News from Jules | 06.03.2023 | DRT or Bust: Part 1

We don’t have to know the way.

As of Thursday, May 9, I had only walked one mile on uneven, unpaved ground. But, that brief walk on the Canal Trail in Bend, Ore., as well as my ease with a Healing Flow yoga class the week before, had me itching to try an actual hike.

I wanted to pace myself, so two miles seemed like a realistic distance for my first hike post-ski accident. I don’t know many trails around Bend yet, but I remembered doing what I considered a “mini-hike” with friends and their five-year-old kids around Memorial Day weekend last year. Indeed, just 1.7 miles to Benham Falls on AllTrails. Perfect!

As I swiped around on the AllTrails map, I noticed an intriguing dotted line extending in both directions beyond the highlighted hiking route. So I zoomed in and scrolled along as the dotted line followed the curves of a river, hence its name: Deschutes River Trail. The continuous dotted line snaked its way starting from the northern edge of Sunriver—technically a resort community but with the 1,400-person population of a small town—and downstream for some 40 miles through Bend up to Tumalo State Park.

I had a flashback to that summer years ago when one of my best friends was training for a one-day, 30-mile trail run on the Wildwood Trail, a notoriously difficult route through the 5,000-acre Forest Park in Portland. Each week she picked a starting point and our Running Club ran a section of the trail together to help her train.

I also remembered how last summer’s Big Butte Challenge hiking eight buttes and visiting eight breweries became a great way to explore Central Oregon.

Hmmmmm.

Like a drop of rain in the river, an idea was swept up into the current. Beyond a few minutes of exploring, I hadn’t done any actual research or planning, but somewhere in my subconscious, I already knew: Challenge accepted.

As I packed up and set out that Thursday afternoon, everything felt familiar, but a little rusty. I hadn’t really hiked in six months, except for a couple of hikes at Smith Rocks State Park near Bend in December and a quick jaunt up Neahkanie Mountain on the Oregon Coast in February.

But, just like relearning how to walk, returning to the yoga mat, and riding my bike again, it all came back quickly and naturally—especially my love of exploring and discovering beautiful places in nature.

The former logging road approach to the falls was just as I remembered it: Flat and wide in the shade of tall Ponderosa pines and easy to navigate for families riding along on bikes together, teens in flip-flops, and older couples hiking just slightly slower than me.

I heard the rush of the current speeding up before I saw the first swirl of eddies. It was the same small rapids I saw last year when we turned around. Like deja vu, I recalled thinking the same thought again: So, this is what everybody raves about? This time I kept going and followed the trail as it became rocky, narrow, and veered to the right. That’s when Benham Falls came into view through a break in the trees.

My eyes widened as I stared at the massive tons of water suddenly flowing beneath me through a deep rocky canyon in what looked like Class IV rapids, including powerful and irregular waves and dangerous rocks. My awe urged me to get closer so I hiked all the way down to the riverbed, then scrambled up the rocks and tree roots around the bend, until I was almost in the spray zone.

I noticed my curiosity was getting ahead of my still-recovering right leg in my ankle brace, so I decided to call it for the day and head back to the trailhead.

The following week I was still thinking about that dotted line.

I was hesitant to take on another project. I knew myself. Once I committed to an idea, I saw it through to completion through hell or high water. DRT or bust.

I already had several other ideas for projects this summer, for instance purging everything from my storage unit, and other goals like meditating every day, and other longstanding commitments like writing on Substack.

But, what if it was easy?

What if I didn’t plan it, but just did it? I wondered.

The lyrics to a song by Lyndsey Scott I learned earlier this year chanted quietly in my ears.

“You don’t have to know the way. The Way knows the way. You don’t have to plan the way. Trust the way, feel your way. The Way knows. The Way knows, the Way knows the way.”

One afternoon the following week, I met up with a friend from my Mt. Bachelor cleaning team last winter before he spent the summer vanlifing in Idaho. We set off from the discrete trailhead at the north edge of Sunriver and barely saw any other humans or dogs on the trail. It took a mile or so through the woods before we turned right to follow the river downstream.

There were long moments when we both drifted from the trail toward the lava rock cliffs overlooking the dark, slow-moving water and our conversation hung in the air. Even his dog stopped and sat with ears perked as the birds chirped and swooped through the dusk sky.

We turned around after tagging the Benham Falls trail sign. None too soon, as with every mile farther, my leg ached more and we started smelling the mist of the approaching rainstorm forecasted for later that evening. The signs at both ends of this section of the Deschutes River Trail said 1.9 miles each way—double what I’d hiked last time but still seemed doable.

By the time we returned to the car, my iPhone app said we’d hiked 5.5 miles in three hours, in addition to the two miles I walked at work earlier that day, so a 7.5-mile day total. A lot longer than expected. Pretty much everything from my right hip to my right foot hurt. And I was hooked.

After I returned home that night, I stayed up late looking up as many legs of the Deschutes River Trail as I could find and made a list on AllTrails. This gave me a general sense of the overall route, but not the exact mileage, trailhead parking spots, or terrain. Of course, I could get nerdier with Satellite view in Google Maps and/or Green Trails topographic maps, but true to my whimsy way of wandering, I liked the idea of feeling it out as I went.

I sensed this was a beautiful way to learn the river and get to know the land, spend quality time with new friends, plus strengthen my weakened right leg this summer.

I don’t know how long it will take, when I’ll go or who will join me.

I don’t need to.

“People are water, let' em be,” sings Aisha Badru. “Let it breathe, let it lead.”

See photos from the Deschutes River Trail on Instagram.

Last Friday, a friend from REI—who’s also a new neighbor living just three blocks from the duplex—and I set out from Dillon Falls, the next downstream landmark, or one might even say rivermark, and hiked from the other direction to Benham Falls. This time it was early morning and the stellar jays were just waking up to shake out their tail feathers in the bright blue sky.

What started as a narrow, sleepy waterway with a lone fisherman sitting by the boat launch swerved into marshland then thick forest before the current started to swirl and rush over rapids as the opposing shoreline switched from pine trees to miles of black lava rock in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument as we approached the underside of Benham Falls.

Over the miles, we oohed and ahhed at the scenery that changed as frequently as our topics of conversation. We are both still new to the area, new to our jobs, making new friends, and figuring out a new rhythm. We didn’t have any big plans yet, but a lot of ideas. What would this summer be like?

Who knew? we concurred. We don’t have to know the way.

Heck, it isn’t even summer yet. There are still three more weeks of spring left for wildflowers to bloom, unpredictable weather to pass through, and new possibilities to pop up. Just like the riverscape, so much could change so fast.

Like my leg’s recovery. I’m nowhere near summiting mountains yet like I was this time last year, but I am making great progress. This time we hiked seven miles in one day—plus I walked another three miles at work afterward, so a 10-mile day total—and my leg felt okay.

Back at the car, we realized we had forgotten to visit Dillons Falls at the beginning of the hike. Since that was my next starting point on the DRT, I could’ve just seen it next time but we decided to check it out anyhow. And it was so worth it.

This was not a place you visited once. This was a sacred place.

Perched below the main falls, we sat in silence and watched the water rush through the canyon it carved and over the boulders, it shaped through the millennia. All day and all night, flowing constantly, but differently relative to the ever-changing wind, air temperature, river bed, and more. We might as well have been Northern River Otters basking in the sun with the cool spray of the water beaded on our furry arms.

Now, this is why I live here, my friend said.

I nodded—in agreement and excitement to see what’s next on the river.

May you trust the way this week.

Love,

Jules