Bend Premier Real Estate Blog

Painted Hills - Part of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

Known as one of the 7 Wonders of Oregon, the Painted Hills is series of hills with outstanding colors. Located roughly 86 miles northeast of Bend close to Mitchell, Oregon, the hills get their colors from the geology of the area over 35 million years. The combination of river flood plain, tropical forest, volcanic ash, and time has resulted in the color striations of the hills. Colors of red, green, orange, tan, and even lavender all provide a beautiful representation of millions of years of changing climate and geological upheavals. The hills monument cover over 3000 acres and are the most visited of the John Day Fossil Beds. Several easy hikes enable visitors to view the hills close up and from a distance. As the day goes on, the changing light and shadows as evening approaches can create an even more dramatic landscape to admire.

When we visited Painted Hills on 6-13-2020, we were pleased at the condition of the day use area directly outside the monument with clean, well stocked restrooms and a nicely mowed grass area with clean picnic tables. The trails were well defined and visitors were noted reading the signs explaining the geology of the area. The Painted Hills is a must see for anyone visiting Central Oregon.

Bend Real Estate Sales Impacted by Covid-19 Pandemic

The May 2020 real estate sales figures have been published and the second full month of the Covid-19 pandemic and its subsequent impact on the Bend economy is over. Contrary to the thought process of many, Bend single family real estate sales were extremely strong in May. The biggest limitation to sales was the lack of inventory with sellers either delaying listing or pulling listings off the market. Buyers, however, have entered the market in force and are purchasing Bend single family homes, driving inventory levels below 2 months.

When May 2020 is compared with May 2019, Bend single family homes on less than an acre show the following changes:

• Average sales price down .5% to $553,373*
• Average list price down 1.99% to $596,885
• New listings down 39.2% to 256
• Number of homes for sa...

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Sparks Lake Not Yet Ready for Visitors

Sparks Lake is one of our favorite Central Oregon places to take visitors to showcase why we love where we live.  Located off the Cascade Lakes Highway, the views of Broken Top and South Sister from the Ray Atkeson Memorial Trail are spectacular and the lake is usually filled with non-motorized boats and paddle boards during the summer months.  It is one of our favorite places to go, especially since the Ray Atkeson Memorial Trail is handicap accessible which makes it a fabulous place for us to take elderly parents.

We drove up to Sparks Lake today hoping to catch some mountain views between the clouds and late snow showers. However, the views did not come out and the weather remained cool and overcast.

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In all the years we have lived in Central Oregon, we have never hiked to Alder Springs. In fact, we didn't even know it existed until recently.  Flowing into lower Whychus Creek which starts at Broken Top and merges into the Deschutes River, Alder Springs is an oasis in the midst of the High Desert. 

There are two trail heads you can drive to in order to begin your hike to Alder Springs.  Both trail heads have sketchy 4 wheel drive dirt roads which is probably why few take these hikes. We took the least rough road located out of Sisters to our trail head which resulted in a longer 3.8 mile hike one direction bordering Whychus Creek much of the way.  We saw no one on this hike until we reached Alder Springs and at times the trail was hard to find. During the summer this hike would be very warm as there is little shade and we would recommend hikers bring a lot of water. But the hike along the canyon rim can be beautiful with views down to the creek and birds of prey circling in the sky.

Once we reached Alder Springs, we saw other hikers for the first time. They had come the shorter 1.5 miles from the other trail head and had hiked the additional 1.5 miles to an overlook of the junction of Whychus Creek and the Deschutes River. This second way to reach Alder Springs involves wading across Whychus Creek - which was knee high the end of May 2020.  After resting a bit, we returned to our car the way we had come and made it there 10 minutes before a violent thunderstorm hit. It was a great day.

On May 16, 2020 we returned to Newberry Crater to enjoy the newly reopened monument. We traveled as far around East Lake as we could, stopping at the boat ramp parking near the lodge as the road was blocked past that. We walked past the barrier through the empty East Lake campground until we came to the Cinder Hill trail head.  We have hiked this trail before several years ago and looked forward to doing it again.  However, roughly 1.5 miles into the hike, we encountered snow covering the trail and although we were able to continue at least 1/2 mile further, we reached a point where trail markings were no longer visible.  Rather than risk getting lost, we retreated and instead drove back to the Little Crater Hike - the cinder cone between Paulina and East Lake - that we had never hiked.

Although the hike was fairly short and easy, the views were wonderful. We saw the Big Obsidian Flow from a perspective we had never seen before, as well as vistas of Paulina Lake and interesting pumice formations. It was also great to see all the boaters on both lakes enjoying the fishing opportunities.  Although the lodges, camping and Visitor's Center were all closed, at least people can enjoy the views, the lakes and the hikes (snow permitting).