Trip Report: |
The trailhead was easy to find, after enjoying tremendous views of
six snowpeaks from US-20 from Bend. We couldn't help but stop and
gaze at the incredible scenery on this bright and sunny late April
Saturday. The trail starts with a slightly declining
doubletrack, still soft from the previous week's snow, passing
through the open pine forests the area is so known for.
The trail continues this way for a couple of
miles before switching to a fun singletrack for the remainder of the
outbound portion of the ride. A great feature of this trail is
that there are no long climbs, no steep drops, just zippy ups and
downs. Not quite as zippy as Phil's Trail, but fun and fairly
flat.
The trail starts a gradual incline that it keeps
fairly constant for at least a couple of miles, with some nice drops
in between, before crossing a couple of wooden bridges over a couple
of small creeks, then passing over a paved road. At this road,
the trail continues straight, but we decided to take a left and go
down to see the new Suttle Lake Lodge. In a word - wow.
The lodge is magnificently handcrafted by a local Sisters artist -
the woodworking alone is worth a visit. There is a lakeshore
restaurant as well as a nice deli where we stopped for lunch -
beautiful place, can't wait to stay there.
Suttle Lake was dotted with whitecaps as the wind
had really picked up, but the skies were blue and so was the lake
waters. Simply beautiful. We headed down the Suttle Lake
trail which goes 3.4 miles around the lake and were met almost
immediately with felled trees. We had to portage over a dozen
trees, but eventually they ended and we zipped along the fun
singletrack trail with neverending scenic views of the lake to our
left.
Along the way we passed lots of campers and
campsites, some boat launches, and several lovely natural
ampitheaters built into the hillsides. When the trail ended,
and merged back into the Suttle Tie Trail, we crossed back over a
paved road, then almost immediately were met with snow. Just a
few patches we had to carry past, then back to nice open singletrack
with only a few fallen trees to worry about along the way. The
singletrack portion of the 5-mile return leg is largely downhill, so
that was a lot of fun, but the sandy doubletrack is mostly uphill,
so by the end of the trail our legs were pretty well burned out.
We really enjoyed this trail - it was fast, fun,
and easy, but still offered enough obstacles to keep it interesting
as it twisted in and out of trees. We also enjoyed that the
trail was well marked and easy to follow - not something we've had a
lot of success at in the past. We look forward to staying at
Suttle Lake Lodge sometime soon and doing the trail again at that
time.
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