Cascade Lakes

We moved up to a sno park located about 15 miles west of Bend. The sno parks are used primarily in the winter for snow mobiles, cross-country skiing, sledding, and even dog sledding. But in the summer, RVs are welcome to stay. Wanoga sno park is conveniently located along the Cascade Lakes National Scenic Byway at a cool 5500 feet. The obvious activity from here is to tour the lakes along the scenic byway. So yesterday Ron and I made the trip.

Our first stop was Sparks Lake. This lake was the favorite of Ray Atkeson, Oregon's photographer laureate, and a short trail leads to some amazing views. That's South Sister in the background.


There go some of our WIN friends kayaking the lake with Broken Top peeking over the trees.


Although Sparks is the most picturesque of the lakes, we found something interesting at each one. At Elk Lake we found this little 'Tom Sawyer' poling his homemade raft. Of course his girlfriend 'Becky' was riding along.


We watched a flock of Mergansers swimming and diving on Lava Lake.


And at Little Lava Lake, we spotted this tiny duck with her precious brood.

We also had a great lunch at the restaurant at Cultus Lake while we watched the kids, young and old, playing in the lake. It was another gorgeous day.