Oregon's Otherworldly High Desert With Unmatched Hiking Trails Is Just Outside Of Bend

While you're enjoying listening to live music and sipping a craft beer in Bend, Oregon, it might be hard to imagine that you're only a little over 20 minutes from a vast wilderness when you're standing in its popular downtown. The Oregon Badlands Wilderness Area is a wild landscape of canyons and desert shaped by flowing lava from violent volcanic eruptions. Comprised of over 29,000 acres, this place may have once been blanketed in ash and cut by lava flows, but today, it's a wide expanse of rocky land with scrubby grasses and forests of juniper trees. You could walk for miles here without encountering another person, but this place is anything but desolate. It's a vibrant high desert ecosystem thriving with life, from birds of prey to slithering rattlesnakes. When night falls, a brilliant tapestry of stars emerges from the darkness.

While it is a true wilderness, mostly left to develop naturally, you will find nearly 50 miles of established trails to explore. If you want to visit the Oregon Badlands Wilderness Area for yourself, Bend is about 160 miles from Portland. If you don't live in the Pacific Northwest, you're probably going to want to fly into Redmond Municipal Airport and rent a car. From the airport, you are only a little under 40 minutes away.

The trails through the wilderness are often sandy and hot (as you might expect in the desert), but for hikers eager to explore the badlands, it's a wonderland. This area is also tremendously popular for adventurous dogs, which are allowed to be off-leash in some areas, so expect to see furry friends along the way. If you're looking for somewhere to start your journey through the wilderness, consider the Ancient Juniper Trail. It only takes most hikers a little over an hour to walk the entire loop. If you were to encounter any other hikers and their dogs in the badlands, it would be on this beloved trail, but you never have to worry about fighting crowds here. The trail is sandy and often exposed to the desert sun, but the views of the towering junipers, some of which are more than 1,000 years old, are worth it.

If you're looking for a little more of a challenge, try a three-hour loop made up of the Sand Lily, Mazama Ash, and the Flatiron Rock trails. Near the fascinating Flatiron Rock, you'll walk along the sand path between tall, natural rock walls, creating a network of caves and passages to explore. There is sagebrush growing all around the wilderness, but you'll find a lot around this area in particular, and you'll notice its distinctive scent as you walk.

If you're planning to pair this trip with an adventure in the nearby Deschutes River (which transforms into a floating paradise between Memorial and Labor Day), you may want to plan a summer trip. Otherwise, you're far better off planning to visit the Oregon Badlands Wilderness in the late fall, winter, or early spring when you're less likely to have the sun beating down on you. If you're looking to see mesmerizing wildflowers blooming, plan to visit in the springtime when the entire area bursts into color.

For a really remarkable experience in nature, plan to stay overnight. While it may be full of juniper trees and rock formations, there's nothing in the badlands tall enough to block out the sky, which could make it one of the best spots in America for stargazing. Far enough from civilization that light pollution is not much of an issue, you'll get to experience some staggeringly dark nights, perfect for seeing an incredible glimmering light show above. To see it for yourself, you'll need to stay here overnight. While there aren't any designated campgrounds, you can camp anywhere in the Oregon Badlands Wilderness Area for free, just pack out what you bring in and set up your tent where it looks like other people have camped before you to avoid damaging the land.