Bend Bulletin - A Tale of Two Rivers

By Fiona Noonan for The Bulletin

The Deschutes River Trail — a true Bend classic — traverses nearly 20 miles through pine forests, lava flows, rapids and the Bend’s riverfront neighborhoods. Segments of this trail make perfect after-work excursions for locals, or accessible entry points for visitors to experience the river’s beauty.

One of my favorite stretches is from First Street Rapids to the Archie Briggs Canyon Natural Area, which offers rewarding views of Riley Ranch below and the Central Cascades on the horizon.

This segment is both an excellent in-town adventure and also a way to better understand how humans have altered the flow and function of the Deschutes River over the past 150 or so years.

To run from First Street Rapids to Sawyer Park on the Deschutes River Trail is to witness two rivers. In that short 1.5 miles, sporty whitewater gives way to placid flat before, suddenly, the river becomes altogether different.

It’s like a disappearing act: One moment, as you ascend the punchiest hill of the stretch toward Mt. Washington Drive, the river is full and powerful, hemmed in by the trail on one side and Division Street on the other. The next moment, after descending between the greens of River’s Edge Golf Course, you reach the grassy side of Sawyer Park on river left, and the short detour to the Sawyer Park footbridge offers a glimpse of a strikingly diminished waterway. Rocks and riffles that would have historically been concealed are instead exposed during irrigation season, making, at the Sawyer Park footbridge, one of Oregon’s largest rivers look more like a minor stream.

Neatly hidden from view just upstream, the culprit of this diminishment — the North Canal Dam — whisks water away to far-flung reaches of the Deschutes Basin, leaving Sawyer Park with a river that feels worlds away from its upstream counterpart at First Street Rapids. In the summer, flows drop dramatically from a peak nearing 1,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) upstream of Bend, down to just 60-130 cfs as the river passes through the north end of town. When irrigation season ends in the fall, the Deschutes transforms again as it ramps back up to 550 cfs downstream of town.

What feels like an instantaneous change in the river is the result of multiple irrigation districts’ canals pulling water out of the Deschutes at the North Canal Dam to deliver to farms and other water rights holders.

Once you reach Sawyer Park, most of the Deschutes’ water has physically been taken from the river. In fact, so much water has been diverted that by the time you’re running along what Bend Parks & Recreation District calls the Awbrey Reach, you’re not just running alongside the river, you’re actually running on top of the river, too. This segment of the trail is where, in the early 2000s, Tumalo Irrigation District piped its Bend Feed Canal, forming the wide-open Deschutes River Trail we know and love today.

Continuing on, you cross Archie Briggs Road, run through the lower neighborhoods of Awbrey Butte, and eventually end up high above the river, overlooking a canyon carved over millennia by the Deschutes’ once-robust natural flows. As you approach the Archie Briggs Canyon Trail intersection, the trail offers sweeping views of Riley Ranch, Black Butte, Mount Jefferson, and the rambling river coursing around rocks far below.

Here, you can appreciate much of what makes Central Oregon such a beautiful place to live — including the water in the Deschutes Basin that is the lifeblood of our region. It’s a stunning scene, and a powerful contrast to the riverscape near First Street Rapids. Perhaps, too, you can take a moment to imagine a different run, where the contrast isn’t quite so stark. A run where the canyon below the trail holds more than a trickle, fish have ample cool, clean water to thrive, and productive farmers still receive reliable water.

Then, turn around and run the 3 or so miles back to First Street Rapids, to see it all again in reverse.

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