Bend, Oregon has Finally Lost its Mountain Town Charm

Tonight, I feel like a billionaire. Or, I guess, what I would do with a Billion dollars since I don’t have any aspirations to go to Mars. In this modern day, there doesn’t seem like any other realistic explanation to explain the feeling of freedom when camping on our public lands in the West. Tonight, we’ve parked our van in the exact same spot as the past few years in the Deschutes National Forest, just 10 minutes outside of Bend, Oregon. And just like the previous years, I sit here, staring off in to the distance, through the ponderosa pine forest, spaced out just far enough to be able to see the last light on the horizon this evening. Our closest neighbor is a hundred yards away, and the next one beyond that, well, far enough that I can’t see them. So I say, tonight, we camp along side a mountain bike trail, within a beautiful, healthy forest, 10 minutes from our favorite town to visit, and have dozens of acres all to ourselves, for low-low price of $0.00/night. But that feeling did not last very long, and sadly might be one of the last times we visit Bend, Oregon.

Every year I write about our trip to, or through, Bend. Coming here every year since 2020, with the exception of last year’s hiatus in 2025, this will be our 6th visit to this weird, little, off-mountain town. Missing a year has put a few things into perspective that we took for granted, or maybe even held rose-colored glasses to in the past. In 2020, during Covid, this small city was a relatively undiscovered part of the West. Tons of breweries, transplants in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, great XC Mountain Biking trails, a ski resort 30 minutes away, and a river that flows right through town. This place had it all, and honestly, was shockingly cheap compared to Park City, UT at the time. Well, with 6 years of growth since then, this town has changed. Some for the better, I imagine, but a lot of that good character has since been lost. 

Our first weekend here on the trip was met with less-than-stellar weather for the first week of Summer. Cold, rainy, in the 50s. But even then, it’s summer, we expected more people to be out and about like every other year. Instead, the river was empty of all paddlers and tubers, the breweries were nearly empty, and we found a campsite with near, perfect ease on a Saturday afternoon. “Strange” I thought to myself. This started to have us question the things we normally would just ignore. For example, back in the early 2020s, the crowds would show up in town with similar mountain town attire, covered in the dirt from the local trails, with conversations of adventures and experiences had earlier in the day. It was a place that had an amazing vibe everywhere you went, similar to when you are on vacation where everyone comes to visit to be outside, active, and for the experiences that they can’t wait to share with you at the bar or coffee shop. Now, it’s quieter. And from the people we met and chatted with, or overheard conversations of, it seems like the crowd is now, that of the Portland transplant, escaping the big City.

My buddy once told me that every town, big and small, complain about the people moving into it. I guess that isn’t just limited to towns. But he joked about how all the city-folk from Boston would move up to his rural mountain town in Maine and make things worse. As a transplant myself, I totally get that, but also tend to challenge it a bit. I took the perspective of moving to a mountain town as my dream goal, and to meld into the local scene to become a part of what makes mountain towns so special. What I did not do, was move to a mountain town, and complain about how active people are, and how they should have more chain restaurants and shopping malls. I had that where I was from, and I moved away. Why would I want to bring that with me and destroy the reason why I moved to a place? Well, that is a much more nuanced discussion, that I am not willing to dive down. But long story short, it is very apparent that Bend has a homeless problem, open-air hard drug issues, and a dwindling population of people who give two-shits about living within 1 mile of a trailhead. And that sucks. 

To pile onto the “Bend has changed…” train, for the first time in my life, someone stole something from us when we were away from our campsite. We headed into town to go to the river after work, only to find someone had stolen our Kelty Loveseat camp chair that we sit on with our dog. They left our table and single (older) chair, but took the nice double seat. Ever since I started camping outside, a relatively short 12 years ago, it was normal to leave behind a tent, camp table, and chairs while you went off to be outside. Whether you’re gone for 5 minutes or 12 hours, there is absolutely an unspoken rule not to touch someone else’s camp. Sure, we did have someone steal our campsite in the Tetons before and were sitting in our chair while they ate dinner at our table. But at least we’ve always come back to all our belongings. It’s sort of like the ridiculous notion that it’s socially acceptable to leave your super expensive skis out on a rack with hundreds of other skis and with 100% confidence, know they won’t be stolen while you’re in the lodge having hot coco. But that’s just the way it is, and always has been. Which means, shitty people drive back through the Deschutes National Forest, searching for vacant campsites, to steal peoples gear. 

I’m not going to pretend that the camp chair is going to bankrupt me, but this signals a change that I don’t know if I’m willing to test again. Courtney and I both are in agreement that Bend, in the way we’ve done it for 6 years, simply isn’t worth coming back to again. And that realization sucks.

On the brighter side of things, we spent the weekend at the end of the trip moving on to something that hasn’t changed, Mount Bachelor.   Saturday morning, we hiked up the Fly Creek trail to the junction at the Summit Crossover trail, before heading up the final push on Summit East trail. The hike started in the tall redwoods and ponderosa pines, with moss growing in the shade. As we climbed up, above the tree line, we crossed over to the volcanic rocks that covered the cone of the dormant volcano. The trail got steeper and steeper, crossing over the patches snow left over from winter, which Gregor loved to play in and eat. Though we were unlucky with our camp chair, we made up for 10-fold with great air quality the entire week. The wet June had led to a delayed wildfire season, and we had a clear view to the horizon to the East, and all the other peaks of the 3 sisters to the North. And the panoramic view from the summit was worth the hike up to 9,065ft before heading back down for some delicious beer in town. 

With the weekend weather warmed up to nearly Summer temperatures, so many more people were out and about in town and especially on the river to celebrate the 4th of July. Though we were disappointed earlier in the trip, everyone was in high spirits celebrating Team USA’s run in the FIFA World Cup and of course America’s birthday. On the morning of the 4th, Bend celebrates the longest running dog parade in the country, and boy did it live up to the hype. Main street was shut down in town and lined with families there to just celebrate our faithful, 4-legged companions of all sizes. Some dressed up in costumes while others seem to just stumble upon the parade on their morning walk. Either way the dogs loved the celebration and we did too! One family was even shooting USA branded t-shirts from a t-shirt cannon out to people floating on the river. With our SUP in tow, the 3 of us paddled down the river and wandered our way back bouncing from one brewery to the next. Fortunately, most of the breweries are still in business and of course they are still pumping out delicious beer. 

Does Bend still have an amazing river through town, great local brewery scene, incredible gravel & XC trail system, and of course a short drive up to Mount Bachelor and the Cascade Lakes. But in the past 6 years, there has been nearly no new trails added to their trail system. Some of the fringe breweries have closed their doors. Some of the in-town bike shops have also closed. Sadly, as the town has grown 10x since 2020, I think Bend has finally lost the charm and character that it once had. The last real mountain town that Oregon had.