Bend, Oregon - Haulin' Aspen Trail Marathon

Staci and I headed to Bend, Oregon to run the Haulin’ Aspen trail marathon. This is our 25th state marathon together which means we are halfway through the states. We flew to Portland and rented a car for the three hour drive to Bend.

Bend is one of the most appealing small-to-mid-sized cities in the Pacific Northwest, particularly if you like mountains, hiking, biking, skiing, camping and a dry climate. It sits on the eastern side of the Cascade Range at about 3,623 feet, where the forests of the Cascades give way to Oregon's high desert. The result is a landscape that feels quite different from the stereotypical rainy, heavily forested Oregon.

Today Bend has roughly 100,000 residents and has grown enormously over the past few decades. It's large enough to have a substantial restaurant, brewery, healthcare and retail scene, but it still feels more like a mountain town than a conventional city.

Downtown Bend is built around the Deschutes River. The older core has been renovated extensively, with restaurants, breweries, coffee shops, galleries, boutiques and outdoor-oriented businesses.

Walking along the Deschutes River at sunset.

Munch & Music is one of Bend's quintessential summer traditions. It's a free Thursday-evening outdoor concert series held in beautiful Drake Park, right along the Deschutes River in downtown Bend.

Mount Bachelor is the dominant mountain recreation area for Bend and one of the most distinctive ski mountains in the Pacific Northwest. It is a 9,065-foot dormant volcano in the Cascade Range, about 22 miles west of Bend. It rises dramatically above the surrounding high desert and forests which are filled with recreational activities.

A view of the Three Sisters and Broken Top from the Mt. Bachelor ski slopes.

Newberry National Volcanic Monument is located about 20 miles south of Bend. It protects the Newberry Volcano and covers about 55,500 acres of lava rock.

Heading down into the Lava River cave - a mile long Lava Tube. We didn’t get very far since it is 42 degrees inside the cave and we were dressed for summer.

A selfie at the starting line of the marathon.

The marathon was entirely on trails. It was supposed to be 26.2 miles but some of the course was not marked well and most of the runners did more than 29 miles. The entire course was on trails or forest roads.