Oct 19, 2008 - Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway

The lady at the quilt store in LaPine suggested we take the Cascade Lake Byway because it was so beautiful and it had several lakes. We drove west on a little road 2 miles north of LaPine and then North on the Highway 46 that goes through the community of Elk Lake. We continued on this road as it loops back heading east and drops into Bend. For so much of the drive all we saw was pine trees skirting the road on both sides. We could have seen this on our Utah mountains. I think the lakes must be off side roads. We did drive down one side road to Hosmer Lake.(1st pic) Took several pictures that show Mt. Bachelor in the background. Hosmer Lake is a fly fishing only lake that has trout and fresh water salmon.

We did see one lake from the main road: Devils Lake. (2nd pic) It was beautiful and very unusual. It's hard to see this in the pictures, but the the emerald green water is so clear and shallow that you can see the bottom. They say that boats on the lake look like they are floating in mid-air. We didn't see any boats, unfortunately.
Across the road from the lake was this cliff that hinted of all the volcanic activity that occurred all over this area thousands of years ago.

On this final leg into Bend we could see many mountains of the Cascade Range: Bachelor Mt, the 3 Sister mountains, Washington, Jefferson and Broken Top.

This little map shows our route from LaPine to Bend. Clicking on the map will enlarge it.