Benham Falls
It rained overnight--hard. It was like marbles dropping on the roof of the motorhome from 500' feet up. The rain stopped, and it started clearing by mid-morning. We started seeing some gaps in the clouds and a few areas of blue sky. As we drove south toward Bend, the clouds increased, and it didn't look promising for photography. Plan B was lunch at Baldy's Barbecue. We accidentally found Baldy's after shopping at Costco on our first trip to Bend, and now we wouldn't visit Bend without at least one stop. Baldy's was crowded, but a nice couple told the bartender/host that we could share their table with them. The man was the retired head of the Geologic Survey in Alaska. We enjoyed our brisket sandwiches as the couple shared stories of their life in Alaska. Ironically, the husband told us how unusual it was to have all the clouds and rain in Bend. That didn't make us feel better, and it was an omen for the rest of the trip.
The weather didn't look very promising, but we took a chance and drove to Benham Falls in the late afternoon. This area is usually gorgeous and green, but with the overcast skies, it was drab and lifeless.
It was only a 1-mile hike along the gorgeous Deschutes River from the parking area to the waterfall (it's actually only a cascade) . There were several groups of bikers on the trail and a few other walkers, like ourselves. The weather continued to look threatening, but we made it to my favorite viewpoint above the cascades without getting wet. After shooting the river careening off the walls of the narrowing canyon, we walked up the hill to the overlook above the cascades. Several groups joined us at the overlook while we photographed, but the final family had an unusual surprise. A little boy found $60 lying on the ground by the side of the overlook wall. It must have been dropped while we were at the overlook, because it was near where I had my pack. We assured the family the cash wasn't ours and suggested the little boy buy ice cream for his family.
Our pleasant surprise was a great blue heron fishing along the side of the river. The water was so fast and turbulent, we didn't see him even attempt to catch any fish. He seemed to be satisfied with hanging out and watching the river flow by.
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| Great Blue Heron in the river | Close-up of Great Blue Heron |
Our next surprise wasn't as positive. It began to rain lightly. And then it turned to hail. The good news was that the hail was only about a 1/4" in diameter, and it didn't get our gear wet like the rain did. The hail only lasted about 10 minutes, and the rain didn't return.
The trail was level all the way back to the parking lot as it followed the Deschutes River upstream. As we began putting our gear away, it started to rain again. Five minutes after we hit the main highway back toward camp, it started pouring! Even at their highest speed, the wipers barely handled all the rain. As we neared our campground, the rain stopped and the clouds left a gap above the horizon for the sun to shine through. For the rest of the evening, we watched a gorgeous sunset that went from bright sunlight to gold to brilliant red. Unfortunately, we couldn't think of a place to shoot the sunset from anywhere near us. We settled for watching it from the motorhome windows.
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