love this bridge. After the bridge, the hike starts to have some incline, but according to the MapMyHike chart below, the total elevation gain was only 200 feet. There were no really steep inclines and most of the inclines were very short and followed by a subsequent decline.

After a bit, we had to go through a gate type thing that was supposed to keep cyclists out since no bikes are allowed into that section. Along this section, there were several educational signs explaining various things including signs of beavers and porcupines. The trail stayed along the river for the entire time. To the right of us was a big cliff with houses on top of it.

After 2 miles, we got to the second bridge across the river. That was the end of the trail on that side of the river. We had to cross or go back. We crossed the river and kept going. This section of the river had a steep downhill part to it. I was very glad that we had gone the way that we did since I would not want to climb up this little section. My hubby thought it might be nice to go the reverse direction at some point so we could go up this fun little hill. I don't think I want to do that!

So, on this side of the river you've got the river on one side and trees on the other side. It was cooler on this side of the river since there was more tree cover to shade us from the sun. There were benches along the trail and several rocks that you could sit on if you needed to. Once we went down the steep decline, it was mainly downhill from there. There were a couple of small inclines, but they weren't very steep or very long.

We had talked about going up to the Old Mill District and crossing the bridge there, but we decided to cross at Farewell Bend Park and just head back to the car. We had a mystery shop for lunch and we still had shopping to do.

Overall Thoughts

This is a great hike for anyone. It's mainly flat. The trail is in good shape and its wide enough for two people in most spots. The trail was pretty busy that day though and there were some large groups of people. There were also several people on bicycles. I personally would not ride a bicycle on this trail just because it's so heavily used by pedestrian traffic and it's not wide enough for a bike to go through comfortably next to a person. We had to pull off the trail several times for bikes to get through. There were no restrooms along the trail, but there were places to stop and rest. 

MapMyHike and BodyMedia Screen shots

MapMyHike thinks I burned over 2,000 calories, but BodyMedia only thinks I burned 970. I believe BodyMedia over MapMyHike on this one. I was surprised that the elevation change was 200 feet on this hike. It didn't feel like 200 feet. We hiked in the Oregon Badlands and that felt like much of of an incline than this did. By the end of that hike we were both exhausted, but this one we felt good. The footing was different in the Badlands though, so maybe that made a big enough difference. Plus, it was a few months ago so I'm sure all of my cardio work has helped me improve. 

I love that MapMyHike has elevation and speed charts and I love that BodyMedia gives me the calories per minute chart. I just need a heart rate monitor now! I could convince myself to go for more hikes just by telling myself how much fun I have looking at the charts when i'm done! That big V in the middle of the calories per minute on BodyMedia is from sitting on a bench at the bridge that we crossed. The second big dip is when we sat on another bench just before we went under the bridge before Farewell Bend Park.

This hike was so worth the time that it took to get to Bend. I'm still shocked that we did four miles in an hour and 40 minutes.