Central Oregon wilderness adventures: Old trash dumps in the Badlands near Bend

The Badlands are one of my favorite places. But the ancient trash dumps always irritate me, so I haul out a sack of junk every time I hike there. Here is one dumpsite I ve been working on. It is located near the Larry Chitwood trailhead. The Oregon Badlands Wilderness is located about 16 miles east of Bend, Oregon, along State Highway 20. From the BLM website: The Oregon Badlands Wilderness holds a number of remarkable and exciting landforms and geologic features. Most of the wilderness includes the rugged Badlands volcano, which has features of inflated lava. Windblown volcanic ash and eroded lava make up the sandy, light-colored soil that covers the low and flat places in these fields of lava. Dry River, active during each of several ice ages, marks the southeast boundary between two volcanic areas -- Badlands volcano and the Horse Ridge volcanoes. Earth movements along the Brothers Fault Zone have faulted and sliced up the old Horse Ridge volcanoes, but not Badlands volcano. The Badlands formed in an unusual way. The flow that supplied lava to the Badlands apparently developed a hole in the roof of its main lava tube. This hole became the source of lava that built a shield volcano that we call the Badlands (technically, a rootless shield volcano). An irregularly-shaped pit crater at the top of the shield marks the site where lava flowed in all directions to create the Badlands. It is located about 1500 feet northeast of milepost 15 on Highway 20. Highway 20 traverses the shield along a straight, five-mile stretch between the intersections with an old section of Highway 20 (between mileposts 12.6 and 17.5). Soils in the Badlands were largely formed from ash associated with Mt. Mazama, now known as Crater Lake. A variety of wildlife species inhabit the area including yellow-bellied marmots, bobcat, mule deer, elk, and antelope. The southern portion of the Oregon Badlands Wilderness includes crucial winter range for mule deer. Avian species include prairie falcons and golden eagles.